That phrase, “tender mercies”, came to mind a couple of months ago, as I was looking at a blog entry written by a couple of Friends in Michigan.

…It came to my mind a second time a week or so later, when one Friend raised the issue of nuclear power right here on this site, and another Friend responded by defending nuclear as an answer to global warming.

The phrase was one of John Woolman’s favorites….

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Yesterday, Friend Angela Manno of New York Yearly Meeting (FGC / FUM), contributed a posting to the “earthwitness matters” discussion page here on this site, condemning nuclear energy as an “abomination” and citing her reasons for doing so.

This was an important posting, I believe — particularly because it comes at a time when the winds in Quaker circles seem to be blowing in an opposite direction.

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The itch to have ways of foretelling the winter is an awfully widespread itch.

Go up to the Yukon and the Indians will tell you how they tell how severe the winter will be by the shape of the tracks the snowshoe hares leave in the ground. Go to Tennessee, and the mountain folk will tell you how they predict the severity of the cold by the markings on the fur of the woolly bear caterpillar. In the Northeast there are those who check to see how bushy the squirrels’ tails are, and those who look to see how high the wasps are building their nests.

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In case you haven’t already noticed, here’s a little landmark in the unfolding drama of greenhouse warming.

Lohachara, an island in the Sundarban island chain, located in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers — an island where 10,000 people once lived — has sunk completely beneath the rising Indian Ocean.

The island’s final disappearance was noted two months ago by researchers at Jadavpur University. The researchers attributed the disappearance to a rising sea level, mostly caused by global warming.

This would make Lohachara the first inhabited island to have disappeared completely for this reason.

But naturally, this news has provoked controversy….

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According to an anonymous official in the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bush regime has caved in under the pressure of a lawsuit from three environmental organizations, and is about to propose that polar bears be listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

A listing of polar bears under the Act — if it indeed happens — will constitute a formal written admission from the Bush regime that global warming is real and is threatening at least one well-known and beloved species.

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