The U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen may not have produced the break though accords Sister of St. Joseph of Peace Suzanne Golas and a host of other environmentalists were hoping for.

But when she returned from the Danish capital, Sister Suzanne was upbeat about the gathering and its implications for a healthier future for the world and its people.

While the international news media focused on the contentious nature of debates between delegates from developing nations and their industrialized counterparts in the west and the inability to forge ahead with a legally binding climate agreement, on the grass roots level, relationships were flourishing and bridges were being built, she said.

“I think in terms of human history, this was a very important conference,” said Sister Suzanne, director of WaterSpirit, the environmental and spiritual ministry she launched over a decade ago on the banks of the Atlantic Ocean in Elberon.

The most significant thing about the conference, she said, is that so many people gathered from around the world to focus on the issues related to climate change. Their attendance, she said, and the spirited participation from tiny island nations such as Tuvalu to huge countries including the U.S. shows that this is a matter of real concern to many people.

The prospect of so many people wanting to work together makes real progress possible, she said. “Addressing this issue as individual nation states would make it hard to pull off any solutions,” said Sister Suzanne, who received the prestigious Gaudium et Spes award in 2008 from Bishop John M. Smith in recognition of her ministry.

Recognizing that it’s a common problem and dealing with it as such is “forcing us to come to the realization that we are one, not only with other human beings but with the planet itself,” said Sister Suzanne, who has served as a non-government observer on environmental issues at the United Nations on behalf of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

She traveled to Denmark along with the Maryknoll delegation and says the team spent a lot of time connecting with people from all over the world and networking with them on the issues.

“The image that stays with me from the Bella Center where the conference was held was the sheer scope of the event,” she said. As an example of just how large the gathering was, she noted the magnitude of the computer center with more than 1000 computers “available to all of us to walk in and use.”

She enjoyed the fact that the Bella Center was alive with global language. “From Polish to Swahili, it was just remarkable. People came dressed in indigenous clothes. You realized that the world did get the message and you saw how linked in every nation was.”

From the perspective of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Maryknoll and indeed Catholic organizations and agencies around the world, the conference was an opportunity to stress the fact that the poor of the world are suffering most from the effects of climate change, she said.

During the conference, Catholic activists made the case for reducing the risk of rising global temperatures that have caused the sea level to increase along the coastlines of many countries.

To reduce the risk, the Catholic activists urged prosperous countries to turn away from unsustainable development and excessive consumption of natural resources and help underdeveloped nations develop the mechanisms to combat the problems.

Advocates such as Roberto Urbina of Caritas Chile were widely quoted in the Catholic press. Urbina e-mailed Catholic News Service Dec. 14 that addressing climate change means “addressing a situation that, based on what we have learned in the Gospel of Jesus, is unacceptable.The cause of these effects lies in the lifestyle of a consumer society based on an economic model that has been condemned by the magisterium of the Church.”

His words reflect those of Sister Suzanne who said the stance of Maryknoll and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace has consistently “come from a position that the poor of the world are suffering most and that we (all) have a responsibility to help impoverished nations that do not have the funding to develop alternate forms of energy.” People around the world, she said, are struggling from the effects of climate change to “stay alive or raise their standards of living. We are very supportive of all the groups advocating for those countries.

“I do think what you saw at Copenhagen was the emergence of a new consciousness that we are interdependent, that if we go it alone, we’ll live in crisis. I think that there’s a sense that a concept of the whole web of life, extending to the cosmos itself is beginning to emerge.”

On the local level, that’s a concept which should translate well to parishes which can be centers for educating people to the sacredness of all God created, she said.

“We are beginning to see some parishes get into substantial, concrete actions, whether it be solar energy or wind, because the people know that the earth is sacred.”