Science, religion panel seeks breakthrough in
ecological awareness
By ARTHUR JONES
NCR Staff New York
No speaker pinpointed precisely when the earth might pass its
ecological point of no return. But the scientific fact repeatedly presented was
that the planet cannot survive another century of accelerating environmental
degradation and ecological destruction like this past one.
Yet panelists and promoters of the now concluding three-year-long
Harvard Project on Religion and Ecology had not gathered as doomsayers. They
were present at their United Nations conference Oct. 20 and 21 as religionists
and scientists jointly seeking signs of hope -- or at least a breakthrough in
public awareness.
None disagreed with Maurice Strongs statement that we
need to reinvent civilization to combat the materialistic ethos that has
supplanted human values. No one disputed the assertion by Strong, senior
environmental adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, that without such a
resurgence focused on saving and serving the earth, I do not believe
civilization will make it through the next century.
All speakers shared atmospheric scientist Michael McElroys
view that the forum had much to do with the need for public intellectuals
to be sensitively engaged in explaining to people what it really means,
earth-wise, to be human in the world today.
McElroy, in a subsequent NCR interview, also described what
he sees as a major difficulty encountered by environmentalists when trying to
inform the public. Said McElroy, A hundred scientists speak out on a
serious environmental problem. The media listens and then goes out and finds
someone with an opposing view to get balance. The story comes out
looking like a 50-50 argument, a 50-50 proposition, but it isnt. And the
public comes away thinking it has a 50-50 choice. And it hasnt.
The challenge, said Timothy Wirth, president of the Ted
Turner-funded United Nations Foundation, is to prove to people there is
something profoundly wrong.
The religions, as the scientists see it, not only have
earth-caring traditions to draw on, but have the means for disseminating the
message.
Maria Becket, religion, science and the environment coordinator
for the Greek Orthodox church, described the mutual awakening of religionists
and scientists at ecological symposiums called by the Greek Orthodox ecumenical
patriarch, who has condemned environmental degradation as a sin. Though the
meetings opened in a mood of mutual suspicion, said London-based Becket, they
ended with the priests saying we cant do a thing without the
scientists, and the scientists, realizing that unless the scientific
discoveries and teachings become part of the cultural consciousness, they will
not have that much effect or influence.
What Harvard undertook in 1996 was the first geological
survey of the worlds religions, Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-director
with John Grim of the 10 Harvard conferences on religions of the world and
ecology, told the U.N. gathering. The result is a step into a new era of
collaboration.
The main outcome, say organizers, was that participants discovered
how world religious practice and belief regarding nature is more rich,
diverse and sophisticated than previously realized. For some religions,
this already translates into actual programs: reforestation, river cleanups,
recycling and energy efficiency work. Meanwhile, the organizers conclude,
the worlds indigenous traditions still transmit sophisticated
environmental knowledge of local ecosystems.
Wangari Maathi, Kenyas first woman PhD and coordinator of
that nations Greenbelt Movement, described what can happen when those
traditions collide with some branches of Christianity.
Maathi said she was invited to make some comments at a Pentecostal
memorial service in Africa for a friend and gave her peoples traditional
African wish, that the friend rest where there is much rain -- for there
is green and beauty where there is rain. It is environmentally
comfortable.
The Pentecostal minister challenged Maathi, that she was talking
from a traditional African religion viewpoint that had no reference in
Christianity.
When we die we go to a much happier place, the
minister countered.
With that view, by focusing on the next world, Maathi
told the U.N. gathering, you lose the significance and beauty of this
place. Thereafter, when conducting Greenbelt Movement seminars in Kenya,
she was aware of the tradition-religion differences.
She took the hymn sung at many funerals, of being blissfully
happy when I get to that land that I long for, and asked the participants
to describe that world, that land.
They used the terms of this world -- beautiful rivers,
trees, birds -- surprising me with descriptions in terms of the world in which
we live, she said. And she used that as her entry point to find common
ground between what we are told about that world and what we see in this
world.
So, when planting trees, working to prevent soil erosion or
saving forests, I would ask: How high do you have to go to be in heaven? There
is a need to protect this planet. I cannot say it is more important than the
other world, but equally important. And it may be that when you get to that
world you will be judged by how well you took care of this world, she
said.
The problem of ecological understanding in the developing world,
Maathi said, is the enormous gap between the many believing, uninformed,
unexposed and simple people at the bottom and the few at the top who know and
understand. An authority on Hinduism, Vasudha Narayanan said it was too easy to
blame only the West for the materialistic ethos. We have enough
motivation in India of our own to follow money and power.
She contrasted that drive in a country 50 years young
with its culture 5,000 years old. For more than five centuries Hindu writings
taught of the fines against people who cut down trees, punishments that were
carried out -- and now we have depleted forests, soil erosion is rampant
and the rivers that purify the land so [polluted with organic material] you
would not send a dog into them.
India venerated nature, the rivers and mountains, and
personified earth as a goddess, she said, and somewhere along the
line we went wrong.
Narayanan recalled attending an earth goddess festival last year
where the neon light outline of the goddess also carried the line,
Pepsi-Cola sponsored this festival.
Consumerism and population growth have eliminated any
progress we might make, said Narayanan.
There are a billion Hindus around the world today, she said, and
all believe in reincarnation. And when we come back 100 years or so from
now, we better hope earth has been improved on that front.
The three-year Harvard Project has now become a continuing Forum
on Religion and Ecology to foster a religious voice in public policy
formulation, educational curricula, economic planning, and scientific and
social research related to the environment.
McElroy, chairman of Harvards Department of Earth and
Planetary Sciences and the universitys Committee on the Environment,
shrank the earths 5 billion-year-old existence into a single year to make
his environmental point. Five billion years of the planet, 4 billion years of
life, 150,000 years of humanity boil down to man making his appearance only the
final half hour of the year, and his environmental depredations encompassing
only the years final few seconds.
And if the developing world follows the Western model, said
McElroy -- who had just returned from two weeks in China -- it will be like
running the Industrial Revolution on fast-forward.
The Industrial Revolution took 250 years; China is 30 years
old, following the same course. There is still an opportunity for China,
he said, because the country wants to feed itself. China, he said, understands
the competition between its small amount of arable land per capita and the
consequences of industrial pollution, more highways, more infrastructure and
more automobiles. China has to make choices, McElroy said.
So does the rest of the world.
National Catholic Reporter, November 6,
1998
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