Inħarsu l-ħolqien
Paper presented by Vince Caruana 1/06/2001 (Ceritonia Foundation)
The
Judeo Christian Environmental Ethic puts forward three basic ideas:
If
one wants to honour God, one must honour all creation.
The
model of sustainable development has often been proposed as a model which
honours creation, since it attempts to value ALL creation by giving due credit
both to ecological sustainability and to economic development.
The philosophical justification for this proposition is beyond the scope
of this essay. Rather, this essay
will put forward the idea that the model of sustainable development has in
essence failed to find its due place on the world’s policy stage and we
therefore have an obligation to keep on searching for creative and concrete ways
to honour creation. We however first need to understand why the idea of
sustainable development has failed to bring about the expected profound changes.
Why
did the idea of sustainable development fail to bring about profound changes?
The
model of sustainable development has been with us for many years and has gained
near universal acceptance. This
model argues that the issue of ecological sustainability and the issue of
economic development are interdependent. In effect this model has failed to bring about any
fundamental changes on the world’s policy stage. A poisoned environment now
poses threats to us all: from ozone depletion, acid rain, the destruction of
rainforests, the desertification of vast areas, contaminated water and food, to
polluted air, toxic and nuclear wastes, endangered wildlife and loss of species,
global warming trends, and more. Over
one billion people still live in severe poverty. Women and children suffer the
most. Creation has not been
honoured and sustainable development has remained largely a utopian goal.
The reasons are varied.
a)
The sustainable development principle was found to pose obstacles to
powerful interest groups (Schnaiberg, A. and Gould, K., 1994).
Putting forward this goal is not enough to set in motion the processes
necessary to lead to its dominance over competing goals.
b)
The shift from exploitation to conservation and from profit and progress
to balance and sustainability is a fundamental shift, which however is easily
disguised. Politicians,
businessmen, and civil society all underline the need to change our attitudes
towards the natural order. Beyond this rhetoric one has to analyse what changes
are these three sectors actually undergoing.
Governments channel public funds to create non-functional ministries and
committees. Corporations alter
advertising and labelling but do not alter basic business practices – some
even see environmental consciousness as a niche to exploit for profit making.
Civil Society Organisations harp on various environmental issues without
making vital connections, such as the fact that people at the lowest ranks of
society are the most affected by ecological destruction.
c)
Structural violence has often been emphasised to the expense of the
collapse of values or vice versa. Some
will speak only of oppression and some only of breakdown (Wallis, J., 1994).
Social oppression and cultural breakdown are both real and integrally
related. Our present crises comprise both toxic wastes and toxic
values, both the destruction of forests and the destruction of cultures, both an
alienation from the earth and an alienation from one another.
d)
We have failed to answer seriously the question: “Who among us has to
act?” Pass the buck is our
favourite game. Corporations
externalise costs, governments shun their responsibilities and citizens blame
everything on the government. Those
who decide to act responsibly often encounter enormous obstacles and at times
great personal risks.
e)
We are still largely ecologically illiterate. We thus often fail to make vital links.
Drive recklessly and hit a child – you are likely to be brought to
justice – and find little sympathy. Drive
a car with leaded petrol and cause intellectual impairment in countless children
– redress is unheard of - and most probably you will be considered weird if
you opt for more environmentally friendly technology.
While individual teachers may take a radical approach to environmental
education, national curricula rarely encourage children to challenge
environmental victimisation and to think politically.
f)
We still use the wrong instruments to measure the health of a nation.
We therefore never know whether we are honouring creation!!! Although the
dangers of using the Gross National Product (GNP) as an all-encompassing
indicator have long been pointed out, GNP is still a favourite indicator.
“GNP measures neither the health of our children, the quality of their education, nor the joy of their play. It measures neither the beauty of our poetry, nor the strength of our marriages. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It measures neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worth living, and it can tell us everything about our country except those things that make us proud to be part of it." (Kennedy, R., 1968).
Creative
and concrete ways to honour creation
Each
person and institution has to decide whether to act on their knowledge of the
current crisis or whether to acquiesce. Beyond
doubt the easier road to travel is passive acquiescence to the status quo (Schnaiberg,
A. and Gould, K., 1994). However
honouring creation poses a challenge for effective action.
This challenge includes facing the various realities that have relegated
sustainable development to an utopian dream.
a)
Since sustainable development poses a challenge to vested interests,
conflict is unavoidable. Many of us
find conflict distasteful - however it is not possible to simultaneously protect
the environment and avoid conflict. It
is better to channel our energies to re-examine our ways of handling conflict,
rather than hang on to naïve notions of our human condition. Though
conflicts are unpleasant, they may present new opportunities - for example
conflicts often present an opportunity to form networks and coalitions between
individuals and groups in support of social change.
Conflicts also present opportunities to form grass roots coalitions - in
such situations it is essential to mobilise the least powerful communities –
these are the most vulnerable to powerful interests.
Conflicts often devolve down to the interpersonal level.
Parents might consider concerns regarding economic success to override
any concerns for ecological sustainability.
Friends might not understand career and lifestyle choices.
Partners might have different ideas of material comfort.
Conflicts might also devolve down to the intrapersonal level, such as
coming to grips with difficult tradeoffs between social status and personal
integrity. Each conflict will
ultimately be solved in a way that either honours creation or dishonours
creation.
b)
The only real measure to decide whether politicians, businessmen or civil
society organisations are filling their time (and our time) with useless
rhetoric or whether they are positive agents of change is to ask whether justice
is being done. What is the USA
actually doing to harness climate change and protect vulnerable communities from
its worst effects? What is
Nike actually doing to improve conditions for its 500, 000 strong global
workforce? What are civil society
organisations actually doing to move beyond the concerns of affluent people?
Honouring creation demands that Environmental Justice be done – this is
defined as environmental protection aimed at equalising social opportunity.
c)
It is a tragedy to split social oppression and cultural breakdown.
We need to search for creative ways of understanding both realities and
the dynamic connection between the two. We
already have some positive models to help point out a future direction that
honours creation. Time banks and LETS schemes offer an alternative to an
oppressive economy which marginalizes the weakest members of society while
giving due value to activities such as helping neighbours with their shopping,
walking the dog, or gardening. In
other words these schemes help people become a little more self sufficient and a
little less useless. Fair Trade is
the reason why thousands of small farmers still have a livelihood at all, while
at the same time removing the anonymity of world trade.
d)
Sara Parkin, a green activist reflecting on her personal and political
life choices, said that “despite the enormity of the task it still feels more
like a great opportunity than a terminal crisis” (Parkin, S., 1991).
Ultimately you must decide who you are, who you want to be, and what you
want to do in the light of your understanding of the world around you and your
place in it (Saltzman, 1991).
e)
Environmental Education is the primary vehicle to help individuals and
societies attain ecological literacy. Robottom
(1987) argues that an environmental education perspective poses a dual
challenge. The first challenge
requires practitioners to adopt pedagogical approaches that include
interdisciplinarity, problematising knowledge and values, the active
investigation of local issues, and the development of willingness and skills to
participate in environmental protection and improvement.
The second challenge involves conscientising practitioners to the
transformative nature of environmental education and empowering them to be
active, critically reflective practitioners in their chosen profession.
These challenges have not till now been taken seriously in Malta, and the
lack of political commitment towards Environmental Education is a dishonour to
creation!
f)
We need to find creative alternatives to GNP to be able to measure the
health of our country and our planet. The
goal of an economy is not simply to increase cash but to improve human and
environmental health. The time has come for our country to devise local
measurable indicators of human well being. The basket of indicators would
include environmental indicators such as the quality of air, food and water and
the number of species, and social ones such as equity ratios, health statistics
and crime rates. These indicators
can vary from community to community and might even be decided by the community
itself (Parkin, S., 1991).
I
would like to conclude this essay by quoting the late Donella Meadows.
“The
crux of the matter is not only whether the human species will survive, but even
more whether it can survive without falling into a state of worthless
existence”.
Honouring
creation means celebrating a state of worthwhile existence.
This cannot be forced upon an unwilling society.
It however can be secured through personal and political choice.
Armstrong, S. & Botzler, R. Environmental Ethics Divergence and
Convergence. New York: McGraw
Hill, 1993.
Meadows, D. et al. The Limits to Growth. London: Earth Island,
1972 in Parkin, S. Green Futures. London: Fount, 1991.
Parkin, S. Green Futures. London: Fount, 1991.
Robottom, 1987 in Fien, J. Education for Sustainable Living: a New
Agenda for Teacher Education. Australia:
Griffith University, 1993 in Unit 1: Introduction to Environmental and
Development Education. London: South Bank University, 1995.
Schnaiberg, A. and Gould, K. Environment and Society – the Enduring
Conflict. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Saltzman, A. Downshifting: Reinventing Success on a Slower Track.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1991 in Schnaiberg, A. and Gould, K. Environment
and Society – the Enduring Conflict. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Wallis, J. The Soul of Politics. London: Fount, 1994.