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C h a P T e r 6

Option for the Poor and Option for the earth Toward a Sustainable Solidarity

s T e P h e n B e D e s C h a r P e r

On December 3, 1984, at five past midnight, tons of noxious gas from union Carbide’s pesticide plant spewed into the city of Bhopal, india, forming a deadly, enveloping fog. Thousands of women, children, men, parents, and grandparents died agonizing deaths that night—close to 3,800 persons, according to union Carbide. approximately 160,000 Bhopal citizens were treated within twenty-four hours in the local hospi- tal, gasping for air, their eyes burning, their throats singed with poison gas, all in wrenching pain. Over 8,000 residents, according to local doc- tors, perished within the next week. in addition, thousands of domesti- cated animals, migratory birds, and countless wildlife also perished. it remains the worst industrial accident in history.1

if this were the end of the story, it would be sufficient tragedy for a lifetime. yet the horror continues. Twenty years later, the people of Bho- pal are still dying from the effects of the union Carbide disaster, drinking the contaminated water, eating fish from Bhopal’s picturesque but now toxic lakes, and remaining exposed to deadly chemicals that have yet to be cleaned up. Deformed and stillborn children are commonplace in Bhopal, and visitors note few households without someone acutely ill or dying. some estimate the fatality toll now lies between 16,000 and

The Preferential Option for the Poor Beyond Theology, edited by Daniel G. Groody, and Gustavo A. Gutierrez, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/seattleu/detail.action?docID=3441153. Created from seattleu on 2018-11-01 14:37:49.

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98 Stephen Bede Scharper

30,000, with more than 500,000 inhabitants “injured for life” by the toxic release.2 recent medical studies even suggest long-term genetic ef- fects from the gas leaks. Both the indian government and Dow Chemical, who later bought union Carbide, consider the matter closed, having achieved a $470 million cash settlement in May 1989.

welcomed to Bhopal in 1968, the union Carbide pesticide plant was part of the “green revolution,” an initiative to help india and other devel- oping nations achieve agricultural independence through industrial agri- cultural scientific advances. Framed within a developmentalist approach to economic progress, as marked by u.s. President John F. kennedy’s alliance for Progress and the united nations Decade for Development, such programs were heralded as vehicles for initiative, self-reliance, and economic prosperity for underdeveloped nations of the south. yet, as in Bhopal, so many of these strategies have led to deepening poverty and ecological destruction.

Bhopal is but one notorious example of the deepening suffering that certain development agendas have rendered in nations of the south, where promises of prosperity often yield economic and ecological despair for many generations to come. Bhopal is thus a fitting starting point for a consideration of the nexus among poverty, social justice, and environ- mental despoliation.

liberation theology, using the social sciences and attempting to read the Bible through the prisms of the poor, brought an important critique to this developmentalist agenda. By adopting a preferential option for the poor, liberation theologians were able to identify both the economic bias toward the affluent and the failed promises of prosperity ensuing from developmentalist designs. in this essay, i will explore how the option for the poor represents: (a) a perduring challenge to environmental studies, particularly the notion of sustainable development; (b) a foundational critique of the notion of modernity; and (c) a guiding cairn on the path of integrating issues of social justice and ecological sustainability. The preferential option for the poor, as enunciated by latin american libera- tion theologians and later elaborated in ecclesial, theological, and philo- sophical praxis and reflection, is a foundational concept. in other words, it is a core, rather than peripheral, precept for religious reflection, and can also be one, i believe, for environmental studies. as one who toils in both the areas of religious studies and of environmental studies, i wish here to

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propose that the option for the poor is perhaps one of the most fertile and perduring grounds in which both religious and environmental studies might sink and extend their roots.

O P T i O n F O r T h e P O O r : w h aT i s i T ?

in order to opt for the poor, one must be nonpoor. in other words, one must be in a privileged position to choose a stance of solidarity; after all, one cannot opt for what one already is. in this sense, the option for the poor, as originally understood, is an opportunity for engaged compassion of the economically and socially privileged with the economically and socially marginalized. irish theologian Donal Dorr explains the concept this way: “an ‘option for the poor,’ in the sense in which it is intended here, means a series of choices, personal or communal, made by indi- viduals, by communities, or even by corporate entities such as a religious congregation. . . . it is a choice to disentangle themselves from servicing the interest of those at the ‘top’ of society and to begin instead to come in to solidarity with those at or near the bottom.”3 not surprisingly, one of the most succinct definitions of the preferential option for the poor is provided by Peruvian theologian and pastor Gustavo Gutiérrez, “the founding father,” if you will, of the theology of liberation. Gutiérrez breaks down the phrase to component parts: poverty and option.

Poverty, he notes, while consisting of social, economic, and political deprivation, ultimately signifies “death, unfair death, the premature death of the poor; physical death.”4 he writes: “in the last analysis, the poverty that is lived in latin america means a situation of premature and unjust death, from hunger and illness or from the repressive methods used by those who are defending their privileges. Besides physical death there is cultural death from ‘the devaluation of races and cultures and from the refusal to recognize the full dignity of women.’”5 Gutiérrez notes that anthropologists like to say that culture is life: “if a culture is despised, then that life is despised.”6 Moreover, cultural death often marches arm in arm with physical death. “That is why,” Gutiérrez continues, “Christian communities in latin america often speak of the God of life and reject unjust physical and cultural death as well as other manifestations of self- ishness and sin.”7

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what is meant by “the poor?” Gutiérrez notes that the poor are the insignificant, those with no ecclesial or societal heft. he writes the poor person is “the one who must wait a week at the door of the hospital to see a doctor. a poor person is one without social or economic weight, who is robbed by unjust laws; someone who has no way of speaking up or acting to change the situation. someone who belongs to a despised race and feels culturally marginalized is in-significant. in sum, the poor are found in the statistics, but they do not appear there with their own names. we do not know the names of the poor; they are anonymous and remain so. They are insignificant in society but not before God.”8 Gutiérrez provides a compelling eyewitness account of the insignificance of the poor. Partici- pating in the funeral of archbishop Oscar romero in san salvador in 1980, Gutiérrez notes that about forty persons were killed as shots and explosions shattered the celebration in the cathedral plaza.

in his groundbreaking study A Theology of Liberation: History, Poli- tics, and Salvation, Gutiérrez developed a compelling notion of liberation with three interrelated, interdependent dimensions: (1) the hope of poor and oppressed persons to achieve economic, social, cultural, and political liberation; (2) the historical reality of poor persons taking the reins of their own destinies and experiencing their agency as historical subjects; and (3) the emancipation, through Jesus Christ, from the bondage of sin.9

For Gutiérrez, liberation is a result of what was, in the 1960s, a new political consciousness in latin america. “liberation,” he noted, “means shaking off the yoke of economic, social, political, and cultural domina- tion to which we have been submitted.”10 in delineating the features of this domination, Gutiérrez and other liberation theologians sought read- ing assistance from social scientists, especially those who both articulated and critiqued developmentalist economic theory. noting how inter- national development projects represented a profound and powerful so- cial, economic, cultural, psychological, and even ontological and spiritual agenda, Gutiérrez critiqued key tenets of developmentalist theory, as es- poused by such prominent developmentalist theorists as walt w. rostow, alex inkeles, David McClelland, and Talcott Parsons. he noted how such theorists claimed that societies progressed from preliterate to mod- ern market economies in stages,11 and that people of underdeveloped na- tions had to be involved in projects of political maturation to become modern persons, whose traits included a developed sense of punctuality, a

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more serious interest in efficiency, and a propensity to view the world as calculable.12 some claimed that self-reliance and an achievement orienta- tion were essential characteristics of the modern person, arguing that if certain underdeveloped nations could be infused with the need for achievement, entrepreneurial zip would begin to spur economic develop- ment.13 Others, espousing an evolutionary approach like rostow, sug- gested that the economics of the first world represented the apogee of the evolutionary process, and underdeveloped nations must be helped on their road to develop just like the developed nations.14

in all the above designs, the development process was seen as univer- sally applicable, regardless of social, cultural, religious, or ecological con- text. The developmentalist approach suggested that if a state were merely to create a set of conditions, follow a carefully proscribed developmental- ist agenda (and just “add water”), a nation could almost automatically achieve development.

yet the historical reality failed to follow the theoretical script. as be- came strikingly evident by the end of the 1960s, the harvest of this agenda was increasingly grim. Ten years of developmentalist projects, green revo- lution agriculture, and industrialization had yielded not the bright prom- ise of prosperity, but trade imbalances, escalating debt, higher infant mortality, lower life expectancy, and a yawning gap between rich and poor.15 in short, the developmentalist dream was becoming a nightmare. Moreover, the environmental front fared little better than the socioeco- nomic one: increasing deforestation, urban industrial pollution, and soil and water contamination from chemical-based agriculture were but a few of development’s legacies in nations of the south. significantly, the devel- opmentalist theoreticians had not only failed to take into account local social, political, economic, and cultural contexts in the regions they sought to improve, they also neglected on the whole to consider their ecological contexts, and viewed nature largely as a neutral backdrop on which to paint their master plans of modernization, providing limitless resources and receptacles for waste.

Building on the core-periphery model of andre Gunder Frank,16 who argued that underdevelopment in latin america was a direct conse- quence of world capitalist development, with the core exploiting the periphery, liberation theologians and philosophers increasingly viewed development and underdevelopment as siamese twins rather than distant

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relatives. in other words, you cannot have one without the other. nations do not evolve out of this system into the bracing dawn of abundance and economic independence, but rather are locked into a world system, as social theorist immanuel wallerstein would argue, of exploitative, depen- dent economic relationships.17

Development leads to dependence, a situation in which the plurality of latin americans found themselves by the mid-1960s. Development, for Gutiérrez, finds its true meaning only in the more universal, pro- found, and radical perspective of liberation, which emphasizes the con- flictual aspect of economic, social, and political processes.18 Gutiérrez, in rejecting developmentalism, which had been offered as a balm for the impoverished of latin america, sought a different term, one that would capture the hopes and aspirations of persons at the bottom and speak to the conflictual nature of society. he chose the term liberation in part as an antidote to development.

rather than an abstract and ahistorical agenda imposed from above, the notion of liberation, generated by those locked in dependence, takes into account society’s political, social, and economic struggles, and repre- sents more accurately, Gutiérrez argues, the aspirations of those on the underside of history.

Gutiérrez, however, also had a strong theological rationale for adopt- ing the notion of liberation. Just as he rejected developmentalist econom- ics, so too did he renounce developmentalist theology. referring to the “theology” of development, Gutiérrez observes that the mode of theo- logical reflection remains unchanged: “The error of development . . . is not a questioning of a type of intelligence of faith; it is not theological reflection in the context of the liberation process; it is not critical reflec- tion from and on the historical praxis of liberation, from and on faith as liberation praxis. To theologize thus will require a change of perspec- tive.”19 For Gutiérrez, the change in perceptive is encapsulated in the term liberation.

Moreover, the poverty identified by latin american liberationist thought in the 1960s continues into the present under the banner of globalization, as exiled argentinean liberation philosopher enrique Dus- sel contends:

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above all, the reality out of which such a [liberation] philosophy emerged is today more pressing than ever before in its continuous and maddening spiral of underdevelopment: the misery, the poverty, the exploitation of the oppressed of the global periphery (in latin america, africa, or asia), of the dominated classes, of the marginalized, of the “poor” in the “center,” and the african-americans, hispanics, Turks, and others, to whom we would have to add women as sexual objects, the “useless” aged gathered in misery or in asylums, the exploited and drugged up youth, the silenced popular and national cultures and all the “wretched of the earth,” as Franz Fanon put it, who wait and struggle for their liberation.20

in opting for the poor, a liberationist perspective asks why people are poor—a key and unsettling query that helped prompt Gutiérrez and others to look at social scientific systems of development and underdevel- opment. The poor are not poor because it is God’s will, it was argued, but because of structural injustices. They are not underdeveloped persons; rather, they are fully developed persons who are exploited by unjust eco- nomic, social, and spiritual oppression. For Gutiérrez, while sin is always a personal and free act, it is also the rupture of friendship between God and humanity and between ourselves and others. it thus has a profoundly social dimension in the liberationist gaze, for such personal sin leads to unjust social, political, and economic structures. hence, building on the social gospel theology of walter rauschenbusch and others, liberation theologians spoke in terms of “social” or “structural” sin,21 concepts af- firmed and explored in subsequent magisterial documents.

when applied to the realm of environmental studies, such queries prompt one to ask, why is there such devastating soil erosion, air pollu- tion, ozone depletion, acid rain, toxic waste sites, and species extinction? is it simply God’s will that humans are destroying the earth, the natural consequence of human progress, or does it pertain to social and political sin, owing to certain economic, political, and cultural systems? The op- tion for the poor compels environmentalists to connect the processes that dehumanize persons to those that denude landscapes. is there a connec- tion between clear-cut societies in Darfur and clear-cut forests in Brit- ish Columbia? Moreover, an option for the poor asks the question, why are aboriginal cultures being destroyed in the amazon along with the

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rainforest ecosystem in which they dwell? is there a connection between opting for the poor and opting for the earth?22

O P T i O n F O r T h e P O O r : a C h a l l e n G e TO s u s Ta i n a B l e D e v e l O P M e n T

as intimated, one area where the option for the poor has particular sig- nificance surrounds the notion of “sustainable development.” This term was a key feature of the “global agenda for change,” addressed to the united nations General assembly by the world Commission on envi- ronment and Development in 1987. headed by Gro harlem Bruntland, norway’s first woman prime minister, the commission, surveying eco- logical and socioeconomic devastation around the world, articulated the idea of sustainable development, defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”23

in many ways the notion of sustainable development is an advance over previous forms of economic progress. it takes into account the need to plan for and think about future generations, and begins to equate so- cial and economic progress with the state of the world’s ecosystems. The Bruntland report argued that the “ability to anticipate and prevent envi- ronmental damage will require that the ecological dimension of policy be considered at the same time as the economic, trade, energy, agricultural, and other dimensions.”24 For those exposed to articulations of the option for the poor, however, the notion of sustainable development is lined with dire warning labels.25

The idea of sustainable development, despite its advances, appears to avoid the political and economic critiques of development, such as de- pendency theory, which characterize much of the liberationist critique from nations of the south. if, as andre Gunder Frank maintains, one does not have development without underdevelopment, than arguably one does not have sustainable development without “unsustainable underde- velopment.” The fact that the nations of the north have not even achieved sustainable development, yet are now trying to help prescribe sustainable plans for nations of the south, breeds more than a little skepticism in the

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nonindustrialized world. add to this that the united states, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, refused, under the administration of George w. Bush, to sign the kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and such skepticism deepens.

The option for the poor suggests that the poor and marginalized of the world not only be taken into account as new economic and ecological stratagems are devised, but that they be prioritized. without this prioriti- zation, environmental strategy that produces new forms of marginaliza- tion for the poor and for endangered and impoverished ecosystems may result.

The social affairs Commission of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed this point forcefully in its controversial 1983 statement on Canada’s economic recession:

The need and rights of the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed are given special attention in God’s Plan for Creation (wa, n. 4). Through- out his ministry Jesus repeatedly identified with the plight of the poor and the outcasts of society (e.g., Phil 2:6–8; lk 6:20–21). he also took a critical attitude towards the accumulation of wealth and power that comes through the exploitation of others (e.g., lk 16:13–15; 12:16–21; Mk 4:19). This has become known as “the preferential option for the poor” in the scriptures. in a given economic order, the needs of the poor take pri- ority over the wants of the rich. . . . This does not mean simply handouts for the poor. it calls instead for an equitable redistribution of wealth and power among peoples and regions.26

Moreover, the bishops aver that the poor and marginalized must be in- cluded in any decision-making process as well as in economic (or envi- ronmental) strategies that will affect their lives or attempt to improve their condition: “as subjects of creation, all peoples have rights to self- determination, to define their own future and to participate effectively in decisions affecting their lives. . . . This is essential if working people, the poor and the marginalized are going to exercise their rights to be subjects of their own history. . . . in effect, the participation of the marginalized takes precedence over an order that excludes them.”27

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a D O P T i n G a n O P T i O n F O r T h e P O O r i n e n v i rO n M e n Ta l i n i T i aT i v e s

This option for the poor can also be used to enhance and critique seem- ingly optimistic environmental campaigns, such as habitat and wildlife conservation projects. unless poor persons are consulted and prioritized in such policy deliberations, one will have misguided environmental initi- atives, such as Project Tiger, according to indian environmental scholar ramachandra Guha. Guha argues such a project is reflective of a u.s. deep ecological perspective that privileges “biocentrism” or “wilderness preservation” over “anthropocentrism” or socioeconomic concerns. while wilderness preservation might be contextually appropriate for u.s. so- ciety given its distinctive demographics and settlement history, it is inap- propriate for india, he claims, with its longstanding human settlement and dense population in which agrarian communities have achieved a “finely balanced” relationship with their natural environments. he argues that Project Tiger, a series of conservation parks hailed internationally as a success, was made possible only by displacing existing villages and their inhabitants. Prompted by former hunters from india’s declining feu- dal elite, in concert with the world wildlife Fund and the international union for the Conservation of nature and natural resources, the project sought to transplant a u.s.-style park system onto the indian landscape. Claiming that the resulting parks are geared toward affluent tourists, Guha asserts that the needs of the local population were not taken into account. Consequently, more pressing environmental problems facing india’s poor, such as water erosion, fuel, air, and water pollution, have been ignored. such an import of an american wilderness ethic, Guha maintains, ultimately masks the two most pressing ecological dilemmas facing the world: overconsumption by industrialized nations of the north and urban elites within nations of the south; and growing militarization, manifested both in regional conflicts and in the threat of nuclear annihi- lation.28

Just as Gutiérrez and other liberation theologians sounded a tocsin of concern over the developmentalist agenda, so too do Guha and other environmentalists of the south issue a warning against recent sustainable developmentalist stratagems. in both cases, the top-down approach of the

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empowered nations avoids an appreciation of, or a consultation with, the lived experience and social, economic, cultural, and political context of the marginalized, which in many cases constitute the majority of their intended beneficiaries. in addition, in both cases, the poor involved in the stratagems are not only excluded, but also sometimes further disen- franchised.

Just as the three aspects of liberation—economic, historical, and spiritual—have to be taken together in addressing the needs of impover- ished persons, so too do economics, politics, and ecology in dealing with impoverished ecosystems. in a sense, they form a seamless fabric out of which the tapestry of sustainability must be sewn. and unless the stitch- ing of that garment includes the hands and hopes of the marginalized poor, the ultimate fruit of that labor may well be used to diminish the poor further, and the ecosystems within which they dwell. in this sense, the Greek notion of oikos (household), from which derive the words “economy” and “ecology,” has relevance; no household is sustainable in which the children die of starvation or malnourishment, the pets perish from poisons, and the plants die from neglect or wanton destruction.

O P T i O n F O r T h e P O O r a n D a C r i T i Q u e O F M O D e r n i T y: T h e e M e rG e n C e O F a s O C i a l e C O l O G y

The option for the poor, combined with a contextualized concern for destroyed ecosystems, has led liberation theologians such as leonardo Boff and ivone Gebara of Brazil to adopt a social ecology, as distinct from a wilderness ecology, in a manner similar to that of ramachandra Guha. such an ecology sees a correlation between the “cry of the poor” and the “cry of the earth,” and pays special attention to marginalized peoples, such as the aboriginal groups in the amazon, whose traditional lifeways are razed along with the rainforest in pursuing the commercial interests of ranching, mining, and timber, as well as other enterprises. For Boff, the ecological crisis points to a fundamental crisis of the modern world, erected upon an exploitative economic pattern of development and un- derdevelopment, whose ultimate harvest is death: “we have never seen death on such a scale today caused by unemployment, low wages, disease, and violence. Dozens of still surviving indigenous peoples are rapidly

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disappearing. in this way, we shall lose forever forms of humanity of which we have great need.”29 as Boff has pointed out, the preferential op- tion for the poor and oppressed in liberation theology leads to a broader critique of the modern project, the modern self, and our role as humans.

enrique Dussel has been at the forefront of the critique to which Boff refers and succinctly articulates the liberationist critique of mo- dernity:

we were conscious of being the “other face” of modernity. Modernity was born in 1492. . . . The centrality of europe eurocentrism originated when europe was able to dominate the arab world, which had been the center of the known world up to the 15th century. The “i,” which begins with the “i conquer” of hernan Cortes or Pizarro, which in fact precedes the Cartesian ego cogito by about a century, produces indian genocide, african slavery, and asian colonial wars. The majority of today’s humanity (the south) is the outer face of modernity; it is neither pre- nor anti- nor post- modern, nor can this south “end” or “realize” such a modernity.30

Dussel argues that the notion of the modern self did not begin with rené Descartes’ celebrated insight “i think therefore i am,” but rather with the new world conquistadors’ apprehension “i conquer, therefore i am.” in vanquishing the great incan and aztec empires, the european, Dussel argues, discovered himself and herself as modern, rather than primitive, and therefore superior. in this sense, conquest of the other was inherent to the notion of modernity.

highlighting an insight of Gutiérrez, Dussel notes that, whereas the european political theologians deal with the oppressed but modern human subject, the liberation theologians deal with the oppressed “non- person” of the south.31 Dussel, after describing what a liberationist van- tage critiques, outlines what it envisions: “we propose a philosophy of liberation of the Other that is beyond the horizon of the economic- political-hegemonic world (fratricide), of the eurocentric communication community (filicide), of the phallic eroticism which castrates women (uxoricide) and last but not least, the subject which uses nature as an exploitable mediation for the valorization of the value of capital (eco- cide).”32 here Dussel stretches his liberationist philosophy to include the biosphere, and links it with other forms of death. in this, his ecology is

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one that is simultaneously social, economic, political, and ontological, suggesting that the fault lines of the environmental crisis run along those of social, economic, political, gendered, and cultural oppression.

liberation theologians such as Dussel, Boff, and Gebara are attempt- ing to construct an “alternative and integral modernity.”33 They are fash- ioning a social ecology that delineates a social justice framework, adopts a preferential option for the poor, and seeks a holistic integration of these approaches within an appreciation of the earth’s ecosystems.

C O n s T ru C T i v e e C O l O G i C a l r e s P O n s e s TO T h e O P T i O n F O r T h e P O O r

The theological sparks within Jewish and Christian circles engendered by the ecological crisis, whose flames were fanned by the accusatory 1967 Science article “The historical roots of Our ecologic Crisis,” by lynn white, Jr., have moved the debate from a few disparate campfires in the early 1960s to countless large, bright, and well-fueled theological and pastoral bonfires today. The notion of stewardship, for example, has been given considerable attention in theological and magisterial reflection, and Creation-centered spirituality has been influential not only within reli- gious congregations but in public policy debates as well. The national religious Partnership for the environment, for example, formed in the early 1990s at the prodding of prominent members of the scientific com- munity, continues to bring Jewish and Christian communities in the united states together to address ecological concerns. The work of Mary evelyn Tucker and John Grim, founders of the Forum on religion and ecology, has resulted in ten volumes on world religions and ecology pub- lished through harvard university, as well as an ecology and justice series that they, along with leonardo Boff, have spearheaded for Orbis Books. Moreover, the Justice, Peace, and integrity of Creation initiative of the world Council of Churches in the 1970s put these three concerns to- gether at an institutional level within the Christian context, and this in- tegration continues with the wCC efforts in addressing climate change under the direction of David hallman. in Canada, the Faith and the Common Good project, spearheaded by Ted reeve and Bill Phipps, as well as the Canadian Forum on religion and ecology, chaired by heather

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eaton and James Miller, are also attempting to advance theological reflec- tion and pastoral activity around environmental concerns.34

although these initiatives are diverse and growing, they do not on the whole adopt explicitly a preferential option for the poor. such an op- tion can be discerned, however, in a variety of ecological initiatives around the world, both faith based and secular, a few of which are worthy of mention here.35

The social ecology advocated by Guha and Boff, as well as indian environmentalist vandana shiva, is reflected in the hundreds of social/ environmental groups that have been formed in the last two decades throughout nations of the south, with over five hundred emerging in latin america alone, most of which are located in cities, and all of which adopt a social ecology that sees poverty as a primary environmental issue.36

Ecological Debt

Many of these groups have recently coalesced around the notion of “eco- logical debt,” a dynamic synthesizing of an option for the poor with envi- ronmental destruction through the lens of international debt. Citing the historical conquest and colonization of their lands, the appropriation and patenting of their various seeds and ancestral knowledge, the continuing ecological destruction of their nations to fuel foreign debt payments, eco- logical debt groups note that the nations of the north owe an ecological debt to nations of the south which has not been acknowledged, let alone repaid.

as aurora Donoso, of acción ecológica, in ecuador, writes, this eco- logical debt encompasses the “biopiracy” of indigenous seeds and indeed human genetic material, as well as a fostering of consumerism and milita- rization. Because of the comprehensive nature of this term, as well as the passion that underlies its articulation, Donoso’s definition of ecological debt is worth quoting:

when ancestral knowledge and seeds have been appropriated and utilised. when science is used to produce hybrid or genetically modified

seeds, breaking reproductive cycles for the benefit of transnational corporations which patent life, and attack the food sovereignty of the peoples. . . .

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when toxic waste is produced and deposited in Third world countries, especially in the poorest areas.

when the illegitimate, inhuman, and immoral external debt, which has already been paid, is used to enslave people to the service of capital and to sustaining this flow of natural goods, cheap labour, and financial resources from south to north. . . .

when the desecration of life has reached such a point that the industrialised countries have even stolen the genes of the most iso- lated indigenous communities for the human genome project. . . .

all these forms of appropriation, destruction, and alteration of life, carried out principally by the industrialised countries of the north, are what we call the ecological debt, which those countries owe to the countries of the Third world and the planet.37

U’wa Defense Working Group

while ecological concerns raised by the ecological debt groups are often based on Christian and liberal democratic, social justice values, indige- nous traditions are also expressed in such struggles. The u’wa, an in- digenous community of approximately five thousand people, is a case in point. The u’wa, who live in the sensitive and endangered cloud forest ecosystem of northeast Colombia have been struggling, in recent years, to protect their territory and culture from the development plans of both the Colombian government and Occidental Petroleum, a u.s.-based cor- poration that obtained an oil-drilling license in 1992 for u’wa land.38 in the u’wa cosmology, oil is the blood of Mother earth; to extract it, there- fore, is matricide.39 an u’wa statement was delivered in 1998: “we will in no way sell our Mother earth, to do so would be to give up our work of collaborating with the spirits to protect the heart of the world, which sustains and gives life to the rest of the universe, it would be to go against our own origins and those of all existence.”40 having witnessed the un- savory results of oil drilling in other territories (deforestation, oil spills, pollution, loss of culture, and military violence), the u’wa perceive the drilling project as a form of cultural and environmental death. since 1999 the u’wa have resisted the drilling through civil disobedience, spiritual fasting, and permanent assembly of traditional leaders. such peaceful protests, however, have been met with violence. in February and June of

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2001, nonviolent u’wa demonstrations at the drilling site were violently raided by Colombian police, who killed several children and injured scores of adults. since their resistance to the drilling commenced, the u’wa have inspired a solidarity movement in almost two dozen countries worldwide.41

The Chipko Movement

while not centered on external debt or oil drilling, the Chipko move- ment, beginning in 1973, also critiques certain aspects of development. Building on the hindu tradition of satyagraha, or nonviolent “soulforce,” the Chipko movement in the indian himalayas strives “to protect local forests and the people that dwell in them from contract logging, abusive resin-tapping, and other destructive land-use practices or development projects through nonviolent resistance efforts.”42 employing the practice of hugging trees in order to save them from loggers, Chipko activists ex- hibit a reverence for nature and use such religious practices as the reci- tation of hindu writings and ritual performance during protests.43 a grassroots movement primarily of impoverished rural women, Chipko puts the rights of subsistence harvesting from the forest against the larger corporate and governmental development interests, and in this represents a movement of and for poor persons and their traditional relationship with the forest.

Ecology Monks

a small group of Buddhist monks in Thailand, known informally as “ecology monks” (phra nak anuraksa) discern a nexus between the provenance of suffering (ignorance, greed, and hatred) and ecological despoliation.44 Deeming environmental activism to be part of their du- ties as Buddhist monastics, they have adapted traditional rituals and ceremonies to “conscienticize” about the value of nature and its cur- rent destruction and galvanize Buddhists to join conservation initiatives. Tree ordination rituals (buat ton mai ), in which trees are blessed and swathed in saffron robes to denote their sacred status, are reflective of a broader initiative to nourish a conservation ethic springing from Bud- dhist principles.45 Monks such as Phrakhru Pitak nanthakun, Phrakhru

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Manas natheepitak, and Phrakhru Prajak kuttajitto have coordinated a broad array of grassroots conservation projects, including tree ordinations and planting ceremonies, the establishment of wildlife preserves and sa- cred community gardens, “long-life” rituals for ecologically jeopardized areas, and sustainable community development and sustainable farm- ing.46 ecology monks, like members of the u’wa and Chipko groups, have taken stands against deforestation and pipeline construction, and have also protested environmentally harmful shrimp farming, dam con- struction, and cash-crop agriculture. Phrakhru Pitak, for example, has set up a nongovernmental organization, hag Muang nan Group (love nan Group), to oversee the environmental efforts of local village groups, government workers, and other nGOs in his home province of nan.47 “as respected leaders of Thai society, monks have a crucial role to play in transforming environmentally destructive attitudes and policies. simi- larly, the centrality of the temple in Thai village life makes the conser- vation efforts of rural monks especially effective; thanks to ecologically minded abbots, forest monasteries in Thailand harbor some of the last remaining natural forests.”48

Green Nuns

Throughout north america and in various countries throughout the world, a number of religious orders are engaging in “ecoministries.” roman Catholic women’s religious congregations in particular have for the last three decades made creative attempts to integrate environmental concerns into the heart of their ministries. These groups have rewritten their chapters and reworked their lands to include community-supported agriculture, energy-efficient and nonpolluting technologies such as solar heating; have turned manicured lawns into wild lands; and preserved seeds and restored polluted or degraded landscapes. Just as women’s or- ders were among the first Catholic communities to embrace institution- ally and integrate the teachings of vatican ii (1962–65), so too have they been among the first to incorporate environmental concerns systemati- cally and institutionally in their ministries. known as “green nuns,” these women have consistently adopted both a preferential option for the poor and an interest in the wonders and mystery of Creation, particularly in- spired by the important new cosmology of “geologian” Thomas Berry

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and mathematical cosmologist Brian swimme.49 Often, these ministries involve poor and inner-city youth in community-supported agriculture projects and donate the first fruits of their harvest to community food banks.

as the green nuns attest, the option for the poor not only animated Christian justice, peace, and solidarity groups within the churches during the 1970s and 1980s, it also arguably led to the church institutional infra- structure through which environmental concerns are now being ex- pressed, as evinced by the wCC’s efforts, as well as the linking of ecological work to justice and peace ministries. The option for the poor, in other words, helped form the institutional hook on which the churches would begin to hang ecological concerns. and, through sharing the same ecclesial foothold, tenuous as it may be in certain cases, the mutual inter- ests and interrelation of these two critical initiatives—social justice and ecology—are being explored and expanded.

C O n C l u s i O n

after reviewing some of the contours of the preferential option for the poor and its relevance for environmental activism and reflection, a variety of conclusions can be drawn. among these:

1. The impoverishment of the human is embedded in, not parallel to, eco- logical destruction; in other words, both are expressions of the same processes. Poverty, in this sense, is grounded in unequal ecologies.

2. The poor, as nonpersons, are not only eclipsed in a metaphysical, philo- sophical sense (modernity), but are also often excluded environmentally in conversations and projects about ecological sustainability.

3. environmental devastation emerges out of (and contributes to) the un- equal conditions of power that characterize the world; moreover, such power differentials are not random but rather are historical and structural.

4. Cosmological and religious shifts to a new appreciation of and regard for the earth have to be integrated within a social analysis of how the global- political economy continues to generate ecologically grounded poverty. ecological cosmologies are thus challenged to embrace political and eco- nomic structures, recognizing their origins in cultural ideas and practices.

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as the Bhopal tragedy reveals, and the work of environmental groups in nations of the south illustrates, schemes for development are often more disastrous than fruitful. in viewing Bhopal from the perspective of the poor, certain hidden realities are rendered visible: an abundance of cheap labor, the dubious location of a factory near concentrated and indi- gent populations as well as a critical watershed, and a political system with weak environmental and labor standards—in short, a population and an ecosystem vulnerable in almost all categories. in Bhopal, eco- nomic poverty and loss of jobs that affect the residents’ livelihood do not only ruin lives; residents now experience their “livinghood” jeopardized as their entire ecosystem is tainted. even if the citizens of Bhopal now were to get additional jobs or higher wages, their environment is perhaps permanently contaminated. as Bhopal grimly manifests, the option for the poor is not just about economics and politics, it is fundamentally about the environment as well. in Bhopal, marginalization henceforth occurs along economic, political, and ecological trajectories.

in helping articulate a critique of the developmentalist agenda, the option for the poor provides an important, sobering antidote to the promises of economic and political prosperity emanating from northern nations, as well as a caveat specifically to sustainable development strata- gems. The option for the poor also raises a perturbing and still largely undigested critique of the modern project itself, out of which most of our academic and environmental studies programs and initiatives spring. This stance forces privileged environmentalists to look at their own ideo- logical and economic biases, and to take seriously the participation of endangered human communities, such as amazonian tribal peoples, as well as endangered species, in their proposals. This option has also given rise, as suggested, to several challenging and dynamic movements that are trying to integrate issues of poverty and marginalization within an eco- logical framework, in hopes that the underside of future well-intentioned social and ecological projects might be discerned before their potential is fully expressed.

n OT e s

The author wishes to thank Gustavo Gutierrez and Daniel Groody not only for the invitation to contribute to this volume, but also for the cogent commitments

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to a more just and life-giving world which underlie their work. i also wish to thank my wife, hilary Cunningham, for her astute insights, editorial support, and her own inspiring witness to a more gracious environment. 1. For a gripping account of the Bhopal tragedy, see Dominique lapierre and Javier Moro, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, trans. kathryn spink (london: scribner, 2002). see also Martin regg Cohn, “Death stalks Bhopal 20 years later: 15,300 killed in wake of Disaster,” Toronto Star, nov. 27, 2004, 1, 22; and lindalee Tracey, Peter raymount, and harold Crooks, prods. and dirs., Bho- pal: The Search for Justice (Toronto: national Film Board of Canada, nov. 2004). 2. lapierre and Moro, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, 202–3. 3. Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1992), 4. Dorr further de- scribes the import of such solidarity, which implies “commitment to working and living within structures and agencies that promote the interests of the less favored sectors of society. These would include those who are economically poor, the groups that are politically marginalized or oppressed, people discriminated against on sexual grounds, peoples that have been culturally silenced or op- pressed, and those who have been religiously disinherited or deprived.” 4. Gustavo Gutiérrez, from a talk given at university of Montreal, english translation published in Promotio justitiae 57, (1994): 14; referenced in Gustavo Gutiérrez: Essential Writings, ed. James B. nickoloff (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 144. 5. Gustavo Gutiérrez, “The Meaning and scope of Medellín,” in The Den- sity of the Present: Selected Writings (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1999), 98. 6. Gutiérrez, “Option for the Poor: assessment and implications,” in Gus- tavo Gutiérrez: Essential Writings, 141. 7. ibid. 8. ibid. 9. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salva- tion (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1973), 36–37. 10. Gustavo Gutiérrez, “Contestation in latin america,” in Contestation in the Church, ed. T. Jimenez (new york: herder and herder, 1971), 43. 11. walt w. rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (london: Oxford university Press, 1962). 12. alex inkeles, “The Modernization of Man,” in Modernization: The Dy- namics of Growth, ed. Myron weiner (new york: Basic Books, 1966), 138–50. 13. David C. McClelland, “The impulse to Modernize,” in Modernization, ed. weiner, 34–35. 14. Talcott Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Cultural Perspectives (engle- wood Cliffs, n.J.: Prentice-hall, 1966). 15. June nash, “ethnographic aspects of the world Capitalist system,” Annual Review of Anthropology 10 (1981): 407.

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16. see andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (new york: Monthly review Press, 1967), and Latin America: Underde- velopment or Revolution? (new york: Monthly review Press, 1969). 17. immanuel wallerstein, The Modern World System (new york: academic, 1975). 18. Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 36. 19. Gustavo Gutiérrez, “Faith as Freedom: solidarity with the alienated and Confidence in the Future,” Horizons 2:1 (spring 1995): 30–31. 20. enrique Dussel, The Underside of Modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor and the Philosophy of Liberation, trans. and ed. eduardo Mendieta (atlantic highlands, n.J.: humanities Press, 1996), 2-3. For further critiques of globali- zation from a liberationist vantage, see Jon sobrino and Felix wilfred, eds., Globalization and Its Victims, Concilium 5 (2001) (london: sCM Press). 21. Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Truth Shall Make You Free: Confrontations (Mary knoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1990), 136–37. 22. For a perturbing account of the destruction of the amazon rainforest of Brazil and its aboriginal occupants, see adrian Cowell, dir. and prod., Decade of Destruction (Oley, Pa.: Bullfrog Films, 1990). 23. The world Commission on environment and Development, Our Common Future (new york: Oxford university Press, 1987), 43. i am indebted to ingrid leman stefanovic for her fecund critique of sustainable development from a phenomenological perspective. 24. ibid., 39. 25. The notion of sustainable development has also been critiqued for its basis in “calculative,” positivistic thinking rather than more “originative,” holistic modes of inquiry, leading to a less than substantive rethinking of the human- earth relationship called for in our present ecological moment. see ingrid leman stefanovic, “evolving sustainability: a rethinking of Ontological Foundations, Trumpeter Journal of Ecosophy 8:4 (Fall 1991): 194–200. see also stefanovic, Safe- guarding Our Common Future: Rethinking Sustainable Development (albany: state university of new york Press, 2000). 26. The episcopal Commission for social affairs, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, “ethical reflections on the economic Crisis” (Dec. 22, 1982), reprinted in Do Justice! The Social Teaching of the Canadian Catholic Bishops, ed. e. F. sheridan, s. J. sherborrke (Montreal and Toronto: editions Paulines and the Jesuit Centre for social Faith and Justice, 1987), para. 15, p. 417. 27. ibid., para. 17, p. 418. 28. ramachandra Guha, “radical american environmentalism and wil- derness Preservation: a Third world Critique, Environmental Ethics 11:1 (spring 1989): 296–305. 29. leonardo Boff, Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1995), 102. see also leonardo Boff and virgil elizondo, eds.,

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Ecology and Poverty: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. Concilium 5 (Maryknoll, n.y., and london: sCM Press and Orbis Books, 1995). 30. Dussel, The Underside of Modernity, 20. 31. These points are more fully developed in enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of the “Other” and the Myth of Modernity (new york: Con- tinuum, 1995). 32. Dussel, The Underside of Modernity, 21. 33. For a fuller discussion of Boff and Gebara, see my Redeeming the Time (new york: Continuum, 1997), 165–83. see also ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999); ivone Gebara and Marie C. Bingemer, Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Poor (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1999); ivone Gebara, “Cosmic Theology: eco- feminism and Panentheism,” in Readings in Ecology and Feminist Theology, ed. Mary heather Mackinnon and Moni Mcintyre (kansas City: sheed & ward, 1995), 208–13; and ivone Gebara, “The Trinity and human experience,” in Women Healing Earth: Third World Women on Ecology, Feminism, and Religion, ed. rosemary radford ruether (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1996), 13–23. a helpful overview of ecofeminist reflection in a global context can be found in heather eaton and lois ann lorentzen, eds., Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion (lanham, Md.: rowman and littlefield, 2003). 34. a delineation of some of these developments can be found in stephen scharper, “The ecological Crisis,” in The Twentieth Century: A Theological Over- view, ed. Gregory Baum (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1999), 224–26. see also Peter w. Baken, Joan Gibb engel, and J. ronald engel, Ecology, Justice, and Christian Faith: A Critical Guide to the Literature (westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995). 35. One tangible expression of these movements is the world social Fo- rums in Port allegre, Brazil (2001, 2002, 2003), and Mumbai, india (2004), which bring together thousands of environmental, social, political, cultural, and religious groups from around the world, especially impoverished nations. as theologian lee Cormie observes, despite the wide diversity of these gatherings, there are nonetheless significant points of important convergence around ethical and ecological concerns. lee Cormie, “Movements of the spirit in history,” 238–60, especially 249–50, available at http://www.koed.hu/talitha/lee.pdf. see also http://www.choike.org/2009/eng/. The author wishes to thank lee Cormie for suggesting these resources. 36. For an early overview of some of these groups, see Marie Price, “eco- politics and environmental nongovernmental Organizations in latin america,” Geographical Review 84:1 ( Jan. 1994): 42–58. 37. aurora Donoso, “ecological Debt: The Desecration of life,” available at www.deudaecologica.org/a_sacralife.html. For a description of how the human

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Genome Diversity Project gathered Dna samples from indigenous persons for patentable pharmaceuticals, see hilary Cunningham and stephen scharper, “human Genome Project Patenting indigenous People” (Third world net- work), available at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cbbc/courses/bio4/bio4-1996 /humanGenome3rdworld.html. 38. Forum on religion and ecology website, “indigenous Groups, en- gaged Projects,” available at http://fore.research.yale.edu/religion/indigenous /projects/uwa_defense.html. 39. ibid. 40. ibid. 41. ibid. 42. Forum on religion and ecology website, “hinduism, engaged Projects,” available at http://fore.research.yale.edu/religion/hinduism/index.html. 43. ibid. see also George a. James, “ethical and religious Dimensions of Chipko resistance,” in Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water, ed. Christopher key Chapple and Mary evelyn Tucker (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the study of world religions; harvard university Press, 2000), 499–530. 44. Forum on religion and ecology website, “Buddhism, engaged Proj- ects,” available at http://fore.research.yale.edu/religion/buddhism/index.html; see also susan Darlington, “not Only Preaching—The work of the ecology Monk Phrakhru nantakhun of Thailand,” in Forest, Trees and People Newsletter 34 (1997): 17–20, and her “Tree Ordination in Thailand,” in Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, ed. stephanie kaza and kenneth kraft (Boston: shambhala Publications, 2000), 198–205. 45. Forum on religion and ecology website, “Buddhism, engaged Projects.” 46. ibid. 47. ibid. 48. ibid. 49. see sarah McFarland Taylor, “reinhabiting religion: Green sisters, ecological renewal, and the Biography of religious landscape,” in Worldviews 6:3 (2002): 227–52. For a lively integration of Thomas Berry and Brian swimme’s work within a social justice framework, see the work of Jim Conlin, especially At The Edge of Our Longing (Toronto: novalis, 2004).

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