SAFEGUARDING THE ENVIRONMENT
Excerpt from The Way to Happiness a common sense guide to better living by L. Ron Hubbard
“12. Safeguard and Improve Your Environment" ...
“12-3. Help take care of the planet.
“The idea that one has a share in the planet and that one can and should help care for it may seem very large and to some, quite beyond reality. But today what happens on the other side of the world, even so far away, can affect what happens in your own home.
“Recent discoveries by space probes to Venus have shown that our own world could be deteriorated to a point where it would no longer support life. And it possibly could happen in one’s own lifetime.
“Cut down too many forests, foul too many rivers and seas, mess up the atmosphere and we have had it. The surface temperature can go roasting hot, the rain can turn to sulfuric acid. All living things could die.”
There is a great deal in the news today about the environment. The ozone layer is deteriorating, global warming is blamed for radically changing weather patterns and gradual melting of the polar ice caps. Obviously, we must all take responsibility for preserving the planet we live on, lest our future generations be faced with living on a barren waste. Scientologists naturally tend to participate in environmental efforts because of their concern for the well-being of the people and communities in which they live and work.
Volunteers throughout the world gather together to help improve their community through special projects such as cleaning up parks, revitalizing neighborhoods and erasing graffiti from public buildings.
In Seattle, a group of Scientologists have organized a Scientology Environmental Task Force. For the past 10 years, this group has cleaned up parks, turned city walls full of graffiti into beautiful giant murals, five parks in the city are adopted by the group and regularly taken care of to ensure it remains beautiful clean and useable for all children in the city. The Mayor of Seattle recently issued a commendation to the Scientologists in Seattle for the past 10 years of dedication to improving the environment in Seattle. In Los Angeles the Church works together with the city police to do graffiti clean ups in tough neighborhoods.
Volunteer Ministers in Los Angeles participate in activities to benefit their neighborhoods, such as removing graffiti and cleaning up the streets to help reduce crime.
Cleaning up Needles in Parks
In Spain and Italy, volunteers patrol beaches and parks to gather syringes left behind by drug addicts, greatly alleviating the threat of AIDS infection to the children and parents who visit these public facilities. Scientologists in the Italian cities of Milano and Torino work alongside city officials who receive alerts on any drug abuse activities and these Scientology volunteers immediately deploy to the location and pick up the needles to ensure there is no danger to children. During the past year hundreds of Scientology volunteers have worked over 500,000 hours to safeguard the environment and protecting the pubic by cleaning up discarded syringes, while distributing anti-drug educational brochures, and sponsoring sports and musical events to promote drug-free living.
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