In all the countless generations that humans have
lived on this earth, we have been computer operators for just one
generation. We have worked in electric-lit
offices for three or four generations and before that we were farmers for five
hundred generations. For perhaps fifty
thousand generations we were hunter-gatherers, but our real intimate bond with
the natural world is often lost sight of in today’s industrial and
technological scramble to maximise returns.
But the natural world is our home for as long as we
live on this earth. It is the place
where we have become what we are and for believers it is the place where we
prepare ourselves and one another for an eternity of life. We now know more than ever before what a
precarious state we have allowed our home to fall into and what consequences
this can have for future generations. As
Mary Robinson – a former Irish President who is a United Nations representative
on Climate Change – said last year at Davos: ‘We have very little time
left. We are the last generation to be
able to do something about climate, and the first generation to understand how
serious it is.’
The Book of Genesis envisages God revealing to the
first generation of humans how he wished them to relate to the rest of
creation: ‘Yahweh God took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden to
cultivate and take care of it.’ In the
Encyclical Pope Francis comments in this: ‘The biblical texts tell us to ‘till
and keep’ the garden of the world.
‘Tilling’ refers to cultivating, ploughing and working, while ‘keeping’
means caring, protecting and preserving.’ (Para 67)
In addition to quoting from the Orthodox Patriarch
Bartholomew, Francis quotes the words of a Safti mystic, a ninth century Muslim
poet Ali-al-Khawas. In this way Francis
is underlining his respect for other Religions and his belief that people of
all persuasions need to work together on issues of equality and justice. ‘The majority of people living on our planet
profess to be believers. This should
spur religious to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature,
defending the poor and building networks of respect and fraternity.’ (Para 201)
He quotes from the statements on ecology that have
come from the Conferences of Catholic Bishops from all the Continents of the
world. This is an indication of his
commitment to exercising a more collegial approach to governance in the
Church. He laments the harm caused ‘to
our Sister, Mother Earth by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with
which God has endowed her.’ (Para 1,2).
He details this damage done to ‘our common home’, a home which we share
with the other creatures of this world.
He acknowledges that some environmental changes are caused naturally but
he has no hesitation in challenging the climate-deniers and sceptics, insisting
that human activity is the main source of the problems.
He spells out the problems caused by climate
change. These include melting glaciers,
rising sea-levels, acidification of the oceans and extreme weather events such
as droughts and floods. (Para 23-28). He
points out that it is the poorest people who suffer most from these problems –
and those are the very people who have done the least to cause the
problems. He speaks of the pollution of
the air, of the land, of fresh water and the oceans and draws attention to the
menace of waste as a result of which ‘the earth, our home, is beginning to look
more and more like an immense pile of filth’ (Para 21). He bemoans the loss of biodiversity, animals
and plants are all too often seen as resources, there to be exploited.
Stressing
the link between the growing environmental damage and its effects on the
poorest peoples he calls on us to ‘hear both the cry of the earth and the cry
of the poor.’ He introduces the very
thought provoking phrase ‘Ecological debt.’
He says that rich countries and rich groups in poor countries have taken
more than their fair share of the Earth’s resources. They now have a moral responsibility to pay
off this debt by compensating poor countries and poor people. This is challenging stuff!
