Living Today: Issues of modern living

CREDIT CARD GIVING TO CHURCHES

A rapidly growing number of churches are embracing electronic giving, a fundraising tool common among charities and nonprofit groups, but until recently little used by religious organizations, according to The New York Times.

Instead of sending cash, coins and personal checks up to the altar on a collection plate, parishioners can use special envelopes to charge monthly donations to their credit cards.

Church members also can add their offerings to the list of monthly bills that can be paid online or through automatic bank account transfers.

Those who choose to contribute this way can donate while they are away on vacation, manage their church accounts by computer and earn frequent flier miles. Churches can count on a steady stream of revenue, even when summer vacations or winter snowstorms keep people away.

Some denominations, however, disagree because giving is part of the act of worship and some do not want church donations via plastic to increase the giver's credit card debt.

METHANE MIGHT BE DIGESTED

Scientists have discovered an organism believed to be the world's oldest life form, which lives on methane and could be harnessed to help combat global warming, the London Guardian reports.

The organism lives in the bottom of the Black Sea, an area previously believed to be without life, and the discovery has given hope these reservoirs of methane could be digested.

Researchers from the Max Planck Society in Germany were surprised to find coral, made by micro-organisms, processing methane and sulfates in what is the largest oxygen-free area on the planet.

Methane is produced in the digestive systems of cows and termites, in landfills and in rice paddies, and it is 30 times as potent a warming gas as carbon dioxide, although there is far less of it.

ASIAN HAZE

Scientists working for the United Nations say the brown haze of Southeast Asia affects both rainfall and farming and it puts hundreds of thousands of people in jeopardy, the British Broadcasting Corp. reports.

The scientists, working for the U.N. Environment Program, base their work on data gathered by the Indian Ocean Experiment, supplemented by satellite readings and computer modeling.

The haze is the result of forest fires, the burning of agricultural wastes and fossil fuels in vehicles, industries, and power stations, as well as emissions from millions of inefficient cookers burning wood and cow dung, says Dr. Klaus Toepfer, the head of UNEP.

The haze may reduce rain and snow over Northwest India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and neighboring parts of western central Asia by up to 40 percent, the scientists say.

HUMAN RIGHTS MEMORIAL

On the banks of the Boise River, Idaho leaders are planning to celebrate the opening of an elaborate testament to tolerance this week, the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial.

Its centerpiece is a life-size bronze statue of the famed Jewish teenager, whose diary of persecution by the Nazis during World War II put a face on the Holocaust and has long been a worldwide bestseller, The Washington Post reports.

The memorial, spread across several acres of parkland, also will feature 60 stone tablets engraved with quotations from past and present champions of human rights.

The project has been in the works for nearly seven years and cost $1.5 million to complete.

"This is no small effort, and we really want to put Idaho at the forefront of human rights," says Les Bock, who has led the campaign for the memorial.