Reflection paper, Religion and Environment class.

RELI/ENVT 239

Fall 2015

C O N T E M P O R A R Y N E W S A R T I C L E S

1. “Climate Change and Christian Values” by Jeff Schweitzer Huffington Post May 10, 2009 (3 pages)

2. “Protesters in the Pews” by Kyle Childress The Christian Century January 2, 2013 (3 pages) 3. “Faith and Fracking” by Trisha Marczak Mint Press News June 20, 2013 (3 pages) 4. “Seeing True Nature: Buddhism and the Environment”

by John Worthington-Hill OpenDemocracy.net July 14, 2014 (3 pages)

5. “Pope Francis Really Hates Modern Technology and Economic Progress” by Ronald Bailey Reason.com July 18, 2015 (3 pages)

This is the print preview: Back to normal view »

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December 30, 2010

Jeff Schweitzer

Marine Biologist and Former Clinton White House Science Advisor

Posted: May 10, 2009 07:44 PM

Climate Change and Christian Values

Democratic leaders are initiating a media campaign targeting Christian radio stations to create support among Evangelicals for upcoming climate change legislation. While outreach is usually admirable, Democrats are barking up the wrong apple tree in this particular case.

We will not effectively address the issue of global warming if we appeal to religion. For millennia, Christianity has taught that humans are special in the eyes of the god and that the world is made for their benefit and use. This is made clear in Genesis 1:1, which states:

God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of god he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Then Genesis 2:15 says:

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

That mandate for man to use the land to his purpose is not exactly an environmental manifesto. These biblical passages give humans the special status of being made in god's image, unlike any other creature on earth, and clearly imply human dominance over all other living things. Humans are told to "subdue" the earth and "rule over" the air, land and sea. These religious teachings not only condone but actively encourage humans to view the environment as separate from them, put here for their pleasure. In this world view, no deep moral obligation exists to preserve resources for future

generations.

The explicit religious mandate to exploit natural resources remains clear and unambiguous, in spite of recent efforts to harmonize religion and environmental sciences by numerous academic and international organizations, including The Forum on Religion and Ecology, the largest international multi-religious project of its kind, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, founded in 1936 by the Vatican to promote scientific progress compatible with the Church's teachings.

The argument used by those seeking reconciliation between religion and environmental protection points to the integrity of all creation, or reverence for all things created by god, insisting that religion and concern for the environment are not only compatible, but have been so all along. Those are welcomed sentiments. In fact, as is frequently the case, the Bible contains contradictory passages about the natural world, reasonably allowing for such an interpretation. Old passages can also simply be reinterpreted to fit the facts or to be compatible with newly adopted ideas. Pope John Paul XXIII said in 1961:

Genesis relates how God gave two commandments to our first parents: to transmit human life--'Increase and multiply'--and to bring nature into their service--'Fill the Earth, and subdue it.' These two commandments are complementary. Nothing is said in the second of these commandments about destroying nature. On the contrary, it must be brought into the services of human life.

But the harsh facts of human history belie this benign revisionist interpretation of the meaning of "subdue". The preponderance of unambiguous passages in the Bible giving mankind dominion over nature's bounty argues against any idea that religion is environmentalism in disguise. As Renaissance scholar Lynn White famously wrote in 1967, "We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man."

His words remain true 40 years later, when religious conservatives in the United States view resource extraction as an inalienable right. For the past eight years our natural resources were under an accelerated threat from a torrent of new laws that encouraged mining on federal land, weakened protection for species, habitat and wetlands, encouraged deforestation, and promoted drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. All with the enthusiastic support of the Evangelical community. Perhaps such enthusiasm comes with the idea that destruction of the environment will bring on the Apocalypse, a happy thought for those awaiting Rapture, but a bit less appealing to the rest of us.

Seeking support from Evangelicals for climate change legislation is a bit like asking Rush Limbaugh to campaign for Arlen Specter. The attempt is ill-advised. We should not be reframing the debate to make the issue tolerable to Evangelicals. That type of accommodation is the dangerous first step onto a slippery slope, and soon we'll be compromising on teaching Intelligent Design next to or in place of Darwin's "theory."

Have you ever wondered why the evidence to support Einstein's idea is never questioned by Evangelicals even though his seminal work is also "just a theory" on par with evolution? Because Relativity is not widely seen by the faithful to threaten religious beliefs (although in fact the case can be made that Einstein is a greater threat than Darwin). This dichotomy between the perceptions of Relativity and evolution reveals the real problem to be that only certain scientific issues have been selectively politicized by the right, with evolution and climate change serving as exhibits A and B.

Think for a moment on what basis someone would not "believe in" climate change. For somebody to take the position that climate change is not real, he must claim that he knows more about climatology than 2500 atmospheric scientists from 166 countries. The claim is absurd, and

has absurd consequences. Somewhere along the line "belief" superseded "evidence." Once that happens, science loses all meaning, and for that society suffers.

If belief replaces evidence in public debate, why not make the claim that atoms, or DNA, or black holes, or any other scientific discovery is not real? Once you agree that evidence is subservient to belief, you dismiss the entire enterprise of science. How else could we explain on what basis climate change is seen as a liberal conspiracy but not electromagnetism? If we are not professional climatologists we can no more dismiss their conclusions than we could those of a physicist working on atomic fusion. We don't have the expertise in either field, and I don't hear anybody challenging our nuclear scientists. How odd that we only dispute the science that threatens to undermine our political or religious beliefs but accept all else with no hesitation.

No, rather than reframing the issue to satisfy a faith-based approach to science, we should insist that our schools refrain from 16th century teachings. Rather than bend in the face of ignorance, we should elect politicians capable of evaluating scientific evidence at face value. That does not require a Ph.D., only common sense, and the commitment to keep god out of the laboratory. The intrusion of religion into science is every bit as dangerous as its infiltration into politics. That we still debate evolution is proof enough. Any effort to dilute the arguments about global warming to appease religious sensibilities does nothing but corrupt the integrity of science in public debate. Faith and evidence do not share equal space in the sphere of science, and we would make a terrible mistake in giving faith a seat at the table of hard data.

Democrats need to push climate change legislation by making the most cogent, fact-based, scientifically-sound arguments possible given the evidence in hand. Any deviation from that course is irresponsible. If those who wish to pursue faith-based science are left behind, then so be it. If on the other hand we fail as a country and as a species to address a changing climate, then we deserve the consequences. Let the market of ideas choose the winners.

Follow Jeff Schweitzer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffSchweitzer

8/17/13 12:15 PMProtesters in the pews: Young pipeline resisters come to worship | The Christian Century

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Some rights reserved by Tar Sands BlockadeCOVER STORY

Protesters in the pews Young pipeline resisters come to worship Jan 02, 2013 by Kyle Childress

Be careful what you pray for”—a variation on the old adage “Be careful what you wish for”—has been repeated over and over by many. We repeat it because we believe there’s some wisdom in it. It’s shorthand for the theological insight that God always answers our prayers but not always in the way we want. God’s ways are not our ways.

Take our small East Texas congregation, for example. For several years we have worked and prayed to have a young adult ministry. Located up the road from a state university, we get occasional graduate students and we have several young families, but next to no undergrads or young adults just out of college. A couple of months ago that changed abruptly.

Last summer, construction began in East Texas on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the southern leg of a massive complex of pipelines stretching from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Cushing, Oklahoma, then to Texas and finally to refineries on the Gulf Coast where the refined oil will be loaded onto tankers and shipped to places like China. Owned and constructed by TransCanada, a Canadian-based billion-dollar multinational corporation, the pipeline passes roughly 20 miles from our church and only a few miles from some of our church members’ homes. We’ve known of the proposed pipeline for several years.

From the beginning, a few church members joined with others working against the project, forming a local organization called Nacogdoches County STOP (Stop Tar-Sands Oil Permanently). They educated people about the project, wrote letters to officials and went to Washington, where some were arrested as part of large protests outside the White House (see Bill McKibben’s “Pipeline to disaster,” Christian Century, October 18, 2011). When pipeline construction began a couple of counties away, it was no longer an abstract proposal.

In Texas, crude oil pipelines tend not to be a big deal. There’s a long history of companies working with landowners over the location of pipelines crossing their property and paying fair prices for the right-of-way. TransCanada is different. Not only is this pipeline transporting tar sands bitumen (the consistency of bitumen more like asphalt), but TransCanada has also used intimidating tactics with landowners who didn’t want the pipeline crossing their property.

The company has invoked eminent domain, claiming that its tar sands bitumen is crude oil and is for the common good of the state of Texas (rather than for the private good of the company). In Texas, this move requires only checking a box on a form. Meanwhile, TransCanada has sponsored local festivals and civic charities and bought large ads in the local newspapers proclaiming that the company wants to be our new best friend.

Local and county officials have been promised that the pipeline will renew their depressed economies by providing thousands of local jobs. Those promises were subsequently revised to mention hundreds of jobs, then “some” jobs. Finally the company announced with great delight that one of its employees had bought a new truck in a town near the pipeline. The construction site involves plenty of jobs, but all the vehicles have out-of-state license plates. The company subcontracting with TransCanada to cut down the trees and clear the route is from Wisconsin, even though there are dozens of tree-clearing companies in East Texas.

So far, about the only local jobs provided are the deputies that the company has hired to keep the route cleared of protesters and snooping reporters. But in this depressed economy and in a part of the country that tends to be impoverished even in a healthy economy, the promise of anything new—jobs, money, people or anything else—is hard to resist.

Yet there is resistance. The first issue is property rights, since TransCanada has used steamroller tactics to seize land, with the acquiescence of the state regulatory agencies, and offered pennies on the dollar to property owners in compensation. The second issue is the environment: tar sands bitumen is one of the dirtiest energy sources in existence, and its use will contribute dramatically to carbon in the atmosphere and therefore to climate change. Additionally, in order to transport this heavy thick substance through a pipeline, it must be mixed with toxic and corrosive chemicals, heated to high temperatures and moved through the pipeline under extreme pressure. Our worries are heightened because TransCanada has a poor safety record with its pipelines. Its original Keystone, an older pipeline already in use, had 12 leaks in its first 12 months. We have reason to fear that the poisonous tar sands bitumen will leak into our aquifers and into the soil. Our church prayer list already includes enough people with cancer; we do not

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want more.

Local folks have organized resistance along with a conglomeration of young people coming from all over Texas and other states under an umbrella organization called Tar Sands Blockade. Using a variety of tools of nonviolent resistance, from letter-writing campaigns to civil disobedience, the blockade hopes to slow down construction while the fight continues in the courts and in Washington.

Meanwhile, TransCanada is moving fast to get ahead of the courts and political action. With its well-funded, slick public relations campaign, more lawyers than most small towns have people and a security apparatus that seeks to intimidate more than protect, the TransCanada message is clear: resistance is futile.

Yet resistance continues. Pipeline blockaders sit on platforms they’ve built in the trees in the path of the pipeline or lock themselves to heavy equipment. These protesters have been repeatedly hit with pepper spray in the face at close range. Some have even been tasered while still locked to equipment. Once in court these young people are assessed bails in excess of $15,000 and charged with felony crimes.

Four of the Tar Sands Blockade young people showed up in church one Sunday morning. The night before, our congregation’s Earth Care Ministry had shown a film on energy usage and climate change at the nearby university. These young blockaders came to see the film and were invited to our church, so here they were. At the conclusion of the service we prayed for them, and then they hung around for some time, hungry for fellowship and encouragement—and just hungry. We did our best to meet all of those needs. The next Sunday 30 blockaders came, and since then we’ve had an average of about a dozen or more in Sunday morning worship.

Ranging in age from early twenties to mid-thirties, they come from all over: several from New York (some of them veterans of the Occupy Wall Street movement); Appalachia, where they’ve been opposing the coal companies and mountaintop removal; California, where they’ve opposed the cutting of old growth forests; and other places like the cities of Chicago and Nashville and the states of Maine, Minnesota, Vermont and, of course, Texas. They are smart and articulate, and they’ve made great sacrifices. Some sold all of their belongings except what would fit into a backpack, squeezed into a car with four or five others and drove across the country to be here. Some have families who support them, while others have families who think they are crazy. A few don’t have families. They live in campsites on private land at the invitation of the landowners. One young woman from a major city, when asked if she had camped much in her life, replied, “Recreational camping? No. But I’ve been homeless my entire life, so I’ve camped in cars, vacant lots and wherever I could find some sort of shelter.”

These young people have diverse religious backgrounds or no religious background. Most of them are secularists, several are Christian. Most agree that the church is often part of the problem—its colluding with the powers that be—and they’ve put the church behind them. A few practice Buddhism or other religions; some observe various spiritual practices. But they all agree that they receive spiritual nourishment from attending our church. One Sunday morning some of them, who had been at a gathering in a distant town, got up early and drove three hours just to be in church.

During a meal, a young woman who grew up in the Church of the Nazarene told my wife that a year ago she was working undercover on a documentary film in an Asian country on animal rights and illegal trade. She was arrested by the government and kept in solitary confinement for a month in total darkness. One day, the cell door slammed open, a hood was put over her head and she was led out and put on a truck. When the truck stopped, she thought she was going to be shot. They removed the hood, faced her down a road and said, “Walk!” She looked down and saw her backpack, grabbed it and walked. Later she discovered that she had walked across the border. Now she’s here in East Texas. I’m thinking to myself: Jesus can work with kids like these.

But not everyone is of the same mind. While most of the congregation opposes the pipeline, the presence of folks committed to direct action and civil disobedience leaves some congregation members uneasy. Our Earth Care Ministry sponsored a forum within the congregation shortly after the blockaders started showing up in church. Four lawyers who are members of the church presented some of the legal issues we might be facing, especially in view of TransCanada’s reputation for aggressively threatening lawsuits. After listening to the lawyers, we were all terrified to even speak to each other, much less feed a blockader. I walked out realizing that if we ran a church based on lawyers’ advice, we wouldn’t have a church.

We look up on Sunday mornings and see these kids coming into church with wild haircuts, scruffy beards and raggedy clothes and smelling as if they haven’t bathed in a week or two—because they haven’t. They sit on the edge of their seats during the sermons. They ask questions, they are passionate, they hug people, they pitch in and wash dishes and set up chairs, and they jump up and

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© 2013 The Christian Century. All rights reserved.

down with glee when invited to share a home-cooked meal and have a shower and their clothes washed. I preach hard every Sunday, with my heart in my throat, because I know that in the next few days it is likely that they will be standing in front of what Steinbeck called “the monster” and Paul called “the powers,” and they will be hit with pepper spray and hauled off to jail. One Sunday, the kids joined in as we all gathered around a church member to pray as he went off to Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. We knew that the battle against cancer and the battle against tar sands are connected.

In the next few weeks, these young blockaders will move on to somewhere else in the fight against the pipeline, and we will still be here. It will be interesting to see what we learn from these kids. We are a Prius-driving, recycling, eating-local kind of church that will most likely soon be face to face with a toxic pipeline, hoping and praying that it doesn’t leak—a pipeline owned by a multinational corporation that has enormous power and does not blink before using it.

During one of the tree-sitting actions one of the older couples in the church drove out in their Prius to the site. Police were everywhere, awaiting the orders of TransCanada officials who were moving about on their ATVs. The couple approached some of the kids supporting the tree-sitters with a platter of brownies but were intercepted by police and given such an antagonistic interrogation that they visibly blanched. They still delivered their brownies. But their eyes have been opened. So much for TransCanada as the nice new neighbor that sponsors our local blueberry festival.

Recently we held a rally at a park, a completely public area, with children running and playing, while nearby many of our church members stood by in support of the blockaders as they locked themselves to equipment and did more tree-sitting. About a dozen women, mostly church members, dressed in ridiculous “old lady” clothing, did their version of the Raging Grannies, lampooning the powerful by singing a song about the pipeline to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain.” A police cruiser kept us under surveillance while another drove slowly through the parking lot, checking license plates. We waved at them; they didn’t wave back.

Down at the tree-sitting site, it wasn’t long before a truck arrived with a cherry picker mounted on the back to remove the kids up in the trees. Alongside the road, in the public easement, stood more than 100 of us holding signs. In a spontaneous act, some of the kids moved into the road to block the way; the truck slowed but kept moving and pushed one kid onto the ground. In an effort to stop the truck, the kids began to pound on its hood and cab. With that, a veritable hornet’s nest was stirred up: deputies came running, wielding pepper spray indiscriminately, hitting a 75-year-old great-grandmother. Fleet-footed young people ran in every direction while sheriff’s deputies pretended to give chase—Keystone Cops with a serious edge.

In a new book, Preaching Fools: The Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly, Charles L. Campbell and Johan H. Cilliers suggest that when we read the apostle Paul saying, “We have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ” (1 Cor. 4:9–10), we should imagine a theatrical fool “dashing unexpectedly onto the stage and disrupting the entire play with his shocking words and antics.” That image has come to my mind not only on that particular day of action, but during the entire time these young people have been with us. They have “dashed unexpectedly onto the stage” of our town, our church and our lives. Only God knows what the impact of their “shocking words and antics” will be in the end.

To stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline is nothing short of foolish. Overwhelmed, outnumbered and underfunded, these blockaders and our church are no match for TransCanada. With most of East Texas supporting the pipeline, we wonder sometimes if we are simply damned fools rather than fools for Christ. I don’t know. But what I do know is that we prayed for a young adult ministry, and God sent us these young adults who have led us into a ministry of folly.

8/17/13 12:00 PMMint Press News Faith And Fracking: A Religious Case For The Environment

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Faith And Fracking: A Religious Case For The Environment Posted By Trisha Marczak On June 20, 2013 @ 5:00 am In Don't Miss MPN Exclusives,Editors Picks,Environment,Front Page: Inside Stories,Inside Stories | No Comments

(Photo/Sharon Mollerus via Flickr)

The hydraulic fracking debate has already gotten political. Now it’s getting religious.

A Catholic diocese in England is stepping up to the front lines of the fracking debate, urging parishioners to think twice before supporting a drilling practice that injects chemicals and silica sand into the earth to break up rock formations where oil is hidden.

“It may appear … that the church’s approach to an issue like fracking is negative, but this stems from a sincere conviction to take seriously the challenges of caring for God’s fragile creation,” the Rev. Chris Halliwell of the Blackburn Diocese told the Lancashire Telegraph.

Halliwell was speaking of concerns related to oil spills, water contamination and air pollution, all of which have been linked to the fracking boom. A study published by the U.S. Geological Survey tied fracking to earthquakes.

The U.K. is in the midst of a fracking battle similar to the one underway in the U.S. Fracking operations are currently on hold following seismic tremors, allegedly caused by exploratory drilling, according to The Conversation.

Now the debate is over whether or not the industry should return under the guise of new proposals. Like in the U.S., debate is split.

Halliwell isn’t the only member of the Catholic Church taking a stand. Here in the U.S., Ohio’s fracking boom has overflowed into the church, with affected Catholics urging their fellow brothers and sisters of

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faith to heed caution when told of the industry’s benefits.

David Andrews, former director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, now works at Food and Water Watch. In a column recently published in the National Catholic Reporter, Andrews echoes Halliwell’s concerns.

“Most religious groups recognize moral principles such as the dignity of the human person, the care for creation and an appreciation of the welfare of animals. On all of these concerns, fracking comes up short,” he writes. “It harms communities and harms creation. We don’t know what the long term effects will be, but we know enough to challenge that it benefits anyone except the corporations that make huge profits off of the energy production and does little for the health of the people, animals and nature.”

In February, a coalition of seven faith leaders in New York came together to put out a documentary making the case against fracking. While stemming from different religions, the religious leaders highlighted their common concerns, molding the political and environmental issue into one that also encompasses religion.

“Emotions are running high, there’s a lot of money at stake, it seems to be all about politics and quiet voices of spirituality and religious thought are being drowned out,” Doug Wood, the film’s producer and association director of Grassroots Environmental Education, told EcoWatch. “We thought it was really important to give our faith leaders an opportunity to be heard on the issue before any final decision is made by the governor.”

An issue uniting faiths

Methodist Rev. Craig Schwalenberg has taken on an approach that focuses on the moral obligation to look out for future generations.

“We can’t say for sure what will happen with hydrofracking, but there’s enough incidences out there for us to be terribly concerned. And it’s one of those situations where if we’re wrong about it being bad, we don’t lose as much, but if we’re right about it being bad, we lose our water, we lose the earth,” he says in the documentary.

Karin Friedemann, writing for The Muslim Observer, makes the same case, claiming that the fracking boom needs oversight to protect future generations from the long-term consequences of the industry.

“If steps are not taken to regulate this growing industry more effectively, the results of fracking could end up being far more costly in the long run than any short term economic benefits,” she writes.

The incidents Schwalenberg speaks of are numerous.

As of June 11, Colorado had seen more than 160 fracking oil spills in 2013 alone, stemming from 50,000 oil and gas wells throughout the state, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s oil and gas database published in the Coloradoan.

In Pennsylvania, oil spills have also led to evacuations and concerns among residents. This year, Carrizo Oil and Gas dumped more than 22,000 gallons of fracking fluid onto farmland and residential areas.

One study produced by Earthworks determined that inspection of wells and fines for violations in Pennsylvania were inadequate and infrequent. While the industry lambasted the study, saying it was not supported by scientific facts, residents of Pennsylvania say their experiences are proof enough that something is amiss.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the McIntyre family of Butler County, Penn., told their own story — one that includes mysterious illnesses from frequent vomiting to skin rashes. Like other families living in the area, they link the onslaught of their illness with the beginning of the fracking boom.

“We use water for nothing other than flushing the commode,” Janet McIntyre told the news organization.

Rabbi Douglas Krantz is a prominent anti-fracking voice in the Jewish community, particularly in New

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York, where residents are lobbying Gov. Andrew Cuomo to extend the existing moratorium indefinitely. In his state, Pennsylvania is used as a key example of what residents do not want to see happen. He’s in that same boat, yet sees his case through the lens of his faith.

“I tend to view all issues like fracking from the lens of religious issues that are about how we comport ourselves as human beings, how we have a relationship to the world we live in, meaning the people in the world and the physical world,” Krantz said in a documentary. “How am I going to be more fulfilled as a human being and its not by pillaging? it’s not by taking advantage of, it’s not by exploitation.”

Badass nuns say frack no

Sister Mary Cunningham, a nun and former pastoral associate at St. Michael’s Church in Ohio, penned an essay intended for members of the church. Now posted on the church website, Cunningham gives a compelling case of her own story in the midst of the fracking boom.

Cunningham lives three miles from a fracking well in Youngstown, Ohio, an area also deemed an earthquake hotspot. In the last 10 years, it’s been hit with a dozen earthquakes. Because of the propensity for quakes, Gov. John Kasich ordered a halt to fracking in the area.

This threat, along with issues relating to groundwater contamination and air quality, has Cunningham joining the ranks of those who are painting the fracking debate in a spiritual light.

“Catholic social teaching reminds us to ‘care for the earth … it is a requirement of our faith. We are called to protect the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation. This environmental challenge has fundamental, moral and ethical dimensions that cannot be ignored,’” she wrote.

In 2011, at a time when more than 3,000 wells had already been drilled in Pennsylvania,Sister Nora Nash recognized her call to action. In an interview with The New York Times, Nash claimed she was already taking part in anti-fracking protests, and had even submitted resolutions to Chevron and Exxon Mobil urging the oil companies to act under more stringent regulations.

Nash is still of that mindset.

“Our major role at this time is to do everything possible to make sure that companies are monitored and required to meet key performance standards in every area,” she wrote in a blog post.

In terms of experience with the industry, Nash is no stranger. Having taken her concerns directly to oil companies, including Anadarko Petroleum Company, she’s also put herself in the midst of the action — both at fracking sites and in the communities they operate in.

Her efforts took her to Pennsylvania’s Tiadaghton Forest, where she saw the fracking operations firsthand.

“The fact that I had to wear a fire retardant suit and a hard hat was enough evidence for me that danger was possible and even more so when I stood at the top of a gas rig,” she wrote.

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Seeing true nature: Buddhism and the environment opendemocracy.net /transformation/john-worthingtonhill/seeing-true-nature-buddhism-and-environment

In an age of increasing environmental destruction, Buddhism can inspire the ecological awareness that’s necessary for a more balanced existence.

Another Place/Anthony Gormley. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

Today you’d be hard pushed to find a corner of the biosphere that is unaltered by human hands. In some places, nature has been rendered almost incapable of sustaining healthy life.

The growth of industrial society has caused a rapid loss of species that is estimated to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the rate of extinctions that would have occurred in the absence of human activity. Manmade emissions have increased the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to its highest level in several million years, and the onset of human-induced climate change is set to produce ever more devastating effects.

So extensive is the human impact on the planet that a growing number of scientists think we’ve entered a new geological epoch called the ‘Anthropocene:’ a new reality that signifies irreversible changes in the Earth's ecosystems.

In this new reality, it’s our unremitting mood of indifference and lack of moral restraint that I find most disturbing. How did we get here, and how is it that we are able to carry on like this?

All cultures and societies provide pre-determined criteria for moral behaviour. In the West, the inherited framework for morality is based on individual rights and entitlements that place human interests at the summit of ethical concerns - an orthodoxy that can be traced back to the ‘Age of Enlightenment,’ and specifically to Rene Descartes.

Dubbed the father of modern philosophy, Descartes’ bifurcation of all things in existence as either of ‘mind’ or ‘matter’ led him to conclude that nature, lacking mind, had no value except in human use. Philosophers have also linked the emergence of an exploitative attitude towards the environment in the West to the medieval ethos of human supremacy over the world, with human beings as the crown of creation and the centre of the universe.

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Buddhism sees things differently. It is perhaps the Eastern religion that is most associated with ideas of holism and a romantic, pre-modern understanding of nature as a source of spiritual fulfilment. But the Buddha’s teachings, referred to as ‘Dhamma’, are less mystic and more pragmatic than many people believe.

Buddhism’s first precept is that of non-harm, and the first ruler in history to advocate conservation measures for wildlife – Indian emperor, Ashoka Maurya (304-232 BCE) – was a Buddhist. For many environmental philosophers, however, Buddhism’s position on the environment remains somewhat ambiguous. It doesn’t appear to provide direct guidance on the proper attitude towards the natural world. This is largely because there is some discord between Buddhist understanding and environmental ethics – a recent branch of philosophy which presupposes that the environment is something external to ourselves.

In explaining this discord, it is useful to remember the Buddha’s distinction between ‘conventional reality’ and ‘ultimate reality.’ Conventional reality is the way things appear to be, giving rise to structure and organisation in the world. Central to conventional reality is the sense of self: a realm of thoughts and feelings, aspirations and fears, opinions and memories that inhabit a human body and look outwards at the world. People tend to have strong ideas about their own personal identity, constituted by things like family, nationality, religion, occupation and possessions.

Ultimate reality, on the other hand, transcends this first-person experience. It resembles the ‘Bundle Theory’ of philosopher David Hume, which describes all things in terms of properties and conditions within an ever-changing universe rather than as independent objects.

This perspective, for example, means that a river can only be fully understood in terms of the properties of water and the forces of physics, the geology of the land, the life it supports and the hydrological cycle. The synthesis of forces and conditions that we perceive as a ‘river’ remains recognisable in itself, and yet intrinsically it exists as an element of a much wider system. The emphasis is placed on an underlying fabric of interdependence.

If the self is considered in the same way, how much substance is there in what you or I think of as ‘me’? A person is also a constantly changing ‘bundle’ of mental and physical states, each one giving rise to another. In accordance with Buddhist thought, Hume describes the mind as “a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in a variety of postures and situations.”

In Buddhism, the self is understood as an ongoing process rather than an underlying thing. Despite what’s inferred from conventional reality, there is no one, single, abiding entity or essence behind or within our thoughts, words and deeds. Hence in Buddhism, ‘individuality’ – a notion particularly well embedded in Western culture – is an oversimplification: an illusion in the sense that our preconditions and assumptions lead us to believe that we are completely separate from everyone and everything else in the universe.

On a personal level, problems arise when we get caught up in the physical, mental and emotional experiences that characterise this individual sense of self. We become driven by notions of being and having, and in the process we become the cause of our own suffering by craving for, and becoming attached to, things that are impermanent. This inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, unease and anxiety.

But the consequences of these existential misunderstandings reach far beyond our own individual lives. In fact, self- centeredness is the great illness from which all imbalance, insensitivity and abuse ultimately stem – an illness directly linked to the Buddha’s ‘three poisons of greed, ill-will and delusion’. These poisonous mentalities seep into the collective consciousness and are instilled in the norms and structures of culture and society, helping to direct how politics and economics deal with the environment.

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By contrast, Buddhist principals treat the mind and body, the self and environment, as inseparable. Environmental destruction is therefore an outer manifestation of an inner affliction. If our thoughts are polluted, then our actions will be polluted too, and so will their consequences.

Therefore, the way we perceive and understand ourselves is crucial in determining the way we act. It shapes the way we perceive and understand each other and the environment. By thinking and acting as separate we create disharmony. Disharmony is both a symptom and cause of alienation from the natural world, as well as blindness to our own true nature.

Reversing this process means breaking down artificial boundaries between people and nature to reveal the underlying reality of unity and wholeness. The perceiver is an inextricable part of whatever is being perceived, bound together in a state of interdependence. This viewpoint coheres with the latest scientific understanding of ecological functioning, perhaps most demonstrably in the phenomenon of trophic cascades - powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems.

Both philosophically and ecologically therefore, our own interests can be seen as the same as the interests of the whole – a realisation that sets the tone for a more balanced relationship between society and nature. As the Anthropocene plays out, the future of the planet is, for the first time, at least partly under the control of conscious, reasoning human beings. But for any kind of viable shared future, people must nurture the awareness and understanding that enables the regulation of their impulses and behaviour – a morality based on self-discipline, or something Buddhism calls the ‘middle way.’

People must also cultivate a new appreciation and reverence for the inviolable sanctity of all forms of life, rooted in humility, respect and compassion as the basis for making every decision and assessing the appropriateness of every action.

As an old Asian proverb goes, “The careful foot can tread anywhere.” Just as we may come to a better understanding of nature along the way, so may we also see ourselves as we really are.

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Pope Francis Really Hates Modern Technology and Economic Progress Which is unfortunate since only technological progress and economic growth can effectively address environmental problems Ronald Bailey | Jun. 18, 2015 11:16 am

Pope Francis has just issued his encyclical Laudato Si - "Praise Be to You" - dealing with the problem of man-made cimate change and many other environmental problems. The encylical more or less accurately recapitulates the findings of mainstream climate science with regard to the effects of human activity on the climate. Basically, loading up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases produced largely from burning fossil fuels has boosted the average temperature of the globe over the past half century or so. Fine, as far as that goes.

The Pontiff then moves on to use the problem of climate change as an example of the deep spiritual and ethical problems allegedly stemming from the whole enterprise of modernity. Climate change is not a technological and economic problem involving trade-offs, it is a moral issue. Whenever someone, even as nice a man Pope Francis is, declares something a moral issue, what they are saying to people who disagree with them is: Shut up! How dare you talk of trade-offs!

With due respect, the Pope apparently misunderstands how science and the free enterprise system works. Oh, he praises the miracles of medicine, electricity, agricultural productivity, automobiles, airplanes, biotechnology, computers. From the encyclical:

We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous waves of change: steam engines, railways, the telegraph, electricity, automobiles, aeroplanes, chemical

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industries, modern medicine, information technology and, more recently, the digital revolution, robotics, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. It is right to rejoice in these advances and to be excited by the immense possibilities which they continue to open up before us, for “science and technology are wonderful products of a God-given human creativity”. The modification of nature for useful purposes has distinguished the human family from the beginning; technology itself “expresses the inner tension that impels man gradually to overcome material limitations”. Technology has remedied countless evils which used to harm and limit human beings. How can we not feel gratitude and appreciation for this progress, especially in the fields of medicine, engineering and communications?

Indeed, who cannot feel such gratitude? But the Pontiff apparently has no clue as to how the progress he celebrates and which lifted billions from humanity's natural state of abject poverty came about. See below.

II. THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE TECHNOCRATIC PARADIGM

106. The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation. Men and women

have constantly intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us. Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship

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has become confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that “an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed”.

The earth is not unlimited, but human ingenuity is. Climate change (and other environmental problems) are not moral issues that require sacrifice and abnegation; they will be solved by continued technological progress and economic growth. Anything that slows down that process will slow down the cleaning up and restoration of the natural world.

I will be addressing more of the Pope's musings in subsequent analyses. Perhaps I should send him a copy of my new book, The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century (St. Martin's Press, July 21).

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