Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

This is the concern expressed yesterday by one of the world's leading cosmologists, Stephen Hawking.  The comment was made during a visit to China to attend an international conference on the controversial string theory, a school of thought among some physicists seeking a unifying scientific theory of the unverse.

During a seminar attended by 500 people, Hawking was asked about global warming.  In response, he said that he feared the Earth "might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulfuric acid."

The comment had as backdrop a country whose development is being fueled largely by coal-fired power plants, whose air has grown increasingly toxic, with its pollution spreading across the ocean to coastal communities in the US.  Emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, are increasing exponentially across the globe.

While China's contribution to these emissions grows, the US remains the leading producer of man-made greenhouse gases.  If you read the article at this link, you will see that the US admits to record increases in emissions, an in-your-face to all the latest international efforts to get the world's leading global warming economies to do something to pull us back from the brink.  And why?  For corporate profits, to ensure that we don't impede "economic growth."  This growth, folks, is leading our world to collective human suicide.  It's like the lung cancer victim who just keeps on smoking right to their grave.  The addiction blunts the survival instinct.

Approaching a solution to this problem – keeping the Earth from becoming like Venus — will require not only our cutting back here in western post-industrial societies, but also an enormous investment of funds, technology, engineering and other resources in countries like China, India, Brazil, etc. so that they can quickly develop energy sources that replace coal — and oil, and natural gas, and uranium.

Poor countries have a right to develop in a way that raises the standard of living of the impoverished to one commensurate with the inherent dignity of the human person.  We must strive to end degrading poverty.  To do this in a way that will not send us careening across the global warming tipping point, leading to extinction, we in the affluent West must be willing to give up our claim to unending wealth generation and resource consumption, and be willing to give our disproportionate amount of investment to technologies that can save our planet.

I don't know about you, but I prefer water to sulphuric acid in my rainfall.

Ecological Hope is a project of the Center for New Creation.  Donations are tax deductible and deeply appreciated.  You can send your check or money order, made out to the Center for New Creation, and earmarked Eco-Hope, to the address in the contact box on this blog.  Your gifts will support development of workshops for local communities, grassroots resources, and a new interactive web site to be launched in the fall.  The project is focused on creating a culture of Ecological Hope within US society