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A man for all seasons
Bill McKibben, Ode
What we still need to learn from the example of Gandhi.
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…We’re used to thinking of protest as something from “the ’60s,” but that’s wrong. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a student of Gandhi’s-and their techniques work as well now as they did then. New tools change the ways we organize: We couldn’t have reached people without the Web, nor uploaded the pictures of their rallies for everyone to see.
But the essential idea-people coming together to shed their fear and despair in the company of their neighbours, to work against concentrated power with the force of hope, to put their bodies on the line if only by marching for a few days-is as powerful as it ever was.
But that’s not the only, or perhaps even the main, thing that Gandhi offers a world now driving itself off the edge of a cliff. We tend to forget what he considered the core of his work: re-imagining economic life so it makes human sense.
In his day, the great symbol was the spinning wheel, and the bolt of khadi cloth replacing the suit of clothes imported from the mills of Manchester. (And so infectious was his spirit that the workers in those very mills cheered him when he visited England.) In our time, the symbolic American equivalent is probably the farmers’ market, where local food starts to replace the far-flung products of industrial agriculture. That has important environmental benefits-instead of ordering takeout from some thousands of kilometres away, which is essentially what our food system forces us to do now, you can get it from the guy down the road-just as making salt or wearing homespun had serious economic repercussions in India. But in both cases, the chief effect is really psychological.
Gandhi’s India needed to feel some confidence-to understand it could stand on its own feet. Our America needs to feel some community-to understand each of us should worry a little less about our individual selves and relax into the pleasure of our neighbours. And that’s what happens at a farmers’ market. One study found that the average shopper had 10 times as many conversations there than during a visit to the supermarket. That’s liberating in the deepest sense of the word.
Our economic lives underpin our sense of who we are-that was one of Gandhi’s great insights. Change those daily habits a little and you can change our habits of mind a lot. We are in enormous environmental trouble because we’ve spent decades trying to meet non-material needs (for status, for affection, for respect, for camaraderie, for security) with material means.
And so we’ve built ever-bigger houses and driven ever-bigger cars and taken ever-longer vacations and eaten ever-more and ever-finer food. And by every measure we can find, it hasn’t made us any happier. Rather the reverse. Americans’ satisfaction with their lives peaked in 1956, and our ever-rising standard of living has done nothing to slow our steady decline in happiness.
We need scientists and policy-makers and engineers to help us out of the trouble in which we find ourselves-global warming is the biggest mistake humans have ever made, and it will require many kinds of minds to fix it.
But Gandhi was our scientist of the human spirit, our engineer of political courage. The other advice from the 20th century seems stale now: central planning, endless economic expansion. We’ve hardly started to explore the possibilities that spring from Gandhi’s example. We better get going.
Bill McKibben is an environmentalist and writer. His most recent book, Deep Economy, addresses the shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise.
(20 December 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
Pope Makes Appeal to Protect the Environment
Ian Fisher, New York Times
ROME – Pope Benedict XVI reinforced the Vatican’s growing concern with protecting the environment in the traditional midnight Christmas Mass on Tuesday, bemoaning an “ill-treated world” in a homily given to thousands of pilgrims here in the seat of the world’s billion Roman Catholics.
On the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago, Benedict referred to one early father of the church, Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop in what is now Turkey. “What would he say if he could see the state of the world today, through the abuse of energy and its selfish and reckless exploitation?” the pope asked, according to the Vatican’s English translation.
He expanded on the theme briefly by saying that an 11th-century theologian, Anselm of Canterbury, had spoken “in an almost prophetic way” as he “described a vision of what we witness today as a polluted world whose future is at risk.”
In recent months, Benedict has spoken out increasingly about environmental concerns, and the Vatican has even purchased “carbon offsets,” credits on the global market to compensate for carbon dioxide emissions, for the energy consumed in the world’s smallest state, Vatican City.
(25 December 2007)
Related:
Environmental statements by Pope John Paul II.
Many religious leaders back climate-change action
Brad Knickerbocker, Christian Science Monitor
A desire to exercise stewardship over the environment is growing among evangelical Christians.
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Religious groups in the United States and around the world have steadily adopted pro-environmentpositions. At Christmastime this shift has been particularly evident regarding global climate change.
The pros and cons of cutting down real Christmas trees (which absorb carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas) versus buying an artificial tree (which may contain pollutants) weigh on the minds of many, says an article in The Christian Post.
More than 100 influential evangelical leaders have signed the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) to fight global warming, the Post article says. They’re asking governments and individuals to reduce CO2 emissions.
(20 December 2007)
Report of the United Church of Christ Environment and Energy Task Force (1.9MB PDF)
Energy and Climate Work Group, UCC
Report to the 26th General Synod of the United Church of Christ: Energy and Climate Work Group, UCC Environment and Energy Task Force
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… While many religious organizations are now very active in expressing concern for observable impacts of climate change associated with exponentially increasing rates of fossil fuel use, there does not yet appear to be an equivalent concern for predicted declines in oil and natural gas supplies. Perhaps this is because it is difficult to comprehend the full impacts of passing irreversibly into a new era in which demands for resources exceed supplies and people scramble to adapt to new conditions. Yet even in the great times of plenty and economic expansion that have marked the post World War II era, plentiful and undervalued supplies of fossil fuels have been utilized to create wealth while disregarding consequences like toxic waste dumps and water and air pollution to which people are often unequally exposed.
… The Energy and Climate Workgroup sees a need for the UCC [United Church of Christ] to recognize that energy use and climate change are really two great manifestations of one big challenge for humanity: the need to achieve, as soon as possible, sustainable use of finite natural resources for the benefit of all people while maintaining healthy ecosystems and the integrity of the biosphere. Behind the apparent complexity of our environmental and social problems are some fundamental scientific principles that must be better recognized.
Because the Energy and Climate Workgroup sees a world crisis building and its relevance to how the UCC proceeds into the next fifty years of its first century, our vision is affected by a sense of urgency and uncertainty, but strengthened by hope and faith. In realistically considering our future and using it as a guide for planning, supporting congregations, and missions, we anticipate only renewed opportunities and purpose for the United Church of Christ.
(Spring 2007)
A 25-page report on peak oil, covering both technical and religious aspects. A presentation by Richard Heinberg is also discussed. Direct link to PDF file.
Submitted by EB contributor Philip Cook who writes:
The report documents our grass roots efforts to make Church offices and leaders aware of the real changes and challenges that we all face.
While I am an environmental scientist by profession, I continue to work through my Church as a focal point for seeking sources of inspiration and defining pathways for collective and cooperative societal responses to the perceived challenges before us.
(Several of Mr. Cook’s sermons related to energy are posted at www.peaceucc.org/sermons/index.htm )
