FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH

After posting my thoughts on Pope Francis's encyclical  "Laudato Si"  (click here ),  I have given more thought to the issues that were discussed in his encyclical and wish to give my own take on some of the subjects he touched upon.  I am not a scientist nor a bona fide philosopher, for that matter.  I am just a person who thinks about things beyond his ken.  Hence my claim to being an agnostic. 

It seems to me that scientist have been warning us for some time about global warming, and economist have been warning us of the devastating effects to world security that can result because of the extreme disparity of wealth throughout the world.  In my opinion they have received little more than a lukewarm response by the vast majority of the world's governments. 

Global warming and poverty are not new to the world.  Climatologists will tell us the earth has gone through periods of extreme warming and cooling long before homo sapiens walked the face of the earth.  Anthropologist will tell you that poverty has been a constant since the dawn of human civilization and that the connection between climate change and human want is well known.  So those who would dismiss the current concerns being expressed by a majority of professionals in these fields as nothing to worry about have the past to back their lack of concern. The problem is they fail realize that it's happening now, and we know that humans are largely the reason for it happening and that there may be things we can do to change it.  

Pope Francis touched upon many interrelated subjects that I will briefly expand on this post.  The first is examining how the lack of concern for the world's ecosystem can lead to war and the further destruction of the world ecosystem.  I will also talk briefly on the problem of wealth disparity and how this contributes to our ecological dilemma.

THE ANACHRONISM OF WAR

War is perhaps the greatest threat to our ecological systems. 

As mentioned in my previous post, we humans have not advanced ethically as fast as we have technologically. The prime example of this is war.  In my opinion war is an anachronism, something we should have grown out of a long time ago, but as a whole we haven't.  In some ways, the teenager who is sitting behind a computer screen waging and fighting virtual wars of conquest and destruction is symbolic, if not symptomatic, of what the nations of the world are as a whole.  We are drawn to war, drawn to the destruction of our own kind. For the most part, we continue to act like primitive tribes when it comes to nations relating to one another on a global scale; vying for turf and the control of its natural resources; seeing this small planet as if it were the whole universe; imbuing idealistic beliefs with god-like purposes to sanction the destruction of others and their environment.  To that end much of the advancement of our modern technology has been directed to broaden defense while improving weapons with deadly accuracy to take out one's foes. 

An outcome of that type of R&D has resulted in many of the modern conveniences we enjoy today, such as the world-wide web and cellular phones, which indicates that world's technological advances could be readily turned to serious problem-solving rather than improving on how to make weapons serve an ultimate solution scenario. They have largely served to placate suspicion regarding the trajectory such technological advances are aiming for.  We still are working from the primitive principle that the person or nation who can wield the biggest stick or rock is the person or nation you need to pay attention to. In that sense, ethically speaking, we have not progressed further than the invention of the wheel.  

The fact is we, as nations, do not know how  to live with each other very well.  I believe we're learning as an inadvertent result of technological advances to communicate better on a personal level, but for humans to digest what they learn takes a long time, especially when what we are learning at  a grass roots level needs to find its way to the top.  On the other hand, this technology has also allowed some to live more insulated lives, creating virtual private rooms and a reality that exists only on a computer screen, but one that is responsive to the viewer; that conveys a sense of immortality and god-like power that vanquishes "the enemy." We now are seeing how such lone, isolated individuals are ripe for radicalization by terror groups who encourage such mesmerized minds to move from the virtual violence of their computer screens to commit actual acts of violence on those outside of their virtual reality, unable to separate the virtual reality of being in a personal war with whomever they choose and the real futility of committing such violence on innocent people, animals, and the environment that sustains them.

That we haven't learned how to avoid war simply shows how deficient we are in understanding ourselves and the world in which we live.  Some will say that war is a fact of life.  Some have gone so far as to suggest such a thing as the permanency of war. I believe a bellicose mentality is so ingrained in almost every culture that the reality of war has become a game as demonstrated in various team sports, which serve as a sort of pressure valve to release the global desire for conquest.  I know this will strike a lot of people as simply wrong because most people love their competitive sports and are loyal to the teams they support.

Parents and educators will extol the virtue of team sports as teaching positive values, of how to get along with each other, work together, exhibit a sense of fair play, and kindness to those who lose.  I certainly will not argue with that, but consider that the origin of team sports not only teaches children how to get along with each other, but also how to get along with each other for the purpose of defeating the opposing team.  While it teaches good virtues it is premised on being the winner and to take pride one's or the teams ability to the defeat others effectively. The sportsmanship of the playing field is rarely demonstrated on the battlefield and  if you haven't noticed, the more violent the team sport, the less sportsmanship is exhibited and expected.

I am inclined to live in the hope that as a world we will come to understand how small our planet home really is and of the need to eliminate war; as the old folk song put it, "We ain't gonna  study war no more." 

Preventing war is a must, if we are to save our planet home.  I am appalled how many monuments we raise to honor the dead and heroes of war, building them in temple proportions while few exist honoring the peacemakers of the world.  It amazes me how frequently we mistrust the efforts of diplomacy to solve territorial strife and are so ready to put "boots on the ground."  We know, as has been shown time and time again, that diplomacy is the only means to prevent wars and end them.  We know that a people fighting for their land or against an injustice will fight and destroy until they feel heard.  We know that for all the military hardware that is capable of wiping whole geographical areas off the map, will not stop these voices, unless one is willing to silence every voice along the way.  Even then, the ground will cry out on behalf of the innocent blood that is spilled (Genesis 4:10).

 We have yet to take "our swords and turn them into plows, our spears into pruning hooks" (Micah  4:3). What an apt Biblical metaphor that demonstrates the various ways technology can be repurposed.

"MY ROOM - KEEP OUT!"

 I see the nations of the world much like the rooms of  a house overrun by petulant teenagers who have placed signs on the doors of their nation-rooms, "Keep Out" in order to engage in any activity they choose and to clutter their personal turf as if it had no impact on the rest of the home environment.  The fact is if a room's ecology is a disaster, that disaster will spread.  It will impact the atmosphere and the environment of the whole house if nothing is done.   Bacteria, mold, vermin of all sorts can gain a foothold that will eventually impact the rest of the house.  Keeping the room of our nations clean and kept up will do much to improve our planet home. Doing so will do much to alleviate the need to look at the resources and turf of others.  As the world becomes more information based, more democratic the "Keep Out" signs are becoming less effective. 

Not that nations don't have secrets or don't want to maintain their secret ways, but rather there is a phenomenon emerging in democracy that was predicted in a book written by John Keane, "The Life and Death of Democracy" written in 2009.  This extensive book on the history of democracy in all its known forms was written before with Wiki-leaks and NSA leaks occurred.  In his book, Keane predicted that in order for democracy to work effectively, that people must be informed as to what their governments are doing; that people cannot accurately make decisions without knowing what's going on.  He called this "Monitory Democracy" and predicted it would be a game changer in world events.   It has.

I don't know if  Julian Assange and Ed Snowden were working from that principle to justify leaking the secret information of the nations they did, or if they were thinking merely in terms of personal profit.  I found it interesting that Keane had predicted such events shortly before they occurred.  It is also interesting that in the wake of such events, there is a sense that "Keep Out" signs are less effective and have resulted in exposing the adolescent voyeuristic practices that "free" nations of the world employ on each other. This, of course, comes as no shock to anyone.  Allies have always spied on each other. I think most of us at least suspected that such activities took place and that is why it has not created much of popular outcry by the citizenry of these free countries as it has by their government officials. 

You may be asking, what relevance such events have on the concerns about world ecology?

Ironically, these sorts of events may actually bring us closer together as a world by exposing the divisive adolescent-like behavior that exist amongst the nation-rooms of our planet home.  The walls are no longer sound proof.  The noise of one nation is heard by all. The sense of show and tells that has resulted has created a sense of humility amongst the nations of the world.  It exposes the fact that no one can claim to be standing on the moral high ground. Everyone has dirt on their faces.

My point is that any serious attempt to rectify the ecological problems of the world  cannot be mired with back room deals that ignore the simplest of life forms or which disregards the poverty of people who cannot fend for themselves.  Earth is not just the domain of politicians and the CEO's of large corporations.  It is home to us all. 

Repair and restoration will not be seriously addressed until such time as we are able to see the connection between such adolescent turf wars and the time and expense it takes away from providing care to the environment in which we all live. The nations of the world waste a lot of time, effort, and capital over things that will not sustain our planet home.  Every war literally tears apart the home we live in.  The "Keep Out" signs of the past need to be replaced with "Welcome" signs in recognition that each of our nation-rooms is nothing more than a room within the small planet home we share with each other. 

It would be nice if we were to allow the world to grow up and old before it dies out.  Being an old adolescent is simply embarrassing.  Amidst all the wars that are taking place right now, I believe there is a chance, however slim, that this one issue, this one important issue - the desperate needs of our common, planet home can instill a maturity among the nations of the world to come together in order to save what we have in a way that has not seen in human history.

TECHNOLOGY AND FINANCE OF THE PAST

It seems that as we develop some advanced technologies, we do so without having them moored to a foundational understanding of the past.  I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks taught that to see the future one must look behind one's self, implying that by looking at the past we have better understanding where we're going with things.  In order to put this into perspective, however, I am not just talking about recent technological advances.  The fact is technological advances have been happening since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th Century, which also took place as the world was being introduced to a new global economic system defined by Adam Smith as capitalism. 

The problems we are facing today started long before any of our lifetimes.  I feel this is part of the difficulty some have in grasping the seriousness of the situation we are now in.  The current generations didn't start this problem, we've inherited it from our great-great grandparents.  It's not like we don't have a past to see where this is heading.   Without this important understanding, it is difficult for some to accept that the threats to the Earth's ecology is a serious problem.  For over a century we've seen the black smoke of coal fires, the danger of smog so thick as to block out the sun.  The London fog depicted in the movies of the 30'& 40's was nothing more than London smog.  Much has been done to clean that up, but there remains areas in the world that suffer from such environmental disasters.  We know there are things that can be done to eliminate such things.  It's not a matter of knowing.  It's a matter of willing. 

Large private corporations, more than governments, are to blame for the lack of will because their concern for the future extends no further than the closing bell of the stock market at the end of the week. Many do not see themselves as having vested interest to what happens to the world beyond how the world may impact their investors.  All things are interrelated.  What will move corporations to align themselves for caring about the world is if their investors insist.  The urgency, for example by the oil industry, to fracking out every drop of oil for profit is technological knowhow that could have been used to develop alternative energy sources. 

THIS GARDEN PLANET

Let me reiterate what I said in my last post, finance and technology are not the problem, in themselves.  The problem resides in how they're being used; to what purposes they are being employed. Used correctly, they could preserve and restore the beauty of the Earth in ways never thought possible.  I believe there is time if there is the will of the nations to take the time to seriously make a concerted effort to correct what we can.  What prevents the nations of the world to address this is pride and greed - the ever competitive, adolescent mind-set of whose number one.  We are obsessed with numbers, rankings, polls.  

I understand that these devices and methods exist precisely because people don't trust their own eyes and ears any longer.  We need to know how we compare to others and the world around us.  We want to know if we're in the popular crowd or the unpopular crowd.  I am always intrigued and amazed at how alluring polls and rankings are.  They have become the astrological charts of our age - which stars are rising, which planetary forces aligning, etc. 

All the while what is needed is to use one's own senses to know what is happening around  us.  We have never been so informed as we are today and yet we seem as confused as ever.  What blocks us from using information effectively is hubris and a sense of exceptionalism, a sense that the bad things happening in that nation's-room won't happen in my room; that their mess is well... their mess.  Fortunately, there are a growing number of people around the world who do not think this way, who are more than willing to help to clean the messes up where ever they are.  Many nations do come together when major catastrophes occur in another part of the world to help.  This is what gives me hope that with a little more concerted effort our world can mature beyond the need for war and become the caretakers of this garden planet. 

We are living in a critical yet  hopeful age where more and more people throughout the world have and exhibit a universal care for our planet home.  This is especially true amongst younger people.

I believe, the greatest generation is yet to be - one that will not be mired in war, but the sweat of rebuilding and restoring our planet home.  

Technology will undoubtedly play a part as will the judicious use of wealth.  There are many philanthropists who understand the importance of saving our planet.  Some smaller, progressive nations, are expending their financial resources to find environmentally safe ways to produce energy. They will help pave the way for larger nations to do likewise.  It's not about bigness its about inventiveness and ingenuity, about the will to do what needs to be done.

THE POOR YOU HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU - NOT NECESSARILY THE RICH

In Capitalism we hear of an invisible hand that guides financial markets to unintended social benefits and which corrects the markets when they become unbalanced.  In the recent history, this belief in a self-correcting market has led to some of the most devastating market crashes, with some saying there was nothing one could do to prevent it or rectify it.  That, as we now know, was a  false assumption.   There were things people could have done to prevent it and there were things done to rectify it.  If a creation of mankind, Capitalism, has its own force, which it seems to have, than what about the forces of nature?  What is apparent is these forces, whether creations of human ingenuity or the result of earth's ecosystem, are responsive to what we humans do

Even Adam Smith warned of the abuses pure capitalism could entail.  In the US we have become so reactive to any terminology involving social welfare or socialism that we cannot wrap our heads around the fact that the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution are, themselves, perhaps the first social-orientated documents ever produced by a government.  The US is experiencing a period of time in which exists the largest income disparity. The number of people entering into poverty is increasing as the vast majority of wealth is controlled by the top one percent of the population.  Capitalism seems to work best when money is flowing, generating new jobs that improve the quality of everyone's life.  The flow of money, money spent not money kept, is what creates wealth and as wealth gets bottled up by the few, the flow of money becomes unstable. This is why seeing the middle class disappear is so disconcerting, not just to the government, but it should be a major concern for those who have wealth.  Bottled up wealth, in the long run, does nothing, buys nothing, and eventually means nothing. Money has no intrinsic value of its own.  It's value is only connected to what it can buy.  Hoarding money will eventually decrease its value, saving it for judicious purposes will not. Spending it wisely will increase its value.

Allow me to put on my theological hat for a moment.  In one of the Christian Testament's gospels (Matthew 26) is the strange story of a women who anoints Jesus' head with costly ointment.  Jesus' disciple raise a fuss of her extravagant gesture, pointing out the jar and ointment could have been sold and the money given to poor - something in line with what Jesus had been preaching about since they met him.  Jesus in a seemingly 180 degree turn around seems to dismiss the notion by saying, "The poor you have always with you, but not me."   The setting of this event is the feast of the Passover, which Jesus is celebrating with one of his friends, Simon the Leper. 

I have to admit when I first heard this story it disjointed my thinking about Jesus.  How could he so glibly, arrogantly, and in an obvious display of egotism dismiss the needs of the poor while he feasted and was literally showered in extravagance?   Had Jesus become an Epicurean?

Possibly, but I think there is a more subtle message within this story.  Extravagance is fleeting.  Feasts are few and far between.  Poverty is a constant, wealth is not.   Poverty can swallow wealth very quickly, like a drought can wither a green field or a wild fire an entire forest.

If poverty is allowed to become so  pervasive as it is in some areas of the world, it can render the value of money meaningless.  The poor are like the canaries used by coal mines to see environment is safe. What happens to the poor can happen to rich.  If the environment cannot sustain the poor, it will not sustain the rich either.  If all the rich has is money, but the money cannot buy or purchase what is needed, having it serves no purpose and the rich man is no better off than the poor man.  He may have a billion dollar yacht, but if there is no fuel to power it, if there is no food to be put on the table, the party is over, the feast is done.  That is the crisis we all face, poor and rich alike and everyone in between. 

There is nothing wrong with being wealthy, but there is something wrong with poverty.  No person in the modern world should have to live in poverty. A lot of wealthy people have no choice but to be wealthy because of the way the world's financial systems work. But for wealth to have meaning, it must have purpose beyond a self serving one.  If those who have received much do not see the responsibility to give more to causes that will benefit all, particularly the impoverished,  what they have may well lose its value as poverty will spread like a virus. The security net for the whole ecosystem is a stable, ecology-minded middle class.

    
NEGLECT IS NATURE'S SIGNAL TO CORRECT


There are many things that the nations and major businesses of the world can do to solve the ecological problems caused by human activity. Neglecting to do something is a crime against nature.   Neglect here is simply defined as a disregard of our impact on what nature has produced; a disregard to animal and plant life that may not seem important at the time, but which serve a purpose that is not immediately comprehended by the average human mind.  Life on this planet has always been a balancing act.  As technologically advanced as we have become, we cannot control the weather.  Once a species of animal or plant life no longer exists, we cannot bring it back.  Nature is a responsive force to cause and effect.  Changes in the atmosphere will result in storms or draughts.  The effects of droughts can lead to wild fires which can effect atmospheric changes. 

The depletion of rain forests has affected the air system of our planet.  Global warming caused by carbon emission and the depletion of the Ozone layer is causing glaciers to quickly vanish, which in turn is causing a rise in the oceans.  I saw this personally and up front during an Alaskan cruise in which I saw melt water gushing up beneath Hubbard Glacier and saw a huge calving of an iceberg break away from the glacier causing our ship to move.  This was a  majestic sight, but I could not help feeling sad, knowing that this majestic ice flow is shrinking at an alarming rate.   

Earth's environment, its atmosphere, the very oxygen we breath is corrosive by nature.  It is natural for things to wear out, especially things we make.  In the US we talk about our failing infrastructure, our aging bridges, roads and buildings.  If we neglect them nature will take care of them and bring them down.  What we put into the atmosphere will and has created an atmospheric response.  Weather patterns have changed drastically and is consistent with the timetables many scientist predicted regarding the urgency to do something before its too late.  So called "500 Year Storms" are becoming a yearly event in the past several years. 

Yes climate change is natural, because its responsive.  Climate change in the past was a gradual occurrence that took a long time to come and a long time to abate.  We're seeing things happen within a few years time that in the past would have taken eons to accomplish or would have been brought about by a severe natural catastrophe, such as a huge volcanic eruption or a large meter striking the earth. 

What will probably have the greatest impact on everyone's mind about global warming in developed countries is when insurance companies are seeing their assets drained away  in payouts and people see their insurance rates sky-rocket as a result.  Then the relationship between ecology and economy will set in. Unfortunately by the time most will be getting on board,  the moment for effectively addressing this globally may have passed.  Resources, such as clean water, food, and energy will be in shorter supply further impacting world economy.

What will change the will of governments, in short run, will be a change in will of every person on the street or in the field to prompt action.  No single person can change the course these forces have taken, but each person has a voice that together can make enough noise to change the will of the world's governments, and with enough will power, governments will start putting up welcome signs and working together to rectify the human impact that has caused these conditions.

The Earth is still a beautiful place and I believe it can be even more so if we act.

Until next time, stay faithful