Yes, the Ecupatriarch (ugh). The rebranding continues. Follow his tweets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Live feed to the conference here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple paragraphs from the patriarch’s opening address<\/a> yesterday. This is the sort of thing you get from a mediocre political speech: lots of significant-sounding phraseology, appeals to our higher nature, even our spiritual longings, but in the end you’re left asking: Where is he going with this? We’re all responsible for the “future of the planet”? What?<\/p>\n

By criticizing the wealthy West, again, and denigrating technology, we know there is an agenda here but, outside of the previous endorsement of the UN’s climate change plan<\/a>, it is only hinted at. Whoever is writing this stuff for the patriarch should be caned. Preferably with one of those bishop’s canes with the heavy silver knob on the end of it.<\/p>\n

Having struggled for centuries to escape from the tyranny of hunger, disease, and want, the technological advances of the last half century have created the illusion of us being in control of our destiny as never before. We have cracked the code of DNA, we can create life in test tubes, we can genetically modify crops, we can put men upon the moon \u2013 but we have lost our balance, externally and within. Wealth generated in the developed world has not put an end to suffering. Technological achievements were not able to contain the wrath of nature witnessed in this area only four years ago. The explosion of knowledge has not been accompanied by an increase in wisdom. Only wisdom could make us realize that the Creation is an interdependent, undivided whole, not an assemblage of isolated, unrelated parts that can be eliminated, replaced or modified as we see fit. Even the smallest human intervention, even the minutest change in the natural order brought about by human action can have \u2013 and does have – long term devastating effects on the planet.<\/p>\n

In addition to seeking balance between ourselves and our environment, we need to find balance within ourselves, reassessing our values as well as what is valuable. Let us remember that whoever we are, we all have our part to play, our sacred responsibility to the future. And let us remember that our responsibility grows alongside our privileges; we are more accountable the higher we stand on the scale of leadership. Our successes or failures, personal and collective, determine the lives of billions. Our decisions, personal and collective, determine the future of the planet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, the Ecupatriarch (ugh). The rebranding continues. Follow his tweets here. Live feed to the conference here. Here are a couple paragraphs from the patriarch’s opening address yesterday. This is the sort of thing you get from a mediocre political speech: lots of significant-sounding phraseology, appeals to our higher nature, even our spiritual longings, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[256,847,160,296,48,827],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4047"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4057,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047\/revisions\/4057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}