The Environmental Justice Committee has joined Earth Justice in filing a friend of the court brief

 The brief supports the municipalities who are challenging the Constitutionality of Act 13, an act that would take away the rights of communities to plan for the future of their communities.

The Environmental Justice Committee is one of four Committees generated by the  Thomas Merton Center, a Peace and Social Justice Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since 1972.

We believe that:
The larger Earth Community is a primary obligation of each nation
Communities have the ability to preserve clean air, clean water, and clean soil - biologically sustainable systems.

Biological sustainable systems require both a cognitive and spiritual shift in perceptions if we are to move from an Industrial Economy to an abundant Global Commons.

The Environmental Justice Committee of the Thomas Merton Center affirms that:
    •    Earth is the common home of every being that has emerged from her and depends upon her for sustenance and a place of habitation;

    •    The dominant economic model which has held sway upon the Earth for the past five hundred years is environmentally unsustainable. Our finite planet is not capable of absorbing an infinite amount of poison and pollution to produce unlimited “energy” and this highly industrial quest for yet another finite fossil fuel will accelerate the rate of poisoning of our environment.

    •    We find the destruction of human cultures and biological communities shocking including legislation that presumes to take away both our local autonomy and our right to clean air, clean water, and natural living ecosystems. We believe that every community must have the right to speak for the well being of Earth as the most vital member of the community, our source of life.