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Climate,
Religion and
Transforming the Economy
December 2010 Click square for index 
My
year’s
reading began with Armstrong’s case
for God. Ref 2 By
mid-year
and year-end came reports and books
which pointed to the
importance of
the faith traditions. A major US
government report on climate change
came mid-year
as a wakeup call. It meant change in
human activity patterns is needed
to avert
irreparable destruction of the planet
and avoid this new threat to the
survival
of the human society. Looking back over
the year, I found that world
religious leaders, meeting in Winnipeg
June 23 on the eve of the G8
meeting had issued a statement
containing a strong call for urgent
action on
climate change. "Climate
change
has become an urgent and felt
manifestation of our collective abuse
of
the very environment that gives us
life. ... it is clear that bold
action is needed now. We need to move
beyond short-term political
interests and arguments over who pays.
In our indivisible planet we all
pay – and future generations will pay
dearly – if we continue to delay
decisive action now."
Suzuki’s
book
“More Good News …” Ref_3
suggests
what is needed: a transition to a
sustainable economy. Such an economy
must end
or minimize use of commodities dug out
of the ground, particularly
coal, oil
and uranium. The sustainable economy has
goals other than maximizing
corporate dollar
profits. It is one which aims at
sustainable harvesting of such things
as trees
and foods. Individuals and their
organizations or family corporations
are
making a difference and modelling how
things can be in such an economy.
For
example the Collins family company
chooses 25% less profit and runs a
sustainable tree harvesting business. A
Germany law maker promoted a
law which shifted
energy generation 15% from fossil fuels
into solar and wind energy in a
decade
– and the German economy is one of the
strongest in Europe. Contrary to
myth, Suzuki
shows that the relationships between
species include a symbiotic as
well as
competitive component. This makes a
strong case for preserving the
spectrum of other
species as well as natural forests to
achieve sustainability. Suzuki’s
call
is the prophet’s call. Behaviour
which models different rules from the
majority pattern to meet emerging
human
society needs is religious behaviour.
Suzuki and the people who are
providing him
with more good news are people who are
following the pattern of the
founders of
the major religious faith traditions.
These were people in tune with
the needs
of the world and the human family in
changing times. In Karen
Armstrong’s book
we can note that they drew on the then
existing faith traditions
available to
them to chart new social behaviour
better suited to the new situation
of the
human family. Ref
4 That
their work was recorded shows that their
message was seen to be
significant
even though it was not the dominant
pattern in the societies of their
day. They
can be viewed as a kind of tolerated
loyal opposition. This was true of
Confucianism
and Daoism, Hinduism and Buddhism,
Monotheism in Israel and
philosophical
rationalism in Greece. It included the
prophetic tradition in ancient
Judea.
All these were in the same “axial age”
of religious change giving us
the major
world religions.
Our
changing
times include the threat to human
society by global warming
and the
peak of human population by the mid 21st
century. Part of
that
threat to human society is the old
economic model and its science
developed in the
West, as Suzuki shows. People drawing on
faith
traditions and on science and wisdom in
our time model alternative ways needed
for the human family to survive.
It
seems undeniable that dependency on coal
and oil and uranium has to end
in
favour of a more sustainable
relationship with the planet. Roland’s
book
offers useful insights and
analyses of the large corporations we
now have. It gives origins in the
early
economic thinking of Adam Smith, John
Stuart Mill and Ricardo and in
the
Utilitarian philosophy. Even in the
social context of their day, the
thinking
is dubious. The book challenges the
notion that humans lack altruism
and that any
semblance of altruism is utilitarian. He
finds absurd the notion that
good will
miraculously emerge by fanning human
greed. We are reminded that the
corporation
has but one goal. It is to maximize
return for shareholders. Any
outcome of
corporate activity for the common good
is incidental to this goal or it
is the
result of compulsion by law.
Corporations have a life of their own –
largely
uncoupled from any human concerns or
moral constraints which their
leadership,
shareholders or employees might have. Later
in
the book Roland seems aware that not
all corporations are the same. He thinks
limiting the size of
corporations and
using constraining laws might be a
remedy. The book reinforces findings
elsewhere which show that corporations
do not adapt readily to needed
change.
The resistance of the tobacco companies
to the Worl Health Organization
news that there were
adverse
health effects to smoking is now well
known. The concealed but equally
strong resistance of the
old energy industry to reports linking
climate warming to human
activity like CO2 from fosil fuels has
emerged. The
current
economy's notion
that greed and the quest to consume more
are “good” has been questioned
since before Schumacher wrote
“Small is
Beautiful”. The
urgency is now greater.
Suzuki’s
book brings another angle. He gives
examples of people who are
satisfied with
“enough.” They are not just cogs in a
corporate machine. They can feel
part of
the intentional shaping of their and the
human future as well as the
satisfaction
from being able to be fully human and to
practice human altruism. How
to get
to an “enough is enough” sustainable
dominant economy is a problem. Roland is
aware of the Tobacco
corporations’
efforts to deny World Health
Organization reports that Tobacco smoke
was a
health hazard. Hoggan has documented the
lengths the energy
corporations are
going to deny climate change. Ref 6
The transformation has to overcome this
and more. But a sustainable
economy comes by beginning
–
setting out in earnest and listening for
further wisdom along the way.
The required end now seems clear even if
the means do not: the
dominant economy must become
sustainable; the greed economy
dependent on coal, oil, uranium and
other non-renewable commodities has
to be
transformed.
1.
The
picture of
violence at the G20 was overwhelming
and the needed call for a
transformed
economy was not heard. There are
arguments suggesting that violence
can
be
justified to convey a prophetic
message given the vast wealth and
power
of the
captains an economy which must be
transformed. I understand but cannot
accept
the arguments. 3. David Suzuki,Holly Dressel, More Good News: Real Solutions to the Global Eco-Crisis, Vancouver/Toronto/Berkeley: David Suzuki Foundation, Greystone Books, D7M Publishers Inc., 2010. 4.
Karen
Armstrong,
The Great Transformation:
The
Beginning of Our Religious
Traditions, Vintage Canada,
2007. |