A Deeper Ecology

An important article by Mary Taylor in Communio, based on her forthcoming book, offers Catholics a new paradigm for considering the ecological question. The following notes are based on her article. She calls the various ecological approaches “trajectories”, because they are not – or not only – theories, but encompass ways of thinking, of being, of acting, and of living. Roughly speaking, there are three such trajectories.

The First Trajectory sees the world as made up of separate entities, extrinsically related like the various mechanical parts of a machine. It is underpinned by the philosophies of modernity, characterized by mechanism in physics, representative epistemology, and instrumental reason. It is "dualistic" in the sense that it separates public and private, immanent and transcendent, subject and object, fact and value, mind and body. It tries to solve problems by tinkering with the machinery, making it more efficient and effective. The human will aspires to supremacy, and natural resources are valued only in terms of their utility to people.

The Second Trajectory focuses on nature as a holistic system that needs to be sustained for its own sake and not simply for human utility. This is the home of "Deep Ecology", which approaches environmental problems at levels above and beyond the

Human Ecology

In a recent post I talked about Environmental Solidarity by Pablo Martinez, as representing a fresh approach to ecology from within the Catholic tradition. A recent issue of Second Spring was also devoted to this topic, including articles by Cardinal Angelo Scola and Dr Mary Taylor. The Thomist journal Nova et Vetera had the same focus (based on a most enjoyable conference that was held last year). Now the international review Communio has also made an important contribution, in its Winter 2011 issue called "Toward a Human Ecology: Person, Life, Nature", again featuring Dr Mary Taylor, a key player in the development of the "environmental solidarity" approach. (See also a helpful article by David Cloutier in the Winter 2010 issue of Communio called "Working with the Grammar of Creation".) An article on "The Orthodoxy of Catholic Ecology" by William L. Patanaude appeared in Catholic World Report in June. Other relevant articles and links will continue to be be posted from time to time in the Ecology section of our Economy project website.

Environmental Solidarity

The past few decades have seen the beginnings of a convergence between religions and ecological movements. The environmental crisis has called the religions of the world to respond by finding their voice within the larger Earth community. At the same time, a certain religiosity has started to emerge in some areas of secular ecological thinking. Beyond mere religious utilitarianism, rooted in an understanding of the deepest connections between human beings, their worldviews, and nature itself, this book tries to show how religious believers can look at the world through the eyes of faith and find a broader paradigm to sustain sustainability, proposing a model for transposing this paradigm into practice, so as to develop long-term sustainable solutions that can be tested against reality. Coming soon: the Environmental Solidarity Institute.

Special Issue on Ecology

The latest issue of our journal Second Spring, number 14, entitled 'In the Garden", is themed around Nature, Gardens, and Ecology. For us, this is a landmark issue. Not only does it mark a developing focus in our work on issues of development, sustainability, and man's relationship to nature, but this year is the tenth anniversary of the first appearance of Second Spring as an independent journal in 2001.

The Garden issue of Second Spring contains lead articles by Cardinal Angelo Scola (the new Archbishop of Milan, formerly Venice), Mary Taylor (Pax in Terra), and Christopher Blum (Thomas More College). There are also articles on gardening by Vigen Guroian, Jane Mossendew and others. Peter Milward SJ contributes a piece from Japan. Mark Elvins OFM Cap. writes from a Franciscan perspective, and Aidan Hart from the Orthodox Church on the way Icons "transfigure matter". Together with poetry, book reviews, reports, and lots of beautiful illustrations, this is in many ways our best issue yet.

(Several articles on the same theme can be found online in our main articles section at www.secondspring.co.uk, including Keith Lemna on Human Ecology, Environmental Ecology, and Ressourcement Theology. There is also a longer version of the important Second Spring article "Healing the Rift" by Mary Taylor available online. And readers might be interested to read a fascinating study of the universal symbolism of gardens by Mihnea Capruta, from Eye of the Heart issue 4. Some beautiful pictures of Japanese gardens and a discussion of that aesthetic may be found at David Clayton's Way of Beauty site.)

Our issue is quite timely, given the high-profile speech the Pope recently gave to the Bundestag in Berlin, where he emphasized the intrinsic relationship between respect for human life and respect for nature. Pope Benedict said that "the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s... was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives." "If something is wrong in our relationship with reality," he added, "then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question the very foundations of our culture." He went on:

The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly. Yet I would like to underline a further point that is still largely disregarded, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he listens to his nature, respects it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.

Good relations

Pope Benedict writes in Caritas in Veritate that "a new trajectory of thinking is needed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of our being one family;" adding that "interaction among the peoples of the world calls us to embark upon this new trajectory, so that integration can signify solidarity rather than marginalization." This is the task we have set ourselves for our meeting in Oxford (see last post). The Pope continues:

Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. This is a task that cannot be undertaken by the social sciences alone, insofar as the contribution of disciplines such as metaphysics and theology is needed if man's transcendent dignity is to be properly understood. As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. Hence these relations take on fundamental importance (53).

This is the foundation of solidarity - the fact that we are relational creatures, not isolated units. Here we immediately run into a difficulty. Belief in God is not universal among us, and it may be a stumbling block for the secular environmentalists. Yet we can surely agree that we are "relations", even if not all of us locate the source of that relationality in God, in the Trinity of relations we call "Persons". Through biology and physics, I am related to and entangled with everything else on earth, especially the things that live and breathe. But more than that, my own sense of identity is bound up with these natural relations. They are not simply traces of my historical descent or effects of my actions. I have to live these relations (as the Pope says) in order to reach a mature identity.

What does that mean? Surely that in order to be true to myself, I must be receptive to the truth, goodness and beauty that reveals itself to me through these relationships. They impose upon me a responsibility, which I cannot shirk without diminishing my own humanity.

Picture: Port Meadow by Rose-Marie Caldecott

Natural solidarity

Then I heard all the living things in creation—everything that lives in the air, and on the ground, and under the ground, and in the sea, crying, "To the One who is sitting on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever and ever" - Rev 5:13.

On 18 October in Oxford our Association is organizing an event that may be of interest. Hosted by Blackfriars it is a lecture and roundtable discussion about humanity's relationship to nature and the environment. It is an opportunity to hear and meet Dr Pablo Martinez from Madrid, a member of CL and a professional ecological economist working in world development. We want to develop a new, non-ideological approach to ecology and the natural world, in response to the challenge of secular environmentalism. If things go well we may start to plan a conference in the next year or so. At the very least it is an interesting and worthwhile experiment. I have posted some more information about "Environmental Solidarity" in our EVENTS section on the main site. 

The ecological crisis offers an historic opportunity to develop a common plan of action aimed at orienting the model of global development towards greater respect for creation and for an integral human development inspired by the values proper to charity in truth. I would advocate the adoption of a model of development based on the centrality of the human person, on the promotion and sharing of the common good, on responsibility, on a realization of our need for a changed life-style, and on prudence, the virtue which tells us what needs to be done today in view of what might happen tomorrow. -- Benedict XVI

Photo of Truffle courtesy of Rose-Marie Caldecott

Religion and Ecology

HRH the Prince of Wales was in Oxford this week to give a speech on Islam and the Environment. The whole speech can be viewed or read on his web-site, but here is an extract:

I would like you to consider very seriously today whether a big part of the solution to all of our worldwide “crises” does not lie simply in more and better technology, but in the recovery of the soul to the mainstream of our thinking. Our science and technology cannot do this. Only sacred traditions have the capacity to help this happen.

In general, we live within a culture that does not believe very much in the soul anymore – or if it does, won’t admit to it publicly for fear of being thought old fashioned, out of step with “modern imperatives” or “anti-scientific.” The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to

Right use of creation?

Catholic social teaching develops over time, and one of the newer elements that has emerged during the last two pontificates is certainly an emphasis on ecology. The recent oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico is possibly one of the worst man-made environmental disasters to date, and the consequences for the surrounding ecosytem, not to mention the way of life of thousands of families around the Gulf, will be incalculable. Maybe it will wake us up to the unacceptable risks of this kind of dependence on oil and the vast centralized corporations that make it available. Markets are all very well, but the real environmental and social costs of what we buy are rarely incorporated in the price. If they were, the world would quickly become a very different place.

This Pope asks us to rethink our lifestyle in a very radical way, not only because of the risks, but because it is the right thing to do:

We can free our life and the world from the poisons and contaminations that could destroy the present and the future. We can uncover the sources of creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way we can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift, according to its intrinsic requirements and ultimate purpose. This makes sense even if outwardly we achieve nothing or seem powerless in the face of overwhelming hostile forces.  (Spe Salvi 35).

This is not an appeal we should ignore. Every year we see more reasons to make it a priority for Catholic action. For example, 2010 is the UN-designated "Year of Biodiversity". There is a useful briefing here by my brother, and an article by Geoffrey Lean titled "We're Losing the Riches of the World" tries to summarize the situation:

Species are now going extinct at between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural rate: by some estimates, half of the 13 million or so forms of life on the planet will disappear by the end of the century. That would be the greatest extinction since the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, from which life took millions of years to recover....Forty per cent of the world's forests – which absorb rainwater, releasing it gradually rather than letting it run straight off to cause floods – have been felled in the last three centuries. A third of its coral reefs – the most vital breeding grounds for fish – have been seriously damaged. And every year a staggering 25 billion tons of precious topsoil is eroded away.

The Pope believes that Christianity offers the right balance between the value of the human person and the value of nature as God's creation. Yet he adds that environmentalists have had good reason to reject believers as potential allies – for “modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task” (Spe Salvi 25). This restriction of Christianity to the individual level is what we need to overcome. As Christians we have been too hasty to “limit the horizon of our hope”, so that hope has indeed become a feeble-minded excuse for inaction.

On Surviving and Flourishing

Pope Benedict's 2010 Message for the World Day of Peace is entitled, "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation".

No comments here on the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit (!). However, on another matter, a fascinating article by Craig McLean on the success of Lego, the family-owned toy firm based near Copenhagen, recently appeared under the title 'Play it again'. We sometimes forget that family-owned businesses can get this big - and that big can be beautiful. A lot of lessons can be learned from this story about the creativity and innovation needed to keep a company alive.

The article doesn't talk much about the company ethos, but according to Arie de Geus, author of The Living Company, the only corporations that survive and flourish over a long period of time are those which treat their enterprises as "living work communities" - i.e. humanistically rather than as purely economic machines, valuing human talent above money and capital.

Analogously, perhaps, the Pope writes:

The ecological crisis offers an historic opportunity to develop a common plan of action aimed at orienting the model of global development towards greater respect for creation and for an integral human development inspired by the values proper to charity in truth. I would advocate the adoption of a model of development based on the centrality of the human person, on the promotion and sharing of the common good, on responsibility, on a realization of our need for a changed life-style, and on prudence, the virtue which tells us what needs to be done today in view of what might happen tomorrow.

The term "ecology" is quite recent, and is used to refer to a scientific approach that studies the living systems of the planet as an integral whole, interconnected with each other, rather than individual species in isolation. Humanity is taken into account as one more animal species that depends on, but also transforms, the environment around it, but as the Pope points out, human beings are in a special category. Like it or not, we play a central role. What we need is a humanistic ecological vision that "takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations"; that is, our "duties towards the human person" (CV, 51).

[Picture: Wikimedia commons]