Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Record Arctic ice melt - Sept 2007 - NASA

The other day just after I posted, I received an email from one of my brothers with the MSNBC link regarding a discussion among NATO military leaders about the looming threats up there in the Arctic, threats of international conflict, an issue that, frankly, I would not have anticipated emerging in my lifetime — back when a greatly altered planet seemed a distant prospect.  I put the link on the home page as breaking news, but I just want to say a few words about this.

I started writing about this in my book, Living Beyond the ‘End of the World:’ a Spirituality of Hope, chapter 5, “A World of Trouble, or, It’s Going to Get a Bit Tense Out There.”  For anyone who cares about peace, about avoiding or ending war, about reducing the flash points for international conflict, it is best to pay close attention to how our altered climate will impact the potential for such egregious things.

This world is fast running short of what we need to sustain our current mode of human living — fossil fuel-based energy, water, rich topsoil for agriculture, ocean fish, food, etc.  I’m not making this up.   One of the sources I used in my book was the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a multi-year study conducted by some 1,360 scientists and other experts assessing the condition of ecosystems around the planet.  Their reports were published in 2005.  It is some of the hardest reading I have done on the ecological crises facing the planet.  Most of the news is not good at all.

From their website:

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.

The changes that have been made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial net gains in human well-being and economic development, but these gains have been achieved at growing costs in the form of the degradation of many ecosystem services, increased risks of nonlinear changes, and the exacerbation of poverty for some groups of people. These problems, unless addressed, will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems.

As the world begins to grow short of what is needed to support life’s basics and their delivery to those most in need, the potential for conflict will rise accordingly.  In the Arctic, competition for claims has already begun for the oil, gas and minerals that lie under the ocean.  As the ocean becomes liquid for increasingly longer parts of the year, bordering nations see the potential for power and wealth lying along its floor.  The concern is already to the level that NATO military leaders felt need to address it.

To read the speech delivered by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Iceland on Jan, 29, go to this NATO web page.

Of course, the Arctic is only part of the story.  Follow the competition for oil and gas.  Follow also the quest for water sources that can sustain nations in the future, or even communities within nations.  For example, the Middle East.  Some analysts have been saying for years that access to water is one of the fundamental issues fueling the Middle East conflicts.

The reality is that sustainable water sources are not available to support the burgeoning population rates in that part of the world.  To make matters worse, Israel is right now in the midst of severe drought, worst in 100 years.

As we said in the book, if we think people will fight to the death over oil, imagine what they will do for water.

Here in the Great Lakes area, some fear a flood of population into the communities along the shore as the U.S. Southwest dries up and people there begin to realize the drought is permanent climate change.

If we on this planet cannot figure out how to do better with the ecosystems of the planet, our future is grim indeed, not only for the suffering of severe shortages, but from increased warfare.  We must, must, do better than this.

What does that mean?  We actually can live sustainably on the planet — but not like this, not with the rate of water usage and soil depletion (really, most biofuels are not a good idea if we want to be able to keep eating), deforestation and depletion of ocean fisheries.  And not when you add to that the results of climate change which will cause deserts to expand and oceans to become too acidic for aquatic life.

I am waiting for that other conversation that ought to accompany the conversation we’re having now about the economic and financial collapses.  I am waiting for the conversation when we begin to realize these crises are interconnected, that we have overshot the planet and our global economic limits by many times and are headed for catastrophe if we don’t start talking about economics in terms of how we live within the means of the planet.  If we really need to start consuming again to save retirement plans and jobs and well-being, we won’t have any of those in the generation coming up after us.