The moral question - in stark terms
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Posted on March 11, 2007
Filed Under Justice, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
I mentioned the other day that I was reading The Body of God by Sallie McFague. Yesterday, I came upon this quote in one of her footnotes and want to share it with you as a reflection for the day.
She footnotes it from this passage:
…the evidence of disproportionate space and place of some human beings in contrast to others — the rich and poor within nations and between nations — is everywhere and growing. If the most basic meaning of justice is fairness, then from an ecological point of view, justice means sharing the limited resources of our common space. From the perspective of the one home we all share, injustice is living a lie, living contrary to reality, pretending that all the space or the best space belongs to some so that they can live in lavish comfort and affluence, while others are denied even the barest necessities for physical existence.
The footnote cites the economist Robert Heilbroner, a quote from An Inquiry into the Human Prospect. He writes:
Suppose we…knew with a high degree of certainty that humankind could not survive a thousand years unless we gave up our wasteful diet of meat, abandoned all pleasure driving, cut back on every use of energy that was not essential to the maintenance of the bare minimum. Would we care enough for posterity to pay the price of its survival?
We are approaching that high degree of certainty. And the answer is?
Graphic credit: Global Footprint Network, Advancing the Science of Sustainability
Technorati Tags: overshoot, ecology and justice, the body of god, Sallie McFague, Robert Heilbroner
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