Earth Spirit, Earth Politics

Contents

I want to begin with a glance back in time to the Civil Rights movement, which as we have learned this week from LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks, can make you look a little foolish. For those of you who somehow missed it, Oaks compared Mormon persecution following their support of Proposition 8 with the oppression that African Americans faced in their history. 

My venture into the Civil Rights movement is not to suggest that white middle class environmentalists endure great suffering, although their levels of frustration could easily lead them to madness. My point of connection with the brutal manifestation of racism, relies more on a broader philosophical conceit.  

J. Deotis Roberts, a lack pioneer in American theology, whose own professors tried to dissuade him from pursuing his love of theology because they claimed it was too abstract for a colored man, wrote a short article on segregation in 1962. He declared that “moderation is not a propoer stance for an awakened Christian conscience.” 

Although he never supported the violence of a Stokeley Carmichael, Roberts, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called for a black theology that expressed the religious meaning of the new, revolutionary black consciousness. In that new awareness…in the development of a new consciousness…in would then be impossible for any black person to think the same about race relations. 

“Black theology must be radical,” Roberts argued. “It must move men to act upon the ethical imperatives of their faith.” And do you know what single biggest objection to black theology was back then; expressed by both white liberals and conservatives? It was too fast and too emotional. Moderation, moving slowly towards justice was the wisdom of their counsel. 

But the black theologians, initially led by Roberts, contended that once you were fully AWAKE…once your consciousness absorbed the new way of being and you were psyched for a behavioral revolution and for molding an entirely new ethic, then “moderation” is nothing more than maintaining the status quo. Once you perceive the truth, no matter how inconvenient, that truth must be pursued even if it means turning the social structures of society upside-down. The truth can mean the difference between life and death. 

The environmental movement, dealing with cultural blinders that resist a new consciousness, insists, as did the black theologians in the 60’s and 70’s, that moderation is a luxury we simply cannot afford. The revolution – the change in thinking and behaving…the revolution – tearing off the blinders…the revolution – acting upon the moral imperatives of our faith…the revolution is now. The time to act is now. 

In ancient Greek mythology, Apollo fell in love with Cassandra, the most beautiful daughter of Priam, King of Troy. In order to win her affection, he gave Cassandra the power to foretell the future, and he instructed her in the art of prophesy. Cassandra said, Thanks very much for the gift of prophesy, but as you for you –I’m not interested in being your lover. 

Things don’t get much more dramatic than a Greek God scorned. Apollo obviously insulted by her rebuff, caused the gift he gave her to be twisted. Everyone who heard of her true and accurate foretelling of future events believed instead hat they were hearing lies. In other words, the wondrous blessing bestowed upon a mortal became instead a terrible curse.  

And indeed, the burden of Cassandra’s  “gift” is evident in mythology. She predicted the outcome of many disastrous events. In one memorable example, Cassandra announced the dire consequences of the Trojans accepting the infamous wooden horse. But as Apollo made certain, no one believe Cassandra when she warned her companions about the future. And this in the end, was to be Cassandra’s tragic fate. 

And so we have another analogy, this one paralleling that ancient myth and our present circumstances where we fail to heed the warnings and predictions of climate scientists. The Greeks were spot-on. This now becomes our tragedy in that we go to great extremes to disbelieve every fact and conclusion concerning the fate of the earth.  

How do you change the worldview of someone like Utah representative Rob Bishop, who looks at 9.4 million acres of pristine red rock wilderness in his own backyard, yet sees only development, mining, and ATV’s. He brands anyone who seeks to protect the spiritual splendor in our state as pushy Northeast liberals or worse: environmentalists. They can’t tellhim what to do. No sir. Hiking and canoeing are for sissies; real men drive ATV’s and drill. Mr. Bishop believes that the environment is all about the wishes of Mr. Bishop. And sadly, the same can be said for all five of our Utah Legislators.  

They reflect an old paradigm of thinking about and the relationship between humanity and the earth. It’s a narcissism that precludes any link to other people, other cultures, other living organisms on the planet. As exemplified in eight years of the George Bush presidency, it’s a thinking mired in consumerism and militarism. We consume endlessly for our own comfort and we enforce our own superiority over others.  

One person who has begun the revolution right here in our very midst, is Tim DeChristopher. While protestors marched against the insane auction of parcels for oil and gas drilling, some parcels even abutting our national parks, the demonstrators were caught in the web of “moderation.” Tim felt we didn’t have that luxury as the wilderness was about to be recklessly exploited for the profit of man. Once awareness penetrates our consciousness, as it did for Tim, then the urgency of changing human behavior and human thinking can’t wait.  

On Saturday there will be an effort around the globe to heighten awareness that carbon dioxide in the air above the level of 350 parts per million will wreck us, wreck life, wreck the planet.  We’re over 350 right now. There is no time for moderation.  

And yet, as the United States met in Bangkok to prepare and frame the Copenhagen conference, it became painfully obvious that a weak deal will be the likely outcome. China, Brazil, India, and other major developing nations have lined up with environmental groups to condemn the U.S. and the EU for demanding a brand-new climate agreement. Our nation wants to effectively end the Kyoto Protocol and allow countries to set their own targets and timetable for cuts in carbon emissions. Our nation wants to dissolve the key principles agreed upon by 184 nations in Kyoto. 

Last March, 2500 scientific delegates from 80 countries met in Copenhagen and prepared a summary statement of their findings for policy makers. These scientists underscored the urgency of healing the earth. The worst-case report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 has been realized. Climate is moving beyond the patterns of natural variability in global mean surface temperatures and sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climate events. They end this point with three words: Inaction is inexcusable. 

Of course there will be some action but Tony Blair already advised everyone: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” It’s a philosophy of low expectations. In other words, in facing the climate change challenge, we must move in moderation.  The transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability must be a gradual process. We have all the time in the world; we don’t need perfect. 

We certainly pretend time is on our side.  Senator Harry Reid has already announced that the U.S. will not get to climate legislation before next year, after Copenhagen. Can our senate really expect the other 188 nations around the world to make a serious effort on climate change in Copenhagen in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?  It’s like asking the entire world to just bide their time, twiddle their thumbs, because our nation has more important business to deal with first. 

Why not? In our nation, environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry. A Pew Research Center poll released this year found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists.  

The eco-theologian, Sally McFague, makes clear that global warming is not simply “another problem”  we face. It epitomizes the problem. The problem that starts with a false sense of ourselves – that we are separate individuals.  

She asks: What if we begin to realize that the model into which humans must fit, a just and sustainable planet, is a necessity? What if we wake up from our dream of individualistic glory and realize that either we will make it together or none of us will?  

Frankly we cannot achieve ecological and social sustainability until the revolution in awareness transforms the paradigm of how we think of ourselves as individuals to a new model that embraces our interrelationship and interdependence with all other human beings and other life forms. McFague argues quite rightly, that most people in Western capitalistic democracies think of themselves first as individuals rather than as members of a community, especially a natural or planetary community. The individualistic outlook promotes a deeply ingrained competitive mentality that tends to see others, “both humans and other life-forms as resources towards one’s goal of self-sufficiency…the canopy of individualism has influenced the unconscious assumptions of three pillars of American society – religion, economics, and government.” 

I may be biased, but I think religion is the key component leading to a new consciousness; economics and government will follow when religion lays the fundamentals of an environmental ethic. Unlike economics and politics, religion need not rely on compromise and moderation. Religion interprets the sacred imperatives that must command our lives. And God doesn’t allow room for compromise.  
 

I can’t help but wonder if all the dire warning about the fate of the earth, with scientists as effective as Cassandra, their cries of caution and admonitions to change treated as falsehood, whether or not something more tangible in art form can lead the way to a new awareness. I was profoundly moved when reading last week about Maya Lin’s latest monument. She announced she was retiring from the monument business ten years ago after designing the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington; the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, The Women’s table at Yale, and the Confluence Project along the Columbia River Basin. But she has created one more, a multi-sited public artwork dedicated to the earth’s threatened places and vanishing species. Why? Because she says it’s the most important issue in our lives. Originally called The Extinction Project, it’s an entirely untraditional memorial that presents both an urgent vision of how the natural world is disappearing within our lifetime and a hopeful model for shaping the future. 

This monument now has a new title, going by the name of “What is Missing?” It’s an outdoor sculpture consisting of a cast bronze cone where you hear the sounds of animals that are already missing or facing extinction, like dodo birds and golden toads. There are projected images in this sculpture-video-sound installation of the eye of whale, a vanishing grassland, a flock of loons. 

What is Missing is hardly a quiz. What is Missing is not even a question. What is Missing penetrates the consciousness of the old individualistic triumph-over-nature mindset, and poses….merely poses a visual and audio reminder that we cannot survive like this much longer. The world is broken by human activities and who can possibly conceive of a future when the destruction of the natural environment continues at its present rate. 

This morning, I’m not talking about a call to action, but a call to revolution:

We can never think about our relationship to the earth in the same way…

The scientific evidence of our world in grave peril is prophetic; no Cassandras…

We must act immediately on concrete proposals for reconstructing society in a new institutional framework…

And we must fumigate the individualistic assumptions of American society found in religion, economics, and government… 

How is this all possible? I’d start with the very simple observation of an 18^th century Quaker, John Woolman. He said, “One cannot love God without loving all that God has made.” 

Our dilemma today is that what we want for personal gain is in conflict with what God has made. We cannot pretend to love God while poisoning the rivers and lakes and oceans and mountains and the air we breathe. We cannot pretend to love God and call for moderation in removing our self-interests from the interests of the creation.  

Urgency was on the lips of all revolutionaries from civil rights to women’s rights to LGBTQ rights, to the environment. Freedom now! Equality now! Planetary survival now!  amen