EDITORIAL World holds its polluted breath
The latest failure of the
worlds industrial nations to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, drafted by 170
countries to reduce greenhouse emissions by 5 percent by 2012, simply reminds
us that our world is on the brink.
Carbon dioxide is deceptive. It is clean. And unlike carbon
monoxide, write Marjorie Hope and James Young, carbon dioxide cannot kill
humans directly. It will kill indirectly, they write, through global warming.
And if global warming isnt checked, it will kill on a massive scale.
The release of the Hope-Young book (Voices of Hope in
the Struggle to Save the Planet, Apex Press, Council of International and
Public Affairs) coincides with the collapse of the recent U.N. Conference on
Global Warming at The Hague.
Now the world will hold its polluted breath until October when the
industrial giants will try again in Marrakech, Morocco.
The collapse of the conference -- in what became a
Europe-versus-U.S. contest -- brings home forcefully that the global enterprise
is actually a rather ad hoc undertaking. The globe, despite the
sometimes-magnificent attempts of the United Nations, is not a manageable
entity. There is no final voice of authority, only the sometimes strong and
more frequently feeble voice of public opinion.
Consequently, there will be no significant gains anywhere on the
major environmental/ecological front until there is a crisis severe enough to
alarm nations to take action. Global warming is not yet a crisis. Here in the
United States, we deal with global warming by stepping up the sun block from 15
to 60 while skin cancer treatment, practically unheard of two decades ago,
becomes a health care staple. Polluting countries like ours may choke on their
own emissions but they deal with the effects of the thinned-out ozone layer by
printing ultra-violet index warnings along with the smog alerts.
Were mad, we might say. And thats correct. But
were not frightened enough to take mass remedial action. The killer is
within our reach, on the hook by the door, the hall table, the coat pocket.
Its the car keys, and we wont do without them.
We can rail against the polluting industries and national policies
that give us our cheap affluent standard of living, but the
industries and policies are really our proxies, our stand-ins. Theyre a
reflection of our cultures selfishness, our concern for lifestyle,
convenience and profit, our Im-all-right-Jack outlook.
The people of the United States, lulled by easy credit, working
frantically to meet those monthly payments, commuting through the traffic of
our megalopolises -- where the average speed will drop from 31 miles an hour to
23 miles an hour within a decade or so -- and who spend a minimum of 12 hours a
day outside the house, have little energy for considering the environment on
the weekends or during the five hours between arriving home and going to
bed.
But our shorelines arent about to be inundated with tidal
waves and half the population washed away. If they were, wed just move to
higher ground until the free market system prices high ground beyond our
reach.
People might wonder, where are the organized religions? Why
arent they doing something? But theyre us, too. The United
States probably has more organized religions than any other country in the
world. Religions all over the world are facing crises of survival and
relevance. Dwindling flocks generate fear, write Hope and Young.
Institutional religion generates passivity: The Lord
will provide, or The Buddha taught us to accept a world that is
full of suffering.
To convince a religious congregation that concern for the
earth and its creatures is a concern for people of faith is difficult. But the
religious leader or lay person who has taken a long walk in the woods and
fields is likely to be the one who can best lead people back to the primary
experience of seeing the divine in the natural world -- an experience
increasingly rare in the ersatz world of television, Internet and
Disneyland.
A walk in the woods as a solution to global warming? Alas, no.
Only a temporary balm for the soul. But the woods and fields are remarkably
good places to start thinking, yet again, how personal concerns can translate
into the personal response that may still make a difference in a world so large
and on problems so complex.
National Catholic Reporter, December 8,
2000
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