The Sin of Sustainability?

A thought provoking critique from Paul Kingsnorth's essay, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist:

I became an “environmentalist” because of a strong emotional reaction to wild places and the other-than-human world: to beech trees and hedgerows and pounding waterfalls, to songbirds and sunsets, to the flying fish in the Java Sea and the canopy of the rainforest at dusk when the gibbons come to the waterside to feed. From that reaction came a feeling, which became a series of thoughts: that such things are precious for their own sake, that they are food for the human soul, and that they need people to speak for them to, and defend them from, other people, because they cannot speak our language and we have forgotten how to speak theirs. And because we are killing them to feed ourselves and we know it and we care about it, sometimes, but we do it anyway because we are hungry, or we have persuaded ourselves that we are.

But these are not, I think, very common views today. Today’s environmentalism is as much a victim of the contemporary cult of utility as every other aspect of our lives, from science to education. We are not environmentalists now because we have an emotional reaction to the wild world. Most of us wouldn’t even know where to find it. We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called “sustainability.” What does this curious, plastic word mean? It does not mean defending the nonhuman world from the ever-expanding empire of Homo sapiens sapiens, though some of its adherents like to pretend it does, even to themselves. It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level that the world’s rich people—us—feel is their right, without destroying the “natural capital” or the “resource base” that is needed to do so.

It is, in other words, an entirely human-centered piece of politicking, disguised as concern for “the planet.” In a very short time—just over a decade—this worldview has become all-pervasive. It is voiced by the president of the USA and the president of Anglo-Dutch Shell and many people in between. The success of environmentalism has been total—at the price of its soul.

Santorum needs to chat with the Pope

Sunday morning, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" to defend his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance. While speaking to the conservative Christian group last weekend, Santorum stated that President Obama perpetuates “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.” This statement itself is problematic in several ways, not least of which is the tired implication that the president might not be a Christian. It was Santorum's clean up, though, that actually mucked everything up.

Santorum tried to explain that he was actually talking about "radical environmentalists", who “have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources, because we’re going to harm the Earth by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven.”

This statement is the political equivalent of a "What's Wrong with this Picture" page in the back of a Highlights magazine. So let's ignore the obvious issues like inclusiveness or, you know, science, and jump right into the theological gaffes.

Claiming that humanity has unbridled control over God's creation is not only ignorant, but arrogant. The creation narrative of Genesis 2 shows God placing the human being in the garden "to till it and to keep it" (2:15 NRSV), not to strip it and to plunder it. Humanity was never meant to blindly and irresponsibly consume anything, especially something so specifically placed in our care. The earth and its resources are not ours to "take," as Santorum stated, but God's to give. This right-to-pillage mindset extends beyond matters of environmental concern, into justifications of exploitative economic systems and hugely disproportionate wealth.

The root of the problem is that Santorum's statement implicitly acknowledges a divorce of the fate of people from the fate of the world. Creation and humanity are inseparable, and if you don't believe the science, let us turn to the leader of Santorum's faith community, the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI, in celebration of World Peace Day on January 1, 2010, offered a message entitled, "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation," where he implores humanity to "renew and strengthen 'that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying.'" The Pope beautifully articulates the undeniable fact that as humans created by God, our lives and well-being are tied up with the rest of creation:

Our present crises – be they economic, food-related, environmental or social – are ultimately also moral crises, and all of them are interrelated. They require us to rethink the path which we are travelling together... The quest for peace by people of good will surely would become easier if all acknowledge the indivisible relationship between God, human beings and the whole of creation.

It's about the environment. But more accurately, it's about the sum of God's work. Santorum's myopic understanding of climate change has allowed him to be concerned about the deficit burden on future generations while ignoring the environmental squalor left for our children's children. The wholeness of the rich can no easier be separated from that of the poor, than the fullness humanity from that of our home. We are connected to each other and to the earth by the God who formed and redeemed all of creation. To live outside of that responsibility reflects the selfishness and conceit of the human condition rather than the humble discipleship of a people responding to God's continued grace.

Friday Links - Plus a Special Song

A carefully curated list of interesting links just for you:

Lillian Daniel/Christian Century: On people who claim to be spiritual but not religious.  A piece that has been burning up the internet (at least amongst my small, insular circle of divinity school students). 
Ed Kilgore/The New Republic: An argument for why Bachmann and Perry are religious radicals.  I am still not sure that Perry is.  I think he is playing the game just like G.W. did.  Though I am not sure which is worse at this point.
Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Dish: Differing opinions on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Matthew Yglesias/Think Progress:  All genders and races can vote in America.  Doesn't mean there still aren't ways to make it hard.
Killing the Buddha: An online magazine about religion, culture, and politics. Check it out.

I leave you with a fun song about finding heaven on earth.  Have a great weekend.  Thanks for supporting the blog.



-Tim

Zizek: Learning to Love Trash

As we think about the environment today, here is Zizek screwing with my mind.  (warning: there are about 2 seconds of potentially offensive things. well worth overlooking if you ask me, but I have warned you)



-Tim

Support the Clean Power Ordinance! (Chicago Residents)

The Clean Power Coalition - of which Protestants for the Common Good is a member - is attempting to collect over 5,000 signatures from Chicago residents on a petition to Mayor Emmanuel in support of the Clean Power Ordinance.

The Ordinance would require that the two coal-fired power plants in Chicago (Fisk and Crawford) reduce their emissions of soot, particulate matter, and carbon dioxide. The ordinance is co-sponsored by 35 of 50 aldermen and alderwomen, and while the Mayor has expressed support for the effort, we need to keep the pressure up and remind him that the public cares about this issue.

Please download the signature form, bring it to your churches or community groups this week and over the weekend, and then mail in the sheets to:

Protestants for the Common Good  
77 W. Washington St.  
Suite 1124
Chicago, IL 60602

or email Courtney Eccles and she will come pick them up.

Charts are Always Great for Feeling Guilty

Environmental Working Group: The chart shows the lifecycle total of greenhouse gas emissions for common protein foods and vegetables, expressed as kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e) per kg of consumed product. We compared our production emissions data for the main meat proteins to several mostly peer-reviewed or government-sponsored studies in the U.S. and Europe that assessed greenhouse gas emissions from animal production systems. Only a handful of other studies showed lower emissions, and these were within 25 percent of EWG’s figures, indicating that our results may be conservative.

If you eat lamb, you're a monster anyway.
 

Don't Frack On me.

I have one thing to say before talking at all about this wonderfully named craze (though its been around for decades) sweeping the nation. Yes, I will be using frack in an adolescent way as many times as possible throughout the writing of this post.  Lets keep count.

Fracking is the fun term for hydraulic fracturing.  This is a process during which water is mixed with sand and chemicals to frack up rocks deep under ground in order to release natural gas and/or oil.  Basically, you drill a fracking hole, and then you shoot water super hard to frack things up in a way a drill could not.  The concept doesn't seem that different from this (it may seem like a boring video at first, but just think about it).

I don't think its hard to imagine what kinds of weird things can go wrong, or what harmful side effects might occur when you are fracking injecting billions of gallons of water mixed with toxic chemicals into the earth.  Aside from a mass genocide of underground moll people, much of the water used cannot be recovered and its unclear where it fracking goes.  So, reports of tap water so fracking contaminated that its making people want to pass the frack out when showering are not unfathomable.  Up to date, their is inconclusive evidence that fracking is really causing such fracked up problems.  The EPA is now looking into it and should have an answer by 2014.  Excellent.

The interesting question to me is how a controversial practice that may negatively affect the health of many, but is a massive money maker to the all powerful and politically connected (did I mention Halliburton is highly involved?) can be stopped (assuming it should be stopped at all).  One answer might be a vast consensus from the scientific community that fracking is terrible.  But given the fact that it is probably a necessary part of being the Republican presidential nominee to deny a specific vast consensus from the scientific community, I don't have a lot of faith in this option.  That a few people in some random town in Pennsylvania now have hairless dogs and horses, isn't going to cut it either.  It doesn't mean a fracking thing what the frack happens to a few people here and there.  Why?  Because there is way too much fracking money to be made here, and way too much political capital to be gained as well.

Fracking may be the answer to our energy woes (at least for a second or two), or it may pave the way towards a tragic public health crisis.  I don't know what the answer is, but I guess ultimately I am concerned that the answer really doesn't fracking matter.

Frack count: 15

-Tim

also. Stephen Colbert is much funnier than I.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Anti-frack-attack
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

One Bottle at a Time: Oh the Shame

From an Onion article shared by a reader yesterday (hilarious and sadly true as all things 

are):

WASHINGTON — Wishing to dispose of the empty plastic container, and failing to spot a recycling bin nearby, an estimated 30 million Americans asked themselves Monday how bad throwing away a single bottle of water could really be. 

"It's fine, it's fine," thought Maine native Sheila Hodge, echoing the exact sentiments of Chicago-area resident Phillip Ragowski, recent Florida transplant Margaret Lowery, and Kansas City business owner Brian McMillan, as they tossed the polyethylene terephthalate object into an awaiting trash can. "It's just one bottle. And I'm usually pretty good about this sort of thing."

"Not a big deal," continued roughly one-tenth of the nation's population

.

We all do this from time to time, or all of the time.  The reality is that unless wide spread 

changes occur, my one bottle in the correct bin won’t mean a thing.  I know that, but 

what keeps me going is shame.  The shame I would feel telling people the environment

 was important to preserve and proceeding to do nothing about it.  Shame is a great 

motivator.   

-Tim

Why Do Some Christians Think Global Warming Blows?

Ok, so no one wanted to respond to my question in part one.  That is fine.  I know all of you are too ashamed to admit being terrible stewards of the environment.

I am trying today to understand why so many Christians oppose global warming, or climate change, as some sort of evil hoax.  What is it about the idea that human beings are contributing to harmful changes in the atmosphere that makes certain people who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord who saves them from eternal damnation so upset?

I found this website, entitled "Free Sunday School Lessons" with an entry called "Global Warming: More Than a Hoax."  It is kind of great, mostly because it is rather long and dense and boring for Sunday school (If I remember Sunday school, we sang songs about Father Abraham, made macaroni Jesus fish, and awkwardly went through puberty together in a sexually repressive environment).  I'll save you the trouble of looking through the whole thing, though I recommend it, and leave you with a few choice excerpts:
"There is an underlying need in sinful human nature to be able to predict the future. It used to be that false prophets were dealt with severely. Today, they win the Nobel Peace prize."
"God made it clear to Job that it is arrogance to believe that man can control the climate."
"What the Bible says:
Genesis 8:22: 'As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.'”
"These people believe “anything.” They do not discern, but believe every word anybody speaks.
On the contrary, we are to be prudent, sensible people."
" Take this global warming issue as an opportunity to spread the Gospel."
"It is a battle between faith in science or the Bible. Like many doomsday prophecies, there are underlying motivations. We have identified two—politics and money."

I will stop here for now, but there is definitely something that motivates this anti-global warming faction (this being one example).  I have identified two - the need to hold onto biblical inerrancy, and a hatred of anything championed by secular humanists and hairy people (I also have a suspicion that is has something to do with a love for Kirk Cameron, but I can't prove that).

-Tim

Cap-and-trade Vs Politics

Ezra Klein: Climate hawks are trying to pinpoint where they went wrong in their campaign to combat global warming. Brad Plumer rather sensibly suggests that they’re overlooking the possibility that the problem wasn’t tactical deficiencies on the part of the green movement, but rather the result of things just not working out on the issue. I think that’s mostly correct, but would add that trying to understand what happened to cap-and-trade by looking specifically at the cap-and-trade debate is almost certainly the wrong way to go about it. Rather, cap-and-trade, like many other issues, is a casualty of larger forces driving our politics.

An Honest Confession About Being Green

On a scale of 1-10 for environmental consciousness and action (1 being someone who clubs baby seals for sport and drives from their garage to the end of the driveway to put out the trash, and 10 being someone who never showers to save water and eats meat only if its carrion) I would put myself at a 6. I am well aware of environmental policy issues (cap and trade, etc.), try to recycle when possible, bike when possible, turn off lights and appliances when possible, and even though it hurts like hell because its like sand paper, I often buy recycled toilet paper.

But there are tons of things I don't do. I actually lied. I drive a lot because it is so convenient, and because I am always late to things. I take long showers because hot water feels so nice. Sometimes at night I have bad dreams and then sleep with the lights on. I have an air conditioner, and eat all kinds of earth destroying fast food. I once strangled a panda to death.

This morning I read an article about how youth these days are part of a new Green Generation, where six-year-old kids are telling their Earth-hating-parents to unplug unused appliances. Then I read another article that says the Green Generation isn't very green at all. Then I read another article about how young professionals these days want to work for jobs that matter, i.e., environmental sustainability.

It seems to me that there a number of factors that contribute to the youth and young adult population being more environmentally conscious than previous generations, and there are also a number of factors I can think of that somewhat cancel out higher consciousness in the name of self convenience. Most people I know personally fall somewhere around a 5 or 6 on my completely arbitrary scale of environmental consciousness and action. Which makes me feel a little bit better about myself, though I feel shameful that that makes me feel better about myself. Where might you put yourself?

More to come.

-Tim