Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Who needs bad news on a late summer weekend?  It is deliciously cool here along Lake Michigan, like early October.  Summer will be back, but this brief interlude is one of those moments that reminds us of seasonal changes to come, that embedded within this August cool spell is anticipation of the changing color of leaves, the fall harvests, the first frost…

Earth from Galileo - NASA photo

God, I have so loved the Nature in which I have been embedded 60 years now.  And it is reeling with change, change that will rock human civilization over the next generations.  Denial is giving way to reality.  Or, better, reality is washing over denial like a tidal wave — washing it away.

We have said here so often, climate change may be the least of our crises — or at least it represents only a symptom of what is occurring.  For what is really occurring is that the human species, in just 200 years of industrialization, is tearing apart the basic life systems, the basic functioning, of the planet that made possible this era of evolution, the conditions that made us possible.

What we have also said is that we can find a way to live through the upheaval — a much better life of simplicity, of creativity and community and spiritual growth (to replace the spirit-killing economic version) than what has led us to this moment of crisis.

We can recreate human life in a way that is commensurate with the mystery that spawned us, that evolved us with a sense of purpose and meaning, with the capacity for wonder and awe – that capacity that our capitalist economies and technological prowess seem bent on killing within us.

So what bad news am I harping on today?  As on other occasions, I want to list some articles that make clear how much we have altered our planet, now and forever, amen.

Methane seeps from Arctic sea-bed — from the BBC

Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.

As temperatures rise, the sea-bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to escape.

Methane is being released because the sea water temperature is rising.  Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.  And warming seas will have serious consequences for the chain of life in our oceans.

Methane from plants increased by climate change — from the Ecological Society of America

…a study out today in the journal Physiologica Plantarum suggests that under combined climate change conditions (increased temperature, drought and ultraviolet-B radiation), major crops could show an increase in average methane emitted. Mirwais Qaderi and David Reid of the University of Calgary raised faba beans, sunflowers, peas, canola, barley and wheat in the laboratory and found that this climate change scenario enhanced their methane emissions. This finding is important because, according to the researchers, methane is about 23 times as effective at trapping heat as CO₂.

Mercury contamination, mainly from coal plant emissions, pervasive in fish nationwide, USGS finds – from ClimateScienceWatch

Contamination by mercury, a neurotoxin, was detected in EVERY FISH sampled in 291 streams across the country in a study released today by the U.S. Geological Survey. A quarter of the fish were found to contain mercury above EPA’s safe level for human consumption. The main source to watersheds is mercury emitted to the atmosphere and deposited by precipitation. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States – in addition, of course, to being the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Biomass burning over S. America: Scientists estimate that humans are responsible for about 90% of biomass burning - NASA Earth Observatory

And this from a book I have just started reading, The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth, by Dianne Dumanoski  (you know, just some cheerful summer reading…):

We have transformed half of the Earth’s surface. We claim half of all the accessible water. We are taking so many fish out of those oceans that half the fish stocks around the world are being stretched to the limit, while many of the rest have already collapsed or are in danger of collapse. Severe degradation is claiming 24.7 million acres of land suitable for farming every year.  Since World War II, roughly 43 percent of the vegetated area on Earth — 12.3 billion acres — has been lost to soil depletion, desertification, and the destruction of tropical rainforests.  These growing pressures undermine the renewal powers of ecosystems and erode the foundations of human life…

Mato Grosso deforestation visible as verdant green contrasts with swaths of pale green and tan deforested areas - NASA Earth Observatory

Then this blockbuster: In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let Trees Stand –  from the NY Times

Mato Grosso means thick forests, and the name was once apt. But today, this Brazilian state is a global epicenter of deforestation. Driven by profits derived from fertile soil, the region’s dense forests have been aggressively cleared over the past decade, and Mato Grosso is now Brazil’s leading producer of soy, corn and cattle, exported across the globe by multinational companies.

It’s depressing, no?  And scary.  The article is about how scientists and environmentalists are struggling to get governments and NGOs to pay farmers to stop cutting down trees, to create an economic incentive.  But it is like pulling teeth.  Fact is, corporations and their customers like the stuff being produced from the depleting soils, the destroyed forests, of the Amazon.  And the farmers like making money.

We are all responsible for this, all of us.  The only way to stop this destruction is to stop this way of life.

When people ask me for hope, or challenge me to provide it, I keep coming back to this.  I can’t make the planet stop responding to the ways in which we humans have altered its biological and chemical makeup, the ways we continue to do so at ever-accelerating rates. In some ways, we all know what we need to do, but we are loathe to do it — to ramp down to a very simple way of life that is in balance with the ecosystems of our bioregions.  This can be done — not without major disruptions, inconvenience, even some suffering.  But if we were committed to it, we could get through all that with humor, tenderness, compassion, even joy, because our lives would suddenly become so worthwhile, so valuable, so charged with greater meaning.

For the children

Hope is not something I can give.  But I can tell you that it is possible — if we come to terms with the reality of the planet, what we have done, and what we must do now out of fidelity to the intimate relationships within which we reside — or in the old language of our religious traditions, the sacred within which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

I can’t give hope to others, but hope can be birthed by our shared commitment to cease violating this sacred, all-embracing web of life, by learning to live within it in a manner that reflects our due respect, awe, and gratitude for this gift of life — as far as we know, unique in all the universe.  Hope resides within.  We need to go there.