Religion and the environment

You shall not defile the land  

 by Laurence Speight

We are so embedded in our culture, so focused on attending to the necessities of daily life that we are often blind to the contradictions between our declared values and beliefs and how we live. This disconnect in regard to the religious became apparent to me on observing the enormous amount of car parking space churches provide for their faithful. At one Catholic Church I counted 280 spaces. This is on a par with what the big supermarkets provide for their customers. Adjacent to the car park was an almost equal amount of land reserved for the deceased.

Car parking space of supermarket proportions encourages the use of the private car, which makes a major contribution to global warming leading in turn to the extinction of life and the collapse of ecosystems. Undermining ecology multiplies the suffering of the poorest of humanity. Yet, one would have thought that of all the different groups in society the religious would exemplify a life of care and respect for nonhuman nature as destroying it desecrates the handiwork of God. This is clearly stated in the primary texts of the major religions. The Book of Numbers in the Christian bible states that the Earth is sacred and should not be polluted or defiled. Numbers 35: 33-34 advices:

“You shall not pollute the land in which you live .... You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell.”

The ethic of respect for nonhuman nature is repeated throughout the bible often accompanied by the scientifically supported warning that if the Earth is defiled humankind will suffer the consequences. Further, God proclaims that all animals, inclusive of Homo sapiens, have equal merit. In Ecclesiastes 3:19 we are told:

“For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breathe, and humans have no advantage over the animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all return to dust.”

Contrary to God’s explicitly expressed directive about how humans should interact with nonhuman nature, and the revered status with which it should be held, the main religions have traditionally regarded other life forms as mere utility. This hubris has brought catastrophe to the planet and may lead to what many dare not contemplate our early extinction. That we are doing practically nothing to address global warming suggests this might be the outcome.

A change in our attitude towards nonhuman nature is possible. In Pope Francis’s recent interview with the editor of La Civitta Cattolica (americanmagazine.org/pope-interview) he gives a distinctly ecological view of human relations saying:

“No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.”

Although the pope also spoke of “God in creation” and “love of all things in God” which implicitly means all life, from microbes to Giant Redwood Trees, is sacred.  What the pontiff unfortunately did not do to do was ask the faithful to live in an environmentally sustainable way so as not to desecrate the sacred, unstring the interconnecting web of biodiversity Catholics believe God created. On the eve of the publication of the International Panel on Climate Change’s new report (27.09) this was a missed opportunity, unless his extolling the virtues of living “on the frontier” was a message to the faithful to do so.

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 he was so exasperated by the apparent inability of political commentators to understand what most concerned the voters that he often said: “It’s the economy stupid.” (A slight variation of this phrase was coined by James Carville, his campaign strategist.)  Something similar could be said about our collective failure to realise our place in the community of living things, but I won’t be rude.

Next meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday 14th November at 6pm in the bar of the Horseshoe & Saddlers, Enniskillen.  New and prospective members are very welcome.

Global Frackdown Day

Spreading the word in Enniskillen town centre on Global Frackdown Day, October 2013.

Next meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday 17th October at 6pm in the bar of the Horseshoe & Saddlers, Enniskillen.  New and prospective members are very welcome.

Next meeting - AGM

Our next meeting, which will be our 2013 AGM, will be held on Thursday 26th September at 6pm in the bar of the Horseshoe & Saddlers, Enniskillen.  New and prospective members are very welcome.

Green Party members speaking out in Belfast during the G8 weekend

The Emperor Is Wearing No Clothes

Lawrence Speight

The twenty-four hour G8 Summit in County Fermanagh cost £80 million including £60 million for security. It is sobering to think that if the leaders were engaged with G8 business for 10 hours each hour cost £8 million. In consideration of the social and environmental projects this money could have been spent on one has to ask was the summit value for money. The small economy of Northern Ireland has to pay £20 million of the cost.

 The purpose of the summit was for the G8 leaders to address the urgent problems of the day. These included the war in Syria, global hunger and tax avoidance by the rich and powerful.

The summit highlights the failed approach taken by our political institutions which rely on a combination of constitutional constructs and illusions to sustain them. One of the illusions is those with political power have insightful understanding. Another is that the compassion of national leaders is not circumscribed by party, ethnic or national loyalties or desire for egoistical gain. A third illusion is political leaders can change the cultural milieu and thereby make positive things happen. These illusions help explain the widespread adulation the G8 leaders received on their short visit to Northern Ireland.

 Evidence for the prevalence of these illusions is that global warming was not on the G8 agenda. Insightfulness and compassion would have ensured otherwise. Most of the G8 leaders came to the summit with a fixed remedy for the war in Syria, which is to give the combatants more guns, missiles and ammunition. None had any intention of addressing the unjust structural relationships that underpin world hunger. The idea that robust measures should be put in place to ensure that the rich pay a fair tax is an anathema to the G8. Research by the Tax Justice Network shows that global tax evasion could be costing more than 2.5 trillion Euro a year, and that as much as 26 trillion Euros could be hidden by individuals in tax havens. (Editorial, Irish Times, 17.06) Arthur Beesley in his analysis of the summit in The Irish Times (18.06) writes: “When Obama arrived in the White House in 2009 there was plenty of talk about resolute action to take more tax from big business. Four years later, this is still in the realm of talk.” In this light the £300 million summit was a photo opportunity for the G8 leaders.

The key political problem of our age, and which should have been on the G8 agenda, is how to manage abundance. The fact that three million children die of hunger each year, and one in eight of the world’s population goes to bed hungry every night is not because of a perennial food shortage. U.N. figures show that half of the food produced world-wide is wasted before it gets to the shops and the affluent throw one third of the food they buy into the bin. As Terry Eagleton writes in The Guardian Review, 29.06, “Widespread hunger is the result of predatory social systems.”

Most of the problems humanity faces, including lack of sanitation, health services and education for the billions who are destitute could be solved by a small percentage of the money spent on wars and preparation for war. The following figures illustrate this. Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies calculates that the United States has spent $6 trillion on its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US, National Priorities Project, estimates that since 2001 the United States has spent $1,450,427,500,000 on wars. The Today programme, Radio 4, 28.06, estimates that the UK has spent £40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The Stockholm Peace Institute’s figure for worldwide military expenditure in 2012 is $1.75 trillion. If the G8 leaders had agreed to progressively reduce their military budgets the summit would have been worth the expense.

War and our destruction of the environment are a form of self-harm rooted in our lack of imagination. When it comes to the economy, we cannot imagine any model other than that of growth. When it comes to energy we cannot imagine anything but fossil fuels. With food we cannot image any system but oil-based monoculture, which in the case of soya and palm oil leads to the destruction of rainforests - the rain clouds and lungs of the Earth.

Hope for a deep rooted and widespread eco-consciousness, as well as a nonviolent approach to conflict, lies in that most people know that 2 multiplied by 2 does not equal 5 as in the logic of orthodox economics. The millions demonstrating on the streets of Brazil, Egypt and Turkey against institutional corruption, the 5,000 anti-G8 demonstrators in Belfast and 2,000 in Enniskillen, as well as the occupy-movement, the transitional towns movement, the long waiting lists in every town and city on these islands for allotments, and the work of such agencies as Oxfam, War On Want, Christian Aid and Trocaire is hope that a critical mass will act on the realisation that “the emperor is wearing no clothes”. It is time for a new paradigm.