UP students and Catholic parishioners work to restore a watershed in Southwest Portland.
Sentinel photo by Ed Langlois

“Look at that, there’s a theologian with his hands full of English ivy. Theologians didn’t always look like that.”

Steve Kolmes, an environmental biologist at the University of Portland, is gratified to see his theological colleague, Russ Butkus, yanking the invasive species off a slope in Southwest Portland.

The two professors and 100 other volunteers from the university and local Catholic parishes restored a hill above Trillium Creek last month. They planted native shade trees and shrubs, also removing botanical marauders like ivy that make life hard for the arbors.

Though it sounds like yard work, it was actually a response to the divine call to stewardship of creation.

The new trees not only use up carbon dioxide, but will keep the piece of watershed cooler. That will have an effect on temperatures downstream. When added up, projects like that could help mitigate climate change.

“Doing things that matter on a local level make a huge contribution on the bigger issue,” says Joanna Spoth, a UP environmental science major who has just planted a shrub.

Using email, Spoth took a lead in rallying students to spend a Saturday morning working in the woods instead of sleeping in. A Catholic, she sees a link between church social teaching and reversing the planet’s climate demise. She hopes to work in the new green economy that may have Portland at its epicenter.

“I’ve learned that working for the common good is the same as working for the environment,” Spoth says.

The work day was part of a program created by the Archdiocese of Portland, the university and SOLV, an Oregon group that harnesses volunteer power to tend to the environment. The model may spread to other parishes.

The Ecology Club at the University of Portland has about 20 members, but a much larger satellite of students take part in some activities. In addition to pitching in on watershed restoration, the club has advocated for conservation policy before state and local government.

Not only undergraduates are demanding coursework in environmental sustainability. Even business students are clamoring for it.

“There are tipping points in the world,” says Kolmes.

Sarah Ziaja is part of the movement. The senior engineering major has focused on environmental work. On an Air Force ROTC scholarship, Ziaja hopes in the future to design sustainable projects that can “cohabit with the environment.”

“We need to step up our generation because it’s our future,” says Jessica Dahmen, a senior psychological sociology major.

Kolmes and Butkus have traveled to the Vatican to promote climate change as an urgent matter to be addressed by Catholic social teaching. They stand impressed at statements now coming from Pope Benedict.

“Today, we all see that man can destroy the foundations of his existence, his earth, hence, that we can no longer simply do what we like or what seems useful and promising at the time with this earth of ours, with the reality entrusted to us,” the pope told a group of Italian priests last summer. “On the contrary, we must respect the inner laws of creation, of this earth, we must learn these laws and obey these laws if we wish to survive. Consequently, this obedience to the voice of the earth, of being, is more important for our future happiness than the voices of the moment, the desires of the moment. In short, this is a first criterion to learn: that being itself, our earth, speaks to us and we must listen if we want to survive and to decipher this message of the earth. And if we must be obedient to the voice of the earth, this is even truer for the voice of human life. Not only must we care for the earth, we must respect the other, others: both the other as an individual person, as my neighbour, and others as communities who live in the world and have to live together.”

There are murmurs that the pope will make a strong statement on the environment when he speaks at the United Nations in April.

The Vatican building in which the professors spoke in 2005 is now slated to have solar panels installed. By virtue of work with a Hungarian forest, the Vatican has become the world’s first carbon neutral state.

At a pre-work session held at St. Pius X Parish, Kolmes explained to parishioners that over the years the Willamette River has changed in a way that contributes to warming.

In the 1850s, the river was a braid of winding tributaries with lushly shaded banks. But settlement led to logging on the riverside, the building of dams and the clearing of channels. Over the years, snags that slowed the flow and provided shelter and shade for fish have been pulled out for navigation.

It all adds up to a faster-flowing, warmer river. That warms up the Columbia, which in turn flows into the Pacific and the climate gets affected. Along the way, the altered river is a corrupted habitat for species like salmon.

Even in just a few years of testing river temperatures and chemical content, Kolmes has recorded continuing degradation in river conditions. Dropping fish runs over the decades are an indication that the entire watershed is suffering.

One way to help is to revive riparian areas, restoring shade on the river and its tributaries. That’s what happened on the hillside near Trillium Creek.

Butkus says mitigation aims not only to preserve a species, but an entire system.

That notion was central when the Catholic bishops of the Pacific Northwest issued a groundbreaking pastoral letter in 2001, calling for stewardship of the Columbia River watershed.

“People throughout the Columbia Watershed seek good jobs, vibrant communities, a fair share of the earth’s goods, and clean air, land and water,” says the pastoral, written with the help of Kolmes, Butkus and dozens of other experts. “When they view the watershed with eyes of faith, they recognize their responsibility to God to promote and protect these goods.”