Korean Catholics and the Environment

Everybody is talking about ecology these days and we as Maryknollers also have that as one of our concerns. What is involved and how we should go about it is not always easy to decide.

Our bishop. who is chairman of the Committee for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, in his recent message on World Environment Day : said that to have the government propose the “Green New Deal” and “the 4 river project” and to destroy our ecological system is a serious contradiction. To work to improve the financial situation of the country at the expense of the environment is meaningless.

The bishop feels as many others do that the “4 river project” is another way of trying to get the canal project from Seoul to Busan reinstated with a different name without the lock gates. This plan for the canal was shelved because of citizen opposition. It was to be waterway from Seoul to Busan. “We will resist the government’s actions to disguise the canal plan in the name of improving water quality“ is the cry of the opposition.

The government’s proposal sounds great: enough water supply, flood control, water quality improvement and ecosystem recovery, the creation of areas for cultural and leisure activities, regional development centering around rivers.

The problem with many of these great ideas is the price that has to be paid is not part of the reflection. The concern is with the economy and what it will do for the country.

The Korea Times reports that in December 2007, researchers claim they found the first bed bug sighted in Korea in 20 years. And they say it must have come from America, perhaps with a recent transplant from New Jersey.

This was sent to me by a Maryknoller . It was taken from a University of Mass. Amherst, Magazine.

Bed Bugs Are Back

Bed bugs, once nearly eradicated in the built envioronment, have made a big comeback,
especially in urban centers such as New York City. In the first study to explain the failure to control certain bed bug populations, John Clark, veterinary and animal sciences, with colleagues at Korea's Seoul National University, shows that some of these nocturnal blood suckers have developed resistance to pyrethroid insecticides, in particular deltamethrin, that attack their nervous systems. As these pests have evolved to outsmart the latest generation of chemicals used to control them since DDT was banned, the reserachers summarize that diagnostic tools to detect the relevant mutation in bed bug poplulations remain "urgently needed for effective control and resistance management."