Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

The many crises we are facing right now — in energy, food, weather disasters, and increasing economic distress — present us with a unique opportunity for change. We need to grasp this moment not to do more destruction but to reinvent how we live on this planet. We have an opportunity to consider real change that could lessen dramatically the heavy human footprint on the biosphere and atmosphere of the Earth.

But right now, many of those in power politically and corporately, see a great opportunity to take a jump forward in the vast exploitation of the planet for wealth generation for the few, the unfortunate bedrock economic model of the industrial and post-industrial age.

And so our president.

Just as Bush used 9/11 to manipulate the U.S. public’s fear to claim unconstitutional executive authority and start an illegal war, now he is using our growing anxiety about the cost of energy — which affects the cost of everything — to begin a new assault on the ecosystems of the U.S.

He wants to remove the ban on off-shore drilling. He wants to open the Alaskan Wilderness to oil drilling. He wants to tear up mountains in the West to get the oil shale.

We say NO! NO! and NO!

Now, just as Bush and Co. lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, we are being lied to, misled, manipulated into believing that removing this 26-year-old ban will lower the costs of energy.

It will not. This is a lie. First of all, any oil that would result from off-shore drilling would not enter the market for at least several years, making no dent at all in the current prices. Secondly, the only reason this expansion in drilling is being considered is because oil prices are high enough, along with profits, to make it economically feasible to do so. High prices now will finance the exploration and drilling. Your dollars will pay for more ecological destruction in the quest for these finite supplies that will not last beyond a generation.

What we have in front of us is the most significant opportunity since the oil shocks of the 1970s to begin talking this society through the need to invest in a new energy era and a new way of doing business to provide for the needs of not only human beings, but all the other creatures and landscapes that make possible healthy, rich, and abundant life.

Our need is not to wean ourselves from foreign oil; it is to wean ourselves from oil. And we must do this by choosing not more destructive fossil fuels, coal being a prime example, but alternative, clean, renewable, do-no-harm-or-as-little-harm-as-possible sources of energy.

Think what it could mean to turn the vast sums that would be invested in off-shore drilling to development of these alternative technologies.

But this implies — and this is part of the story we all struggle with — a change in our way of life. Things we presume as part of daily life, even our birthright — the instant and constant availability of personal vehicles whenever we want them, the ease of mobility, cheap airplane tickets, cheap and endless consumer goods, broccoli in February, bananas in the daily diet, etc. — can no longer be presumed and even become ethically and morally suspect.

I want to offer another example of the ecological threats we face in the wake of the inevitable rise in the price of oil. In this morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a local author, Brian Back, offered a warning about the temptation to build a regional refining capacity for the oil from the tar sands of Alberta. There may be no more horrific toxic assault on the planet than the process of exploiting tar sands for oil — right up there with mountaintopping for coal. The writer compares the nightmare to visions of Mordor from Lord of the Rings.

Friends, the only way we say NO to all of this is to change how we live — not only in our private lives, but in our cities, states, nation, world. We must use the opportunity presented by the crisis time to open up a new path, to create new economies of planetary healing and regeneration, new economies built upon a holistic ethics of the human within the biosphere, economies that, rather than degrade the biosphere, help to preserve and enrich it.

Because the future of life, including human life, depends upon this.

Resist the temptation to more destruction. It will not help us; it will not lower energy prices, wean us from foreign oil, keep ecosystems from unraveling or reverse greenhouse gas emissions, those notorious drivers of climate change — results of which we are seeing on our TV screens more and more with each passing year in which nothing is done.

What a fabulous moment we have to begin, as Passionist priest Thomas Berry wrote over and over again, reinventing the human presence on the planet. What a great mission for all of us — to become part of this great challenge of our generation.

No, George, no more profits for the oil industry based on severe violence done to the Earth. It is time to heal, time for conversion, time for humility, time to get our priorities straight.

[tags] off-shore drilling, bush seeks end to ban on oil drilling, high oil prices, oil tar sands, thomas berry, reinvent the human presence on the planet[/tags]

Photo credits:

Offshore oil drilling platform

Double Mountain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, wikipedia

Aerial shot of tar sands, Google Maps