Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

A few years back, when I began the megashift in my lifelong work from Central America and US foreign policy to our ecological crisis, it seemed obvious that one of our biggest challenges would be getting the “mainstream” of this society to give attention to this biggest issue of our generation.  Heck, it would be a challenge just to get those committed passionately to social justice to realize that this crisis would eclipse every other issue we cared about so much.

Can’t bring social justice to a dead planet — one reason why social justice work must embrace this reality fully.

Anyway, at least one important aspect of that ecological crisis, global warming, has certainly gone mainstream — more news coverage, more Al Gore, more inconvenient truths, more scientific consensus, more politicians (John Edwards, Barbara Boxer, for example) making this part of their agendas.

But Travel and Leisure?

In this month’s edition of the magazine – who would have thunk it? — they give space for an article by Bill McKibben, author of the alarm-bell-ringing The End of Nature, who addresses the global warming impact of all that traveling we love to do.

When we travel, we contribute to climate change  The carbon dioxide coming from the backs of our cars or our boats — or especially our planes — plays a substantial role in raising the earth’s temperature.

Well, and that certainly does put a bit of a damper on things.  Who wants to think about this when we go to our winter ski resorts or Florida beach vacations?  But we must.

McKibben goes on to write about some of the positive changes happening in the travel industry, as at least some players begin to respond to the heavy ecological footprint of our travel habits.  We can help by supporting those businesses that are committed to greening their industry.

We can also help by cutting back on our travel — whether for business or leisure — spending more time near home, maybe even more time in our very own communities and bioregions.

As he writes:

It’s our world — for the moment still rich, diverse, joyfully alive with an astounding array of biology and humanity.

It’s up to us, he says, to keep it that way. 

Meanwhile, for Travel and Leisure, this is only the beginning.  They plan a series of articles on global warming this year, the next one appearing in the March issue.

I mean, really, when it gets to this level of that ol’ mainstream, we realize we have a lot, really a lot, to work with.  This could help with the political work we have to do immediately with this new Congress.  From this mainstream concern can come a political consensus around mandatory carbon emission reductions, carbon taxes, control of developers and development, greening of industries, and more.

And that is hope in this new year, no?