environmentalism

While the Patriarchal address has much to commend it, the leveling of ideas it exhibits is troubling. The essay below was originally written as a comment, but I posting it here for comment and analysis.

Frankly, the ideas in this speech are muddled. It sounds like it an American wrote it who has only a cursory understanding of the history of ideas.

For instance, while the examples citing Ghandi and King are true, it is overlooked that the reason for Ghandi’s success was that the English, despite their empire building in India, still responded to Ghandi’s appeals that were shaped by and heard through the Christian moral tradition. The same holds true for King. He was successful because by drawing on the morality of the Christian tradition, particularly the inherent value of the individual, he awakened the conscience of nation shaped by that tradition.

Ghandi’s and King’s success however does not translate into a universal appeal for non-violence, simply because non-violence is not a moral value transferable to all cultures (take Islam for example). This is not to say that Christians should espouse violence, but only that the moral reasoning employed in the speech does not reach very deep.

Further, the speeches posits politcal polarities as if the only difference between them are of a kind, not value. “Should I have an apple or banana with lunch?” is all it asks. In fact, there is a world of difference between say, Progressive and Classical Liberal or Conservative ideas (Gramsci or Alinsky vs, say, Burke or Kirk) that diverge not only at their goals but, more importantly, in their foundational ideas. These foundational ideas are essential, and anyone who understands them will see that what the EP cites as three critical questions of the age:

1) Nonviolence;
2) Philanthropy, specifically in the form of healthcare; and
3) Environmentalism

depend on an even more fundamental question (and I would argue the question of the age): What is man? The crisis in the West in other words, is anthropological. The issues the EP cites, while important, are driven first by this foundational question. Continue reading →

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese released the schedule for Ecumenical Patriarch Batholomew’s visit to the United States in October. Separately, a detailed agenda for his upcoming environmental symposium has been posted online.

The patriarch’s “Symposium VIII — Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River” offers a rare opportunity to present Orthodoxy’s distinctive, sacramental understanding of the stewardship of Creation to America and the world. And this trip, which will involve about 200 participants in all, will no doubt generate a huge volume of media attention. We will be following the symposium closely here on the Observer.

If the text accompanying the agenda is any indication, the work of the symposium will be heavily inflected by an environmentalist ethic that looks at humanity primarily as a source of pollution and largely ignores the benefits of balanced economic development that does not degrade or abuse Creation. There is the utopian dream of returning the Earth to its pristine, pre-industrial state. Example:

But the fate of the Mississippi waters is more than one aspect of global warming. It is also, very acutely, an ethical crisis. The exploitation of the great river – its pollution, the disastrous confinements of its course and the draining of its wetlands – is starting to produce catastrophic human and natural consequences. But it is not clear that the lessons of the Katrina hurricane have been learned. Development for short-term gain rushes ahead, especially in the Delta itself.

The Mississippi is a challenge not only to human responsibility for the environment, but to democracy. Many people know what should be done: a curb on development and a massive, costly programme to restore the river to something like its ancient health. But few are ready to vote for it. That is the real Mississippi crisis.

The Symposium agenda writer also notes, about a Day One stop in Memphis at the National Civil Rights Museum, that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of racial equality has been only partially realized with the election of President Barack Obama. “Yet fulfilling the dream of economic justice and what is termed today ecojustice, which is of particular concern to the Symposium, has not been realised,” we are told. Continue reading →

Message from His All Holiness (June 5, 2009). The patriarch’s full text follows:

Today’s World Environment Day is an opportunity as well as an invitation for all of us, irrespective of religious background, to consider the ecological crisis.

In our time, more than ever before, there is an undeniable obligation for all to understand that environmental concern for our planet does not comprise a romantic notion of the few. The ecological crisis, and particularly the reality of climate change, constitutes the greatest threat for every form of life in our world. Moreover, there is an immediate correlation between protection of the environment and every expression of economic and social life.

For our Orthodox Church, the protection of the environment as God’s creation is the supreme responsibility of human beings, quite apart from any material or other financial benefits that it may bring. The almighty God bequeathed this “very beautiful” world (Gen. 1.26) to humanity together with the commandment to “serve and preserve” it. Yet, the direct correlation of this divine mandate for the protection of creation to every aspect of contemporary economic and social life, ultimately enhances the global effort to control the problem of climate change by effectively introducing the ecological dimension into every aspect of life. Continue reading →