What had originally been scheduled as a fall Diocesan Men’s Hike was transformed, this past month, into a Hurricane Helene Assistance trip. Seventeen men from 11 different churches travelled to the Lutheridge Camp and Conference Center in Arden, NC, to help make it ready for them to reopen.

“We had a group that planned to go hiking,” says Les Sease, Diocesan Coordinator for Men’s Hikes, who organized the trip. “But the trails were closed so we pivoted. I’m so glad we did!”

The men travelled caravan-style on October 10, 2024 with cars, trucks and trailers full of water, gas, food and other supplies.

“While the roads were passable, Lutheridge was a mess,” says Sease. “Piles of debris lined the main road.”

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#SouthCarolina Diocesan Men’s Group Pivots from Hiking to Relief Assistance https://t.co/YMfbQvLwFK '“It felt great to help Lutheridge out,” says [Les] Sease. “Our upcoming Men’s Conference, which will be held in February, will be there. This was a way for us to help them reopen… pic.twitter.com/3B0sK6BGEg

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 8, 2024

Hurricane Helene Relief Efforts Need Your Support
 

The Diocese continues to mobilize, providing relief to those affected by Hurricane Helene. We are working closely with ARDF to coordinate efforts. Are you willing to donate supplies or funds or volunteer in relief efforts?

Fill out the form on our website.

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The Latest Edition of the #Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina Enewsletter https://t.co/N7YwW0YFAb #parishministry #religion #faith pic.twitter.com/zAvfRfVnXM

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 22, 2024

TV presenter and conservationist Chris Packham has led calls to the Church of England to commit to re-wilding 30 per cent of its land. 

The call is backed by high profile figures including former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, former cabinet minister Michael Gove, and actor and broadcaster Stephen Fry, as well as 100,000 members of the public. 

The campaign, by the Wild Card group, was launched on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where Packham unravelled the ’95 Wild Theses’ – a spin on Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses that triggered the Protestant Reformation. 

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Chris Packham leads calls to rewild Church of England https://t.co/4f3SxzEfvE

— Sharon K. Gilbert (@sharonkgilbert) October 8, 2024

In 2022, Ian caused about $60 billion of insured losses. Milton may result in $60 billion to $75 billion of damages and losses, with some models showing the total reach as much as $150 billion, Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research, said in an X post.

Cat-bond investors may also take a hit from the inland flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. Moody’s RMS estimates that US private-market insured losses from Helene will be $8 billion to $14 billion.

“Helene was a one-in-a-thousand year rainfall event,” said Jonathan Schneyer, director of catastrophe response at CoreLogic Inc., a catastrophe-modeling firm in Irvine, California. “It shows the power of a hurricane further inland.”

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Catastrophe bond investors made big profits in 2023 and narrowly dodged a payout for Hurricane Beryl. Milton will likely end that streak. The storm “could lead to one of the biggest reinsurance loss events in history” https://t.co/bZyBgbkjTc

— Amanda Kolson Hurley (@amandakhurley) October 9, 2024

Currently, a hurricane disaster that is significantly more challenging than Katrina is being serviced by something like a third of the resources that Louisiana called upon. And yet few people in Washington even think this is a problem. At the same time as Congress has borrowed another 10 or 20 billion dollars to hand over to Ukraine and Israel, presidential candidate Kamala Harris has announced that the victims of Helene will be able to apply for $750 in relief assistance to help them get back on their feet.

As Chernobyl was, Helene is now becoming: a point at which the sheer absurdity and uselessness of the machine becomes too obvious to ignore. Looking at the disaster unfolding in Appalachia, the winners of the Cold War are now starting to ask the same question that eventually brought down the Soviet Union: what the hell is even the point of all of this anymore?

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Very thoughtful essay on the response to Hurricane Helene, likening it to the Soviet response to Chernobyl.

“As Chernobyl was, Helene is now becoming: a point at which the sheer absurdity & uselessness of the machine becomes too obvious to ignore.”https://t.co/y9PzwMpeJ2

— TheBlogMire (@theblogmire) October 8, 2024

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!
All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To You, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all Your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and You give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of You, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens You have made them bright, precious and beautiful.

On his feast day #otd 4 Oct: St Francis of Assisi preaches to the birds, Bodleian Library MS. Auct. D. 3. 2, fol. 122r pic.twitter.com/A44uh8wnyr

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) October 4, 2024

As flooding hammered Appalachia in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, residents became intimately familiar with a new norm in the US’s post-storm script: dams at imminent risk of failing.

Officials last week said multiple dams were on the brink, including Tennessee’s Nolichucky Dam and North Carolina’s Walters and Lake Lure dams. People in nearby communities were ordered to evacuate.

Ultimately, the dams held. But the close calls highlighted the stress on the nation’s dams, many of which are more than half a century old and none of which were designed for the higher levels of precipitation brought on by climate change.

Read it all.

American Dams Weren’t Built for Today’s Climate-Charged Rain and Floods – BNN Bloomberg https://t.co/plyeQFSzZE @americanrivers

— Aric Caplan (@Aric_Advocates) October 2, 2024

The last time they talked, Guadalupe Hernandez said her baby sister, Monica, sent her videos and photos of rising waters surrounding her as she huddled with co-workers on the back of semi truck.

Monica Hernandez, 45, was working at Impact Plastics, near the Nolichucky River, when Hurricane Helene sent a murky rush of floodwater through their small eastern Tennessee town Friday, Guadalupe, 50, said. Hang on, Guadalupe said she reassured Monica, the family was calling 911. Just let them know when she was safe, she told her.

Monica was among five Impact Plastics employees and one contractor reported missing after Helene tore through town.

It was the start of a period of agonizing limbo for Guadalupe and the families of other missing employees, who said they struggled to get information from local officials.

Read it all.

As floods recede after Helene, anguished families wait for answers https://t.co/N4PepkLXFH

— Brady Dennis (@brady_dennis) October 2, 2024

Devastating hundreds of miles from the Florida Gulf Coast to Georgia to the mountains of North Carolina, Hurricane Helene has created a complicated equation for Christian organizations that are on the frontline of disaster response.

“In my more than 20 years of disaster experience, I can’t think of a time when such a large area was at risk,” Jeff Jellets, the disaster coordinator for The Salvation Army’s work in the South, said in a statement.

Samaritan’s Purse chief operating officer Edward Graham told CT that the organization had to call in equipment and volunteers from its Canadian arm for its hurricane response and even had to adjust some of its overseas work. Just for this disaster, Samaritan’s Purse is operating in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Read it all.

Christian relief organizations, partnered with local churches, are working on bringing help to the most difficult-to-reach places in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. @emlybelz reports: https://t.co/mEcdbaJecl

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 30, 2024

D

evastating hundreds of miles from the Florida Gulf Coast to Georgia to the mountains of North Carolina, Hurricane Helene has created a complicated equation for Christian organizations that are on the frontline of disaster response.

“In my more than 20 years of disaster experience, I can’t think of a time when such a large area was at risk,” Jeff Jellets, the disaster coordinator for The Salvation Army’s work in the South, said in a statement.

Samaritan’s Purse chief operating officer Edward Graham told CT that the organization had to call in equipment and volunteers from its Canadian arm for its hurricane response and even had to adjust some of its overseas work. Just for this disaster, Samaritan’s Purse is operating in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Read it all.

Christian relief organizations, partnered with local churches, are working on bringing help to the most difficult-to-reach places in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. @emlybelz reports: https://t.co/mEcdbaJecl

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 30, 2024

More than 1.3 million South Carolina businesses and households were without power at one point during the storm, according to PowerOutage.US. It could take until the middle of next week for power to be fully restored across the state, said officials from Dominion Energy, Duke Energy and Santee Cooper. A final timeline for the work remained unclear, as crews had only just begun to make assessments of damage at noon Sept. 27.

Of those outages, about half were in six Upstate counties, including all 12,000 residents of Fountain Inn.

SC Dominion Energy President Keller Kissam compared the widespread outages to those caused by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. 

“Life is not gonna be back to normal until probably the middle of next week from a power standpoint, just because of the sheer damage that we have,” Kissam said.

Read it all.

At least 13 people have died across South Carolina due to Tropical Storm Helene. Here's what we know about the storm's impact in the state.https://t.co/IvuVWYNF2z

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) September 27, 2024

Nothing like having no electricty to make you appreciate its importance–KSH.

Our coverage of Hurricane Helene is available for free as a public service. Get the latest information about the storm here: https://t.co/ABal4ou7nG pic.twitter.com/KBg1VdVB5b

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) September 27, 2024

Good morning from @summervillesc #SouthCarolina #lowcountrylife #chswx #scwx #dogsmakelifebetter @EdPiotrowski pic.twitter.com/aukUyY3seL

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 16, 2024

In 2018 an international team of scientists — from labs in Houston, Copenhagen, Barcelona and beyond — got their hands on a remarkable biological specimen: a skin sample from a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth that had been recovered from the permafrost in Siberia. They probed the sample with an innovative experimental technique that revealed the three-dimensional architecture of the mammoth’s genome. The resulting paper was published on Thursday in the journal Cell.

Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Canada, was “floored” — the technique had successfully captured the original geometry of long stretches of DNA, a feat never before accomplished with an ancient DNA sample. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” said Dr. Poinar, who reviewed the paper for the journal.

The typical method for extracting ancient DNA from fossils, Dr. Poinar said, is still “kind of cave man.” It produces short fragments of code composed of a four-letter molecular alphabet: A (adenine), G (guanine), C (cytosine), T (thymine). An organism’s full genome resides in cell nuclei, in long, unfragmented DNA strands called chromosomes. And, vitally, the genome is three-dimensional; as it dynamically folds with fractal complexity, its looping points of contact help dictate gene activity.

“To have the actual architectural structure of the genome, which suggests gene expression patterns, that’s a whole other level,” Dr. Poinar said.

Read it all.

My latest for @Nature: On Siberia's frozen tundra some 50,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth met its end. In the animal’s skin, researchers have now discovered chromosomes preserved in their original 3D shape—a feat previously thought impossible https://t.co/zr1mvj10h7

— Giorgia Guglielmi (she/her) (@GiorgiaWithAnI) July 11, 2024

Scientists like [Magdalena] Osburn have shown that, contrary to long-held assumptions, Earth’s interior is not barren. In fact, a majority of the planet’s microbes, perhaps more than 90 percent, may live deep un­derground. These intraterrestrial microbes tend to be quite different from their counterparts on the surface. They are ancient and slow, re­producing infrequently and possibly living for millions of years. They often acquire energy in unusual ways, breathing rock instead of oxy­gen. And they seem capable of weathering geological cataclysms that would annihilate most creatures. Like the many tiny organisms in the ocean and atmosphere, the unique microbes within Earth’s crust do not simply inhabit their surroundings; they transform them. Subsurface microbes carve vast caverns, concentrate minerals and precious metals and regulate the global cycling of carbon and nutrients. Microbes may even have helped construct the continents, literally laying the ground­work for all other terrestrial life.

Like so much about Earth’s earliest history, exactly where and when life first emerged is not definitively known. At some point not long after our planet’s genesis, in some warm, wet pocket with the right chemistry and an adequate flow of free energy — a hot spring, an impact crater, a hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor — bits of Earth rearranged themselves into the first self-replicating entities, which eventually evolved into cells. Evidence from the fossil record and chemical analysis of the oldest rocks ever discovered indicate that microbial life existed at least 3.5 billion years ago and possibly as far back as 4.2 billion years ago.

Among all living creatures, the peculiar microbes that dwell deep within the planet’s crust today may most closely resemble some of the earliest single-celled organisms that ever existed. Collectively, these subsurface microbes make up an estimated 10 to 20 percent of the biomass — that is, all the living matter — on Earth. Yet until the mid-20th century, most scientists did not think subterranean life of any kind was plausible below a few meters.

Read it all.

We know SO little about our earth. Many wonderful quotable passages. An important article.

The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet https://t.co/vh4XXYNIgW

— sammyzorba 📚 (@sammyzorba) June 25, 2024

Parishes and Communities across England can now register for a week-long event in June to celebrate wildlife in churchyards and cemeteries.

From wildflowers to insects, birds and mammals, all creatures great and small have found a haven in the UK’s burial grounds for centuries as the land has been largely undisturbed.

During Love Your Burial Ground Week and Churches Count on Nature (June 8-16) everyone is invited to explore these special places and help survey what they find.

Organised by Caring for God’s Acre and supported by the Church of England, the Church of Wales and A Rocha UK, the week-long initiative comes on the back of the Church of England’s commitment made at the General Synod in February to promote and record the biodiversity in its churchyards.

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Parishes and communities across England and Wales can now register for a week-long event in June to celebrate wildlife in churchyards and cemeteries. We're working with @godsacre and @ChurchinWales to promote #ChurchesCountonNatureWeek: https://t.co/o0j5yqsmGR 📷Adrian Powter pic.twitter.com/tR0mG3jVzt

— Church of England Environment Programme (@CofEEnvironment) May 13, 2024

Opening 14 years to the day since the late Magnum photographer, Peter Marlow photographed it, Peterborough Cathedral, UK, one of the finest Norman cathedrals in Europe, will host the next stage in the ambitious tour of Peter Marlow: The English Cathedral. This free and exceptional photographic exhibition chronicles the naves of all 42 of England’s Anglican cathedrals in natural light with any modern artificial light turned off and is on show from 14 May – 13 June 2024.

Organised by the Peter Marlow Foundation, the charity set up to continue Peter’s legacy, the aim is that this ethereal collection of images will exhibit at each of the 42 cathedrals he visited on his photographic pilgrimage across England. The exhibition at Peterborough Cathedral will be on display in the Presbytery during normal cathedral opening hours. The Cathedral website has details of when the site is closed for services and private events – www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk

Founded as a monastic community in 654 AD, Peterborough Cathedral became one of the most significant medieval abbeys in the country, the burial place of two notable historic queens (Henry VIII’s first wife, Katharine of Aragon, and their daughter Mary, Queen of Scots) and the scene of Civil War upheavals. Its beautiful painted nave ceiling dating from the 13th century, shown clearly in Peter’s photographic portrait of the cathedral, is the largest painted ceiling of its age in Europe. Comprising a series of 57 detailed lozenge shapes, it depicts a range of figures and scenes including saints, kings, bishops or archbishops, representations of the Liberal Arts (music, geometry, logic, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic and astronomy), as well as an intriguing study of a monkey talking to an owl while riding backwards on a goat.

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One for the early birds: the magnificent west front of Peterborough Cathedral pic.twitter.com/uuktNw9yPs

— Andy Marshall 📸 (@fotofacade) June 25, 2022

“The whole world changed colour when I lost Beth,” Mr Palmer says. “People call it devastation: it’s too small a word. I was completely shattered. It was like being smashed to the ground.

“I was a firefighter [at Manchester Airport]. I’d spent years and years dealing with life-and-death situations. I taught trauma to first responders, and was very often on the other end of a defib. But losing my little girl just destroyed me.”

Feeling suicidal himself, he couldn’t talk to his family and couldn’t work, he says. The only thing that got him out of bed in the early days was his dog, Monty, whom he walked in the middle of the night so that he didn’t have to meet people. “I was in an awful place. But little things started happening.”

He felt compelled to write a journal — something that he had never done before — and discovered this to be an outlet for his anger and despair. He asked for help, and found good people in a counsellor, a local suicide-bereavement service, and the airport chaplain, George Lane.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

After his daughter’s death, Mike Palmer became one of ‘3 dads walking’ to raise awareness of young suicide. He talks to Catherine Larnerhttps://t.co/QVcXmHHCMd

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 28, 2024

The 70-year-old added: “With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it.

“But again, it’s the stand-ups that really have the freedom to do it because no one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well.”

Seinfeld has previously said he had been warned not to perform his act at colleges because “they’re so PC”.

Students “just want to use these words – ‘that’s racist, that’s sexist, that’s prejudiced’”, he said, adding: “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Read it all.

He's 100 percent correct. One of the toughest jobs in America these days is comedy because everyone gets offended at a glance, and no one can laugh at themselves. | Jerry Seinfeld blames "extreme left and P.C. crap" for downfall of TV sitcoms https://t.co/TRHB3YYkUn pic.twitter.com/g01Ta6IYAM

— Paul Kelly (@pk500) April 30, 2024

Look through them all.

Easter celebrations around the world – in pictureshttps://t.co/d3XmtwXFhu

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) March 31, 2024

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Good Friday commemorated across the world – in pictures#Religion #Christianity #Catholicism #GoodFriday #AroundTheWorld #InPictures #photography #Photos
https://t.co/CdugfdS4y1

— Richard Norman Poet (@ElmerPalaceSE25) March 29, 2024

Oceans marked 365 straight days of record-breaking global sea surface temperatures this week, fuelling concerns among international scientists that climate change could push marine ecosystems beyond a tipping point.

The consistent climb in temperatures reached a peak on Wednesday when the new all-time high was set for the past 12 months, at 21.2C.

The world’s seas have yet to show any signs of dropping to typical, seasonal temperatures, with daily records consecutively broken since they first went off the charts in mid-March last year, according to data from the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and the Climate Reanalyzer research collaboration.

Driven by human-caused climate change and amplified by the cyclical El Niño weather phenomenon that warms the Pacific Ocean, this exceptional heat has bleak implications.

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„Climate graphic of the week: Oceans set heat records for more than 365 days in a row“ https://t.co/utI21M9PFM

— Özden Terli (@TerliWetter) March 18, 2024

A new study highlights the psychological and neurological benefits of interacting with dogs, revealing that activities such as playing and walking with dogs enhance brain wave strengths linked to relaxation and concentration. This research moves beyond general observations by using EEG technology to quantify the brain’s electrical activity during eight distinct dog-related activities, including grooming, playing, and feeding.

The findings indicate significant reductions in stress, depression, and fatigue following these interactions. This nuanced understanding of how different activities impact well-being could inform more effective animal-assisted therapies.

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Paws for Thought: Dog Interaction Boosts Brainwaves and Relaxation – https://t.co/bs1iMfM8mc via @neurosciencenew <– Most dog owners know this when they interact with their canine family and friends

— Bob Choat (@BobChoat) March 15, 2024

Ed Lloyd Owen, a society wedding photographer, described the initiative “as a storm in a teacup”: he had not signed the petition and did not intend to, he told the Church Times this week. He saw the issue as a matter of co-operation.

“There is always going to be some friction between two people trying to do their jobs and getting in each other’s way slightly,” he said. “It’s overcome by simply making sure you speak to each other. I also observe the rule of no flash and don’t go near ‘the bubble’. I wear smart clothes (usually tails) and rubber-sole shoes, only move during hymns, and use silent cameras with long lenses.”

His view was not far from that of the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams, who told The Sunday Times this week: “While some vicars can be a complete pain and over-controlling to a degree, clergy too need to be able to do their jobs.”

It was reasonable, he said, for officiating clerics to ask photographers “not to be intrusive during a service when something significant is supposed to be taking place at the spiritual level”.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

A petition to “improve working conditions for wedding photographers in churches” — who have been accusing clerics of “abusive” behaviour towards them — has attracted almost 1000 signatures https://t.co/aiPUPXuo5s

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 5, 2024

As the saying goes, dogs, and pets in general, have long been viewed as man’s best friend. But pet pharmaceuticals haven’t always matched that, and often a tick or flea collar was the lone preventive medicine many pets saw, outside of necessary vet visits.

But Peck said she has seen a shift in mentality from pet owners, as well as a shift in the pharmaceutical pipeline, that is bringing animal medicine more in line with human medicine.

“Newer generations see their pets very differently than previous generations,” Peck said. “Fifty, sixty years ago, your dog was in the backyard; now it has moved into your house, often your bed and sometimes replaced your children — your dog or cat has a stroller, a backpack and an outfit.”

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The pet drugs vets are now prescribing look a lot more like human medications https://t.co/FWzmo1Cro8

— CNBC (@CNBC) March 5, 2024

Check them out.

In pictures: Christians across Europe celebrate Epiphany https://t.co/gqPM5Y29gD pic.twitter.com/cnE4TB3riu

— euronews (@euronews) January 6, 2024

Take a look at them all.

Midnight Mass, NFL and Santa runs: Pictures of Christmas around the world https://t.co/fGJWWthpuF

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 25, 2023

Hats off to https://t.co/AKDF5QQF9c for hosting our recent conference, it was a wonderful facility and they are very gracious hosts #work #conferences #retreats #conferencecenters #northcarolina [CC BY-SA 3.0] pic.twitter.com/31FQB2RMUR

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 9, 2023