Part of All Pillars of a Vision

Stewardship of our common planet is certainly part of a global ethic.  How can we love our neighbor if we poison the one planet on which all of us live?

Non-violence could insure laws that would protect our environment. 

A healthy environment is a natural right.

Economic Democracy would give all of us more say about care of the earth. 
 

A democratic World Authority could give us a common policy, ways of enforcing laws on global climate change, preserving arable land and potable water, acid rain, a law of the seas treaty, bio-engineered seed, and other crucial environmental issues.

But we should say something explicitly and separately about care of the earth of which we are a part.  We need a culture in which care of the earth is primary.  If the so-called "economy" is causing deterioration of the earth, we need to change our economic structures.

This web-site's section on Theological Reflection has considered reconciliation among the human family and with God. Christian scriptures and Christian theology extend reconciliation to that of physical creation.  We need to be in harmony with the earth.  Christian Scripture indicates that even physical creation is included in the redemptive act of Jesus. "In Him everything in heaven and on earth was created, things visible and invisible. . all were created through him, and for him. .He is before all else that is. In Him everything continues in being. It is he who is head of the body, the church:  Jesus is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything He might be pre-eminent, for all the fullness (pleroma) was pleased to dwell in Him and to reconcile all things to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross." (Colossians 1.16-20) Pleroma designates the plentitude of divine creative and saving power.  "The effects of His saving death penetrate the whole of creation." (Gelpi, The Firstborn of Many, I. 431)  "The Father has put all things under Christ's feet and has made him thus exalted, head of the church, which is his body:  the fullness of him who fills the universe in all its parts." (Ephesians 1. 22, 23)  "That infilling transform the Church into Jesus' instrument for extending the divine fullness to all creation.  The Church, then, in accomplishing its mission mediates the fullness of salvation to a sinful world, the fullness of Christic life." (Gelpi, The Firstborn of Many, I. 440)

I think we are not used to considering the earth as being redeemed by Jesus, but as Fr. Gelpi says above, the earth's salvation is clearly stated by St. Paul.  "It is in Christ and through his blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven, so immeasurably generous is God's favor to us.  God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ's headship." (Ephesians 1.9-18)

Since God created nature, the earth is good.   God enjoins us to farm the earth and take care of it.  We are called to be stewards of God's creation, to be co-creators with God in perfecting God's act of creation.  (Genesis 1.11, 28.  Leviticus 25.1-28.  Psalm 24.)

God did not create the earth in order to destroy it.  If we are to act as daughters and sons of God, the dominion we have over nature is a dominion of nurture and care, not one of destruction and careless exploitation.  Since we are not the creators, not the lords of the earth, the dominion women and men exercise is delegated power.  We are stewards, not absolute owners.  (Genesis 2.15)

The Covenant at Sinai provided for a Sabbath year when the land was left fallow.   Every fiftieth year a jubilee was to be proclaimed and property was to be restored to its original owners.  (Exodus 23.11; Leviticus 25.1-7; Leviticus 25.8-17; Isaiah 61.1, 2; Luke 4.18, 19)

Jesus is our Lord.  But Jesus gave us an example; he acted as a servant doing good to all.  When the disciples argued over who was number one, Jesus urged them not to lord it over others, but to serve one another.  Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.  (John 22.26, 27)

A scriptural image of our world is that of a banquet to be shared by all.  The early Christians shared all in common.  (Acts 2.44-45)  Early church Fathers used the banquet image and its antithesis.  If we don't help the person dying of hunger, we have killed them.  Today we could translate: help the one gasping for pure air, or searching for potable water; for if you have not helped them, you have killed them.  St. John Chrysostom says we share all the resources of the earth together: "Do not say ‘I am using what belongs to me.'  You are using what belongs to others.  All the wealth of the world belongs to you and to others in common, as the sun, air, earth, and all the rest."  If we use this image of the earth as a banquet, should some gorge themselves on seconds and thirds before others have their first helping?  Both Pope Paul VI and John Paul II urge a new world in which the poor man Lazarus can sit down at the same table with the rich man.  (Luke 16.19-31; Gospel of Peace and Justice; Catholic Social Teaching Since Pope John, Joseph Gremillion, ed. 401)

God asks us to open our hearts for even more love and understanding "for the problems that concern not only the human community but also the effective preservation and protection of the natural environment of which we are all a part. .The devastation of the environment in the Amazon Basin and the threats against the human dignity of peoples living within that region call for greater commitment."  (Pope Benedict XVI in Brazil, Origins, 5/24/07, Vol. 37, No. 2)

For a new way to make things, a new way to be a co-creator with God, an architect and a chemist, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, have written a book that is waterproof: Cradle to Cradle.  Instead of products going cradle to grave and making our earth one big landfill, why not create products that are made to go cradle to cradle? 

Cradle to Cradle
William McDonough & Michael Braungart

pp. 169-171

"The truth is, we are standing in the middle of an enormous marketplace filled with ingredients that are largely undefined: we know little about what they are made of, and how. And based on what we do know, for the most part the news is not good; most of the products we have analyzed do not meet truly eco-effective design criteria. Yet decisions have to be made today, forcing upon the designer the difficult question of which materials are sound enough to use. People are coming for dinner in a few hours, and they expect to – need to – eat. Despite the astonishing paucity of healthy, nutritious ingredients, and the mystery surrounding, say, genetically modified crops (to carry the metaphor further), we cannot put off cooking until perfection has been achieved.
 

You might decide, as a personal preference, to be a vegetarian (“free of” meat), or not to consume meat from animals that have been fed hormones (another “free of” strategy). But what about the ingredients you do use? Being a vegetarian does not tell you exactly how the produce you are using has been grown or handled. You might prefer organically grown spinach to conventionally grown spinach, but without knowing more about the processor’s packaging and transportation methods, you can’t be certain that it it safer or better for the environment unless you grow it yourself. But we must begin somewhere, and odds are that as an initial step, considering these issues and expressing your preferences in the choices you make will result in greater eco-effectiveness than had you not considered them at all.
Many real-life decisions come down to comparing two things that are both less than ideal, as in the case of chlorine-free paper versus recycled paper. You may find yourself choosing between a petrochemical-based fabric and an “all natural” cotton that was produced with the help of large amounts of petrochemically generated nitrogen fertilizers and strip-mined radioactive phosphates, not to mention insecticides and herbicides. And beyond what you know lurk other troubling questions of social equity and broader ecological ramifications. When the choice is consistently between the frying pan and the fire, the chooser is apt to feel helpless and frustrated, which is why a more profound approach to redesign is critical. But in the meantime, there are ways to do the best with what we have, to make better choices.

pp.178-179

Now we are doing more than designing for biological and technical cycles. We are recasting the design assignment: not “design a car” but “design a ‘nutrivehicle.’” Instead of aiming to create cars with minimal or zero negative emissions, imagine cars designed to release positive emissions and generate other nutritious effects on the environment. The car’s engine is treated like a chemical plant modeled on nature or industries. As it burns fuel, the water vapor in its emissions could be captured, turned back into water, and made use of. (Currently the average car emits approximately four fifths of a gallon of water vapor into the air for every gallon of gas it burns.) Instead of making the catalytic converter as small as possible, we might develop the means to use nitrous oxide as a fertilizer and configure our car to make and store as much as possible while driving. Instead of releasing the carbon the car produces when burning gasoline as carbon dioxide, why not store it as carbon black in canisters that could be sold to rubber manufacturers? Using fluid mechanics, tires could be designed to attract and capture harmful particles, thus cleaning the air instead of further dirtying it. And, of course, after the end of its useful life, all the car’s materials go back to the biological or technical cycle.
 

Push the design assignment further: “Design a new transportation infrastructure.” In other words, don’t just reinvent the recipe, rethink the menu."
 

Christian theology has always held that humankind has a collective sin called original sin.  In a mysterious way the earth participates in and reflects the sin of humankind.  "Cursed be the earth because of you."  But in the covenant with Noah this curse is removed.  (Genesis 3.17 & Gen. 8.21)

Christians believe that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus redeems humankind from original sin.  As we have said,  St. Paul includes physical creation in Christ's redeeming act. "The world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.  All creation groans and is in agony even until now." (Romans 8.19 ff)

Not only is physical creation redeemed by Jesus, Christ creates and sustains the earth.  "In Jesus everything in heaven and on earth was created, things visible and invisible. . . all were created through him, and for him. . . in him everything continues in being. . . It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him, and, by means of him, to reconcile everything in his person both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross."  (Colossians 1.16)

St. Paul repeats that reconciliation of the earth is part of the mission, message, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. "It is in Christ and through his blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven so immeasurably generous is God's favor to us.  God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ's headship."  (Ephesians 1.9-18)

An Inconvenient Truth

In our present system our livelihood and success can depend on a particular industry that uses fossil fuels extensively.  Our job can cloud our vision and affect our judgment.  Global warming can be "an inconvenient truth."  But global warming can affect the livelihood of all of us in a dramatic way.  Examine the science at http://www.climatecrisis.net

"To grow corn that cheap, you need more than just subsidies. [When the farmer gets a fair price which includes care of the environment, there won't be any need for subsidies.] You also need vast quantities of fossil fuel. The food industry consumes about 20 percent of imported petroleum, much of which goes to fertilize cornfields. Corn takes a great amount of nitrogen to grow, and the way we make artificial nitrogen is to turn natural gas into ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. So something else you're eating in that McDonald's meal is fossil fuel. A pound of beef takes a half gallon of oil to grow. A bushel of corn also takes about a half gallon. It takes ten calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy that way. So to eat that McDonald's meal, we need to keep the oil flowing. . .transporting food from distant farms requires fossil fuel and technologies to keep food fresh. . . grasslands have plenty of biodiversity and help lessen the greenhouse effect by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. All plants take in carbon dioxide, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen back into the air. What's important about grasses is that they sequester most of that carbon in the soil, and very little in their actual 'bodies.'" The Sun, May 2006, pp. 7-8. [Thus our food delivery system is a major cause of global warming and destabilization of the climate.]
 

What we eat and care of our Earth

A scarcity of potable water in poorer nations is no secret.  Now the US government predicts shortages of water in thirty-six states within five years.  Even now there is a drought in Georgia; a town in Tennessee limits service to three hours a day.  Lake Mead which supplies Las Vegas and parts of California, is 100 feet below normal and draining rapidly.  Is there a way to save our water supply?  Yes, by eating less meat!  Wheat requires 117 gallons of water to produce a pound of food.  Beef requires 5,165 gallons a pound--a ratio of nearly 50 to 1!

A panel of thousands of the world's top climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that human-caused global warming is "unequivocal" and coming faster than expected.  One of the best ways to reverse global climate change is to eat a plant based diet.  18% of global warming emissions come from raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food.  That's about 40% more than all the cars, trucks, airplanes, and all other forms of transport combined. (See Earthsave, Feb. 2008)

God made a Covenant with the Hebrew people and  later with the Christian people.  Scripture states that that Covenant is extended by God to physical creation.  "See I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you."  The sign is the rainbow.  (Genesis 9.9)

Jeremiah connects the covenant with David and the covenant with physical nature: "If you can break my covenant with day and my covenant with night so that day and night no longer alternate in sequence, then can my covenant with my servant David also be broken."  This same theme of the covenant extending to physical creation is also part of the Christian Covenant.  (Jeremiah 33.20; Ezekiel 47.1-12; Genesis 2.10-17.  See also the cosmic hymn of praise in Psalm 148.)

Creatures are thus praise of the Creator.  If we are close to the rhythms of nature, we are close to the Creator of those rhythms.

We are co-creators with God, called to farm the earth.  God, of course, is the first Creator, but creation was far from complete in the beginning, and through our talents we are invited to assist in bringing God's act of creation to completion.

We are like nature and nature is like us.  "Look at the birds in the sky.  They do not sow or reap; they gather nothing into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them."  (Matthew 6.26)

Fr. Edward Carter, S..J., deceased professor of theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, agreed that physical nature participates in humankind's sin and is mysteriously redeemed by the life and death of Christ.   "In assuming a human nature, Christ united to Himself humankind, also the material creation below humankind.  In the words of Teilhard de Chardin, Christ is the physical center of the Universe. . Christ has redeemed man, and as a consequence of man's redemption, the whole physical universe has been redeemed. . . With the intrusion of sin into God's creation, man and nonrational creation were both affected.  Through his misuse of God's creation by sin, man not only puts disorder into himself, but also into the creation which he misuses. . Christ as king wants His redemptive grace to spread out and touch deeply humankind and the physical universe. .  The mission of the Church consists in imprinting the name of Jesus Christ more deeply upon the entire universe, men and matter alike."  Response in Christ, A Study of Christian Life, 23, 25)

Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. says that matter is transformed, divinized when Jesus enters the waters at his baptism:  "Who can fail to perceive the great symbolic gesture of baptism in this general history of matter?  Christ immerses himself in the waters of the Jordan, symbol of the forces of the earth.  These he sanctifies.  And in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, he emerges streaming with water and elevating along with himself the whole world. . . By virtue of your suffering incarnation, disclose to us the spiritual power of matter, and then teach us how to harness it jealously for you."  (Divine Milieu, An Essay on the Interior Life, 86)

I think land and food have a spiritual connection.  Food is the first unifier; our primary experience of communion.  Communion leads to a sense of oneness with the whole of creation.  We grow in reverence for the earth, the great Mother that confers life and power.

Science tells us there is a physical interdependence of every element in the universe.  Gravitational fields, electric fields, magnetic fields have no limits. Chardin saw this physical interdependence as uniting us with all of creation and with Christ.

Physical creation is essential for sacramental life in the Christian churches.  Without bread, wine, oil as visible signs, there are no sacraments.  In the sacraments Christ comes again to create a new heaven and a new earth and present it to the Father.  To Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Eucharistic Christ is not just the spiritual center but the physical center of the universe.  Physical creation, ourselves, and Christ are one, physically one.  The physical environment is one with us and with Christ.  As friends or husband and wife grow together over the years, we strive to become more one.  A pre-eminent  way in which we do this is through the Eucharist of the Christian Mass.

"All the communions of all men and women, present, past and future, are one communion. . . Christ is discovered in every single reality around us, and shines like an ultimate determination, like a Centre, one might almost say like a universal Element.  Through our humanity assimilating the material world, and the Host assimilating our humanity, the Eucharistic transformation goes beyond and completes the transubstantiation of the bread on the altar. . . In a secondary and generalized sense, but in a true sense, the sacramental species are formed by the totality of the world and the duration of creation is needed for its consecration.  In Christ, we live and move and are." (Chardin, The Divine Milieu, 102-104)

Through the Eucharist all creation is being drawn to Christ as to its center. Teilhard did not hesitate to identify Christ as not just the spiritual center but the physical center of the universe. (Gelpi, The Firstborn of Many, III 401) But I think we have to grow a better grade of wheat and bake a better loaf of bread before Christ will come and consecrate the world fully into His body.

The Eucharist is unity.  If there is someone hungry anywhere in the world, the Eucharist is incomplete everywhere in the world.  In 1979 on my radio show Faith and Justice Forum I interviewed Bishop Maurice Dingman who at that time was the President of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.  He told listeners that at a social function a farmer approached him and handed him a letter.  "I heard the Pope is coming to the United States, and I think he should come to a rural area."  Bishop Dingman took the letter to his advisors and asked what he was supposed to do with the farmer's request  since the Pope obviously wasn't going to come to Iowa.  His advisors countered, "You always say the best ideas come from the people.  The Pope could say Mass here at Living History Farms.  The people could stay with other farmers.  We could host the Pope."  As he listened, Bishop Dingman decided it could be done.  He wrote a letter to Bishop Kelly, at that time secretary to the United States Catholic Bishops.  He received no reply.  Waiting a couple of weeks, Bishop Dingman then called Bishop Kelly who said: "There's no way the Pope is coming to Iowa.  His itinerary is already settled."  Undaunted, Bishop Dingman then wrote to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, D.C.  A few weeks later the Apostolic Delegate called to say he would forward Bishop Dingman's letter to the Pope.  Soon Bishop Dingman got another call.  "The Pope thinks coming to a rural area is a superb idea and would be delighted to come to Des Moines!  We'll come there from Chicago."

The homily of Pope John Paul II at Des Moines was an excellent theological exhortation on food, farming, and the Eucharist.  "As one who has always been close to nature, let me speak to you today about the land, the earth, and that which earth has given and human hands have made.  The land is God's gift entrusted to people from the very beginning.  It is God's gift, given by a loving creator as a means of sustaining the life which he had created.  But the land is not only God's gift.  It is also man's responsibility.  Man, himself created from the dust of the earth, (Genesis 3, 7), was made its master. (Gn 1.26).  In order to bring forth fruit, the land would depend upon the genius and skillfulness, the sweat and the toil of the people to whom God would entrust it.  Thus the food which would sustain life on earth is willed by God to be both that 'which earth has given and human hands have made.'"  (Eucharistic Mass at Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 4, 1979, Origins, Vol. 9; no. 18, Oct. 18, 1979)

Though there is continuity between our life here and the life to come, we pray that Jesus come to create a new heaven and a new earth, the heavenly Jerusalem."  (Revelation 21, 22)

For practical ways to make our earth better for those who will come after us, I recommend Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest, 50 Lair Street, Mt. Vernon, KY 40456  http://www.kih.net/aspi
 Imago Earth Center http://www.imagoearth.com

http://earthhealing.info Coalition Courier

Volume 5, Issue 4 (May 2007)

Time magazine offers a survival guide...
Global Warming: What Now?

A special issue of Time magazine (April 9, 2007- Vol. 169, No. 15) is dedicated to the topic of global warming. We end Volume 5 of our newsletter with some segments taken from that issue …

It was probably always too much to believe that human beings would be responsible stewards of the planet. We may be the smartest of all the animals, endowed with exponentially greater powers of insight and abstraction, but we're animals all the same. That means that we can also be short-sighted and brutish, hungry for food, resources, land--and heedless of the mess we leave behind trying to get them.

And make a mess we have. If droughts and wildfires, floods and crop failures, collapsing climate-sensitive species and the images of drowning polar bears didn't quiet most of the remaining global-warming doubters, the hurricane-driven destruction of New Orleans did. Dismissing a scientist's temperature chart is one thing. Dismissing the death of a major American city is something else entirely. What's more, the heat is only continuing to rise. This past year was the hottest on record in the U.S. The deceptively normal average temperature this winter masked record-breaking highs in December and record-breaking lows in February. That's the sign not of a planet keeping an even strain but of one thrashing through the alternating chills and night sweats of a serious illness.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report on the state of planetary warming in February that was surprising only in its utter lack of hedging. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the report stated. What's more, there is "very high confidence" that human activities since 1750 have played a significant role by overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide hence retaining solar heat that would otherwise radiate away. The report concludes that while the long-term solution is to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, for now we're going to have to dig in and prepare, building better levees, moving to higher ground, abandoning vulnerable floodplains altogether. When former Vice President Al Gore made his triumphant return to Capitol Hill on March 21 to testify before Congress on climate change, he issued an uncompromising warning: "We do not have time to play around with this."

Some lingering critics still found wiggle room in the U.N. panel's findings. "I think there is a healthy debate ongoing, even though the scientists who are in favor of doing something on greenhouse gases are in the majority," says Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin. But when your last good position is to debate the difference between certain and extra certain, you're playing a losing hand. "The science," says Christine Todd Whitman, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (epa), "now is getting to the point where it's pretty hard to deny." Indeed it is. Atmospheric levels of CO2 were 379 parts per million (p.p.m.) in 2005, higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. Of the 12 warmest years on record, 11 occurred between 1995 and 2006.

So if the diagnosis is in, what's the cure? A crisis of this magnitude clearly calls for action that is both bottom-up and top-down. Though there is some debate about how much difference individuals can make, there is little question that the most powerful players--government and industry--have to take the lead.

Still, individuals too can move the carbon needle, but how much and how fast? Different green strategies, after all, yield different results. You can choose a hybrid vehicle, but simply tuning up your car and properly inflating the tires will help too. Buying carbon offsets can reduce the impact of your cross-continental travel, provided you can ensure where your money's really going. Planting trees is great, but in some parts of the world, the light-absorbing color of the leaves causes them to retain heat and paradoxically increases warming.

Even the most effective individual action, however, is not enough. Cleaning up the wreckage left by our 250-year industrial bacchanal will require fundamental changes in a society hooked on its fossil fuels. Beneath the grass-roots action, larger tectonic plates are shifting. Science is attacking the problem more aggressively than ever. So is industry. So are architects and lawmakers and urban planners. The world is awakened to the problem in a way it never has been before. Says Carol Browner, onetime administrator of the EPA: "It's a sea change from where we were on this issue."

The Green Company

When a business with more than 7,000 stores, 1.8 million employees and $345 billion in sales changes its ways, it's hard not to notice. Wal-Mart has made itself the darling of greens with its pledge to install solar panels on many of its stores, switch to hybrid vehicles, conserve water and even buy wild-caught salmon. More important, its mandates are having an incalculable ripple effect through its 60,000 suppliers, which are being asked to join Wal-Mart's effort to reduce packaging, waste and energy use. And when Wal-Mart asks, there's little question what the answer will be.

But Wal-Mart is not alone. In January the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group that includes some of the biggest corporate players and energy users in the world--Alcoa, BP America, Duke Energy, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, Caterpillar and PG&E--asked the Federal Government to act aggressively on climate change, not least by imposing legal limits on the amount of industrial carbon dioxide emissions. The corporations know there's a virtue in going green, but they're also looking for some regulatory certainty before they make massive investments. What's more, there's money to be made in the enviro game.

Take General Electric. Its Ecomagination initiative centers on a line of 45 green products, including wind turbines and next-generation jet engines that go easy on the earth but land nicely on the balance sheet. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt set a goal of generating more than $20 billion in revenue from Ecomagination by 2010, and by 2006 the company had hit the $12 billion mark.

DuPont, which suffered twin hits to both revenue and reputation in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it had to phase out its production of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons, has made a similar environmental pledge. It sold its Dacron, Lycra and Nylon division--all fossil-fuel-based fabrics--and is concentrating on bio-based materials like Sorona polymer made from starch found in the kernels of corn. DuPont hopes to more than double its revenue from nondepletable resources, to $8 billion by 2015. The company has also cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 72% since 1990 and is aiming for more. That puts DuPont in position to respond nimbly if Washington eventually acts to cap carbon. "We learned that we have to be ahead of legislation," says Linda Fisher, DuPont's chief sustainability officer, a title of growing significance in corporate America. "That is truer today than it was 20 years ago."

Not surprisingly, some companies talk a green game but don't really play one. Ford Motor Co. made a big show of performing a $2 billion environmental overhaul of its River Rouge factory in Dearborn, Mich., but still turns out SUVs like the elephantine Expedition, which gets a puny 14 m.p.g. in city driving. Toyota, famous for its hybrid Prius, has nonetheless joined the U.S. Big Three in lobbying Washington against stricter fuel standards.

This kind of environmental posing--greenwashing is the term of art--will not be a viable business strategy in a world transformed by climate change. The smart money is betting on the need for real innovation--clean technology that lowers costs or improves output. Venture capital is increasingly flowing to green start-ups: $474 million in the first three quarters of 2006 in Silicon Valley alone. That's sparking the interest of everyday investors, who see green technology as--dare they wish it?--the next Internet. Says Ray Lane, a partner at the KPCB venture-capital firm: "If you consider the sheer scale of the problem, I think this is an order of magnitude bigger."

Global mutual fund Portfolio 21 (www.portfolio21.com) announced its Top 10 financial performers among companies implementing environ-mental business strategies. The top performers in the fund posted returns ranging from 41% to 131% in 2006.

The fund identifies companies that recognize the enormous opportunity that exists to save money by saving natural resources and by providing products, services and technologies that are needed to create a sustainable society. Specifically, Portfolio 21 seeks companies that understand environmental constraints and risks, such as climate change, and are changing the way they design products and develop business models to reduce their exposure to these constraints and risks, thereby ensuring greater long-term competitiveness.

“Smart corporate leaders and savvy investors agree that paying attention to ecological trends and how they affect the bottom line may be an intelligent investment strategy,” said Carsten Henningsen, co-founder of Portfolio 21. “Global warming could have an enormous impact on the world economy in the coming years; companies that are already addressing the risks and opportunities presented by climate change may have a big head start.”

Portfolio 21’s Top 10 financial performers for the 12-month period ending December 30, 2006, include:

Vestas Wind System: This Danish wind turbine manufacturer has a clear sustainability strategy based on manufacturing equipment and operating facilities for the renewable energy sector.

Fuel Systems Solution: This company designs, manufactures and supplies fuel storage, fuel delivery, and electronic control systems for automobile engines, with a focus on systems compatible with alternative fuels, such as natural gas and methane.

JM: This Swedish construction and real estate company leads its industry in sustainable practices.

Interface: With a variety of environmental programs being implemented, Interface has developed the first "climate neutral" carpeting, has installed photovoltaics to provide solar power to three of its facilities, is developing carpet made from renewable natural materials that can be composted or recycled back into the same product, and, through its “Mission Zero” program, aims to have zero waste and closed loop production.

British Land: British Land, a property development and management company, clearly recognizes the economic benefits and competitive advantage that can be earned through the incorporation of sustainability principles.

Acciona: This diversified Spanish company prioritizes sustainability across its business lines. Through its construction and infrastructure subsidiary, Acciona works to educate clients and promote environmental features.

Ormat: Ormat is focused on recovered and geothermal energy, both of which are renewable and have low global warming profiles.

Canon: Canon focuses on creating energy- and resource-efficient products as well as eliminating hazardous substances.

Hewlett-Packard: Hewlett-Packard established its Environmental Stewardship program and Design-for-Environment principles in 1992, and continues to be a leader in addressing environmental issues.

Novozymes: Denmark’s Novozymes is the world leader in biotech-based industrial enzymes and microorganisms. These enzyme products can reduce the use of energy, raw materials, and harsh chemicals as well as reducing waste generation.

Portfolio 21 believes there is a business and investment case for environmental sustainability. “Real opportunities and potential future successes lie in understanding the ecological crisis. We believe companies that prove this understanding with innovative environmental business strategies have a real competitive advantage today and are poised for further leadership and innovation in the future,” Henningsen said.

Information taken from: CRSwire.com This is not an endorsement for Portfolio 21


Save the environment and save money...
Five Things You Can Do Now

1. Change five lights. Replace your five most frequently used light bulbs with products that have earned the Energy Star label, such as compact fluorescent.

2. Heat and cool smartly. Have your system checked annually and install an Energy Star labeled programmable thermostat so you are not paying to heat or cool your house when you are not at home.

3. Seal up your home with better insulation and ductwork. Keep the warm air in and the big energy bills out of your house by following Energy Star Home Sealing recommendations for adding insulation to your home and weather-stripping and caulking around doors and windows.

4. Look for Energy Star labeled products. When you are in the market for home electronics, major appliances, office equipment, heating and cooling systems, windows or even a new home, choose one that has earned the Energy Star.

5. Tell family and friends how they can help. Slip it into a conversation with your mother. Talk about it at a neighbor's barbecue. Pass it on at a PTA meeting or at work. We're asking you to help spread the word that energy efficiency is good for your home and good for our environment. So tell five people and together we can help our homes help us all.

Source: www.environmentohio.org/dev.environmentohio/energy-star


A sign of respect for God’s creation .United States Conference of Catholic Bishops..

Catholic social teaching has been dubbed the best kept secret in the Church today. The U.S.C.C.B. issued a statement in 2001 entitled “Global Climate Change … a plea for dialogue, prudence and the common good.”

 “As a people of faith, we are convinced that ‘the earth is the Lord’s and all it holds’ (Ps 24:1). Our Creator has given us the gift of creation: the air we breathe, the water that sustains life, the fruits of the land that nourish us, and the entire web of life without which human life cannot flourish. All of this God created and found ’very good.’ We believe our response to global climate change should be a sign of our respect for God’s creation.”

“At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both ’the human environment’ and the natural environment. It is about our human stewardship of God’s creation and our responsibility to those who come after us. … we especially want to focus on the needs of the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable in a debate often dominated by more powerful interests. Inaction and inadequate or misguided responses to climate change will likely place even greater burdens on already desperately poor peoples. Action to mitigate global climate change must be built upon a foundation of social and economic justice that does not put the poor at greater risk or place disproportionate and unfair burdens on developing nations.”
 

"God has endowed humanity with reason and ingenuity that distinguish us from other creatures. Ingenuity and creativity have enabled us to make remarkable advances and can help us address the problem of global climate change; however, we have not always used these endowments wisely. Past actions have produced both good works and harmful ones, as well as unforseen or unintended consequences. … Catholic social teaching provides several themes and values that can help … the universal common good; stewardship of God’s creation and the right to economic initiative and private property; protecting the environment for future generations; population and authentic development; caring for the poor and issues of equity.”

“Each of us should carefully consider our choices and lifestyles. We live in a culture that prizes the consumption of material goods. … Even though energy resources literally fuel our economy and provide a good quality of life, we need to ask about ways we can conserve energy, prevent pollution, and live more simply.”

The document concludes “In the spirit of praise and thanksgiving to God for the wonders of creation, we Catholic bishops call for a civil dialogue and prudent and constructive action to protect God’s precious gift of the earth’s atmosphere with a sense of genuine solidarity and justice for all God’s children.”

Quotes taken from “Global Climate Change,” USCCB, publication no. 5-431. www.usccb.org

 

"Rabbinic writings expand the notion of Holy Land to include the whole earth."  Ecology and the Jewish Spirit, Where Nature & the Sacred Meet, ed Ellen Bernstein (p. 41) "Israel, the holy people, could encounter holiness anywhere and everywhere.  The entire earth offered an encounter with God." (p. 47) "Any place is made holy by the fidelity and piety of its inhabitants. In fact, land can be 'soiled'; it can react with revulsion to the greed, rebelliousness, or violence of humanity. . . a people is ultimately responsible for the maintenance of its 'place.'"(p. 48).  The Covenant extends to physical creation. (p. 59)

Jewish people are called to stewardship of the land.  (See "An Imperiled Promised Land" Alon Tal in Torah of the Earth, Exploring 4000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought, Vol. 2, p.42) "But the seventh year thou shalt let your land rest and lie fallow" Exodus 23.11  "One year out of seven we should stop working the earth, dedicating this year to replenishment of the earth. . . The Sabbatical Year becomes an important instruction to the human race:  you don't run things, you are stewards, and you can have power to run your lives only if you do it in accord with the higher purpose that you are here to serve." (Ibid. Rabbi Michael Lerner, p. 232 ff)

A new book by Elisabeth M. Ferrero and Joe Holland, both members of Pax Romana / Catholic Movement for Intellectual & Cultural Affairs - USA, has been released to the whole world for free in an electronic format on the Internet. Titled THE EARTH CHARTER: A STUDY BOOK OF REFLECTION FOR ACTION, the book is available for viewing and for free non-commercial downloading at www.ECreflection4action.org.

The book's writing and publication is a project of Pax Romana / Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA, in cooperation with the Center for Sustainable Living, the Florida Council of Catholic Scholarship, and the International Consortium on Religion and Ecology.

Ferrero's and Holland's book traces the historical development of the Earth Charter and provides an extensive commentary on its principles, as well as a copy of the final draft of the Earth Charter itself. The book also contains letters of greetings from Msgr. Franklyn Casale, President of St. Thomas University in Miami - USA, and from Miriam Vilela, Executive Director of the Earth Charter Initiative in San José, Costa Rica, plus a Preface by the distinguished ecological scholar and visionary, Thomas Berry.

"For the first time in world history the human species is drastically altering the face of the earth and the composition of its atmosphere.  Global air and water pollution, accumulation of toxic wastes, destruction of forests, and depletion of the ozone lay threaten the survival of humans and thousands of other living species.  The integrity of the earth, its biodiversity, and the security of nations are at risk.  These environmental changes are caused by inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patters which also aggravate poverty in many regions of the world.  Moreover, these trends are likely to worsen in the absence of societal intervention. . .

Universities educate most of the people who develop and manage society's institutions.  For this reason, universities bear profound responsibilities to increase the awareness, knowledge, technologies, and tools to create an environmentally sustainable future.

The university is a microcosm of the larger community, and the manner in which it carries out its daily activities is an important demonstration of ways to achieve environmentally responsible living. By practicing what it preaches, the university can both engage the students in understanding the institutional metabolism of materials and activities, have them actively participate to minimize pollution and waste. . .

Seek large increases in the funding of interdisciplinary, environmental research. . . Establish programs in all major disciplines to teach about environment and sustainable development in the context of these disciplines. . .

Establish a university environmental policy to engage faculty, staff, administration, and students in activities such as energy and water conservation, and recycling.  Encourage vendors who supply schools with products and services to act in an environmentally responsible manner when manufacturing their products and delivering their services. . .

Establish multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary structures, such as 'centers of excellence' for research, education, and policy development within the university. . ."

Presidents of universities from all over the world convened at Tufts European Center in Talloires, France from Oct. 4-7, 1990 to discuss the role of universities in saving the earth.  They formed the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future.   http://www.ULSF.org/

How can we meet our needs today while not compromising the abilities of future generations to meet their needs?

I think it is essential for US political democracy that we have democratic control of the land.  Unless all the stakeholders are represented, selfish commercial interests may predominate.  Who will represent the earth?  If control of the land is more democratic, the voice of a suffering earth has a better chance of being heard.

I favor appropriate technology and organic farming which is regenerative, sustainable, and safer for the consumer.  For technology to be appropriate it needs to be in harmony with the earth.

"The term 'sustainable agriculture' was introduced in the early 1980's and has since gained wide recognition.  It is used to convey the concept of a system of agriculture that is ecologically, economically, and socially viable, in the short as well as long term.  Sustainable agriculture represents the end-goal of developing a food production system that: yields plentiful, affordable, high-quality food and other agricultural products; does not deplete or damage natural resources (such as soil, water, wildlife, fossil fuels, or the germ-plasm base); promotes the health of the environment; provides a good livelihood for farmers; supports a broad base and diversity of farms and the health of rural communities; depends on energy from the sun and on natural biological processes for fertility and pest management; can last indefinitely."  Sustainable Agriculture, Concepts and Farm Applications, December, 1991, Fayetteville, Arkansas:  ATTRA, Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas, 1.

"To grow corn that cheap, you need more than just subsidies. [When the farmer gets a fair price which includes care of the environment, there won't be any need for subsidies.] You also need vast quantities of fossil fuel. The food industry consumes about 20 percent of imported petroleum, much of which goes to fertilize cornfields. Corn takes a great amount of nitrogen to grow, and the way we make artificial nitrogen is to turn natural gas into ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. So something else you're eating in that McDonald's meal is fossil fuel. A pound of beef takes a half gallon of oil to grow. A bushel of corn also takes about a half gallon. It takes ten calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy that way. So to eat that McDonald's meal, we need to keep the oil flowing. . .transporting food from distant farms requires fossil fuel and technologies to keep food fresh. . . grasslands have plenty of biodiversity and help lessen the greenhouse effect by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. All plants take in carbon dioxide, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen back into the air. What's important about grasses is that they sequester most of that carbon in the soil, and very little in their actual 'bodies.'" The Sun, May 2006, pp. 7-8. [Thus our food delivery system is a major cause of global warming and destabilization of the climate.]

To see the advantages of wind power see GreenEnergyOhio.org
Green Energy Ohio is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies and practices in Ohio.

http://www.sej.org/pub/ReligionResources.htm   

http://www.earthhealing.info   Earthhealing, Inc.  Fr. Al Fritsch, S.J.

                                                                                 Grailville

Grailville is  challenging, productive and educational living/working group committed to personal and communal spiritual growth and care of the Earth.

Grailville is an oasis of green, beauty, and peace, bordering the City of Loveland near Cincinnati, Ohio.  See http://www.grailville.org

Earth Healing

For many years Fr. Albert Fritsch, S.J. has joined his religious faith with his scientific scholarship and his passion for justice to make this a healthier earth.  I invite you to visit his new web-site at www.earthhealing.info

Water

Private ownership of water or privatization of water is a threat to our water security. One person in six does not have access to clean drinking water.  The UN predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will not have access to sufficient drinking water.  Private corporations look at water as blue gold.  Delegates from thirty-five nations formulated principles concerning fresh water:  "Earth's fresh water belongs to the Earth and all species, and therefore must not be treated as a private commodity to be bought, sold and traded for profit.  The global fresh water supply is a shared legacy, a public trust, a fundamental human right, and therefore a collective responsibility."

Bottle water is much more expensive than tap or filtered water.  Annual sales of bottled water are more than thirty-five billion dollars worldwide. Much bottled water is appropriated by giant soft drink corporations.  These transnational corporations buy up farms, wilderness tracts, and whole water systems.  Plastic water bottles clog landfills.  In a test of 1000 bottles, one third contained contamination, including traces of arsenic and E. coli.  One fourth of bottled water is taken from the tap.  Bottled water is subject to much less regulation than tap water.

What are we to do?  If your tap water is questionable, consider using filters even though energy and materials are still needed for filter production and distribution and used up tilter components usually end in landfills where they can release toxins collected from the water back into the environment.  Filters are a temporary solution and no substitute for proper watershed conservation and management--i.e. keeping our natural water supply  clean..

See www.stellamarisretreatcenter.org/waterspirit  or www.waterstewards.org

Taken from Harvest  summer 2004 Christian Life Community Sylvia Picard Schmitt  p. 26 ff

·       Second UN World Water Development Report

'Water, a Shared Responsibility' Published: Mar. 2006: www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr2/table_contents.shtml

·       Resource for Water Issues at the UN

www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/water/Interagency_activities.htm

·       Resource on Bottled Water published in the USA:  

http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/bottled_water.pdf

Messages in Water?

Dr. Masaru Emoto, The Hidden Messages in Water:  We are mostly water; the earth is mostly water.  If we send vibrations of love and gratitude, through water the earth will pick up those messages. 

How can we be happy?  By purifying the water that makes up 70% of our body.  Water carried by blood and bodily fluids circulates nourishment and energy throughout our bodies.

 Homeopathy teaches us to treat like with like, poison with poison. Lead poisoning can be treated by drinking water with the minutest amount of lead in it. At this minute level lead is no longer in the water for practical purposes, but  the characteristics of lead remain and forms the medicine for treating lead poisoning.  The information copied to the water is being used to cancel out the information of the symptoms from the poison.  Water has the ability to copy and memorize information.

No two snow crystals are exactly the same.  After much experimentation Dr. Emoto was able to freeze water and take pictures of the crystals.  He put a bottle of water on a table between two speakers and played Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony with its bright and clear tones.  Beautiful and well-formed crystals resulted.  Mozart's 40th Symphony, a graceful prayer to beauty, created crystals that were delicate and elegant.  In contrast violent heavy-metal music produced fragmented and malformed crystals.

Whether you believe Dr. Emoto's experiments or not,  I recommend sending vibrations of love and gratitude throughout the earth.

Vegetarians Help Preserve Water Supply

From the Stockholm International Water Institute at the 12th meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development: It takes 145 gallons of water to produce one loaf of bread; 1,849 gallons to produce just three and a half ounces of beef.  It takes about fifty times more water to produce a calorie of beef than a calorie of potatoes. By going vegan, you can reduce the amount of water needed to grow your food from an average of 320,00 gallons a year to around 10,000 gallons a year.  The water required to grow food to feed one person on the Standard American Diet can feed thirty-two people eating a healthier plant-based diet.

No one today is making any money in agriculture except for the transnational corporate giants who control farm commodity prices, agricultural input prices, seeds, patents, and retail food sales. Corporations are making billions while family farmers in the US and all over the world are going bankrupt. On a global scale this chemical and genetically engineered driven model of agriculture will be literally catastrophic. (See BioDemocrtacy News # 25 http://www.purefood.org BioDemocracy Camapaign)

                                                                               Turning Point Project

Where there were once a hundred farmers using thirty acres each, there may now be one corporate farmer using 3000 acres. Nearly a billion pounds of pesticide are applied annually in the US. Half of the US topsoil has been lost in the last four decades of industrial farming. If the present system is ecologically unsustainable and socially repulsive, where do we go from here? A coalition of 60 organizations, the Turning Point Project www.turnpoint.org proposes:

1. Return to diverse mixed crops produced for local consumption. Work toward community and regional food self-reliance. This will reduce chemicals, mechanization, and fossil fuel use, allowing people to farm who know and love the land. It will also reduce long distance transport of food, pollution of soil, air, rivers and oceans.
2. Reduce soil erosion to natural replacement levels by eliminating soil-depleting chemicals and heavy machinery. Return to natural nutrients, by composting and putting animals back onto farms. Close down factory farm concentration camps that create environmental nightmares and pollution of the underground water supply. Thousands of hogs in one factory farm creates as much waste as a city of 30,000 people.
3. Reintroduce time-honored safe practices for maintaining healthy soil: Mixed cropping, cover cropping crop rotation, appropriate technology, reduced use of irrigation through appropriate crop selection depending on the region and local climate.
4. Limit corporate farming. Corporate ownership of farmland is already restricted in Nebraska, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Other states place limits on the size of farms. The ultimate policy goal must be to reduce the super-farm to a moderate-sized farm able to be handled by family farmers or small cooperatives.
5. Bring anti-trust actions to reverse corporate oligarchy in the food industry in which a few giant firms control seed, feed, farm machinery, and in which a few giant firms buy farm products and manufacture food and fibre. Appropriate technology and economies of scale would make the production of food more humane and ecologically sustainable.
6. Revive rural communities so that they can become strong again and diverse enough to support family farmers with services and supplies. Develop rural culture and community life.
7. Work with nature but not against the grain.

Kentucky farmer and author Wendell Berry: "Industrialism is a way of thought based on monetary capital and technology; agrarianism is a way of thought based on land. An agrarian economy rises up from the fields, woods, and streams. It is not regional or national, let alone global, but local. It must know on intimate terms the local plants and animals and local soils."

Genetic contamination of organic crops by genetic drift from farms growing genetically engineered crops must be stopped. There is a growing international call, endorsed by the British Medical Association among others, for a global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops.

Billions of pounds of pesticides and nitrate fertilizers are contaminating more and more of the nation's municipal water supplies. The US has a food and water-related cancer epidemic (48% of all males and 38% of all females in the US can now look forward to getting cancer). There is an even deadlier toll resulting from heart disease and obesity--directly related to our over consumption of junk food, meat, and animal products.
(Consult Pesticide Action Network North America http:www.panna.org They are dedicated to reducing the use of pesticides and promoting safer, more ecologically sound farming practices. They specifically oppose the commercial sale of crops genetically engineered to be herbicide tolerant.)

                                                                    Global Warming; Global Climate Crisis
 

Global Warming, Are Risks Proportionate to Benefits? 

If we love this planet and everything and everyone on it, I think this issue deserves our careful analysis.  If there are over 900 scientific articles expressing no doubt about the reality of global warming, why in the corporate media do over 50% of the articles express doubt?  How do we deal with inconvenience, to make an enormous understatement?

I suggest we start with Ignatius spirituality which helps us to achieve greater and greater inner spiritual freedom, freedom to keep our eyes wide open when what we see is inconvenient, even appalling. In our present system our success and the livelihood of those we love can depend on a particular industry that uses fossil fuels extensively.  Our future can cloud our vision and affect our judgment.  Global warming, global climate change, can be "an inconvenient truth."  But global warming can affect the livelihood of all of us in a dramatic way.

Is it moral and ethical to rationalize global warming, to turn the page, to avoid thinking about the probability?  Compare the risks of ignoring global warming to the benefits of economic gain and the convenience of doing what we’re used to.  Rationalization benefits a few oil companies, agribusiness food production and delivery, the automobile industry, all of us in some way.  But there are alternatives to offset the inconveniences and the risks are enormous.  Extreme storms, floods, droughts. 40% of the world without half of their fresh water sources.  Florida submerged, New York City, San Francisco, Alaska, the Netherlands, Beijing, Shanghai, etc; an ice age in the U.S.?  There would be hundreds of millions of refugees!  And the risks being taken by a few affect all of us.  That’s not democratic nor in accord with our nature as persons. Examine the science at http://www.climatecrisis.net

"To grow corn that cheap, you need more than just subsidies. [When the farmer gets a fair price which includes care of the environment, there won't be any need for subsidies.] You also need vast quantities of fossil fuel. The food industry consumes about 20 percent of imported petroleum, much of which goes to fertilize cornfields. Corn takes a great amount of nitrogen to grow, and the way we make artificial nitrogen is to turn natural gas into ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. So something else you're eating in that McDonald's meal is fossil fuel. A pound of beef takes a half gallon of oil to grow. A bushel of corn also takes about a half gallon. It takes ten calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy that way. So to eat that McDonald's meal, we need to keep the oil flowing. . .transporting food from distant farms requires fossil fuel and technologies to keep food fresh. . . grasslands have plenty of biodiversity and help lessen the greenhouse effect by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. All plants take in carbon dioxide, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen back into the air. What's important about grasses is that they sequester most of that carbon in the soil, and very little in their actual 'bodies.'" The Sun, May 2006, pp. 7-8. [Thus our food delivery system is a major cause of global warming and destabilization of the climate.] We do not have structures and sub-structures to deal with global warming in a democratic way, but the place to start is to avoid denial.  With God’s help, we can change.   Here at Xavier, let us create an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental vision of a stable and secure world, and then begin to move toward our vision. 

There are many ways in which all of us can prevent global warming and have alternative sources of energy.  On Xavier U. campus I recommend joining student clubs Earthbread/Earthcare. and registering for Environmental and Peace Studies.

There is another structure that we do not have about which we need education and discussion.  Although it’s hardly a new idea, we need to be spiritual free to even consider it in the current climate of opinion.  It’s a simple yet profound concept.  "I represent a party which does not yet exist--the party of . . .civilization. . .There will come from it first a United States of Europe, and then a United States of the World. . . There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."  Victor Hugo. . By dialogue and visioning together, perhaps we can clarify what a democratic world order would look like if we had it.  Is democratic world order absolutely necessary?  Is it possible?  What is the teaching of the Catholic Church and other religions on Democratic World Order? Is Democratic World Order part of a Consistent Ethic of Life? Is there a light graced story to our pilgrimage to Democratic World Order?  What is the way forward toward making our dream a reality? Only a democratic global federation can give us a structure by which we can share water and the other resources of the earth.

Will an effective, just, and democratic world federation ever be created? According to the Catholic Church’s teaching on world peace, it should be.   Our present duty is to begin the worldwide debate on how to create the best global system for achieving sustainable use of energy through enforceable world law, a common world ethic, non-violence toward the earth, enforcing our basic right to a healthy environment, creating economic democracy, and democratic world law.

Recommended Reading on a Democratic World Federation: 

Father Ben Urmston’s website: http://www.xu.edu/peace/ben.htm. 

Ronald Glossop. Confronting War: An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem.         McFarland and Company, 4th edition, 2001. World Federation: A Critical Analysis of World Federal Government. McFarland and Company, 1993.

Barbara Walker, ed. Uniting the Peoples and Nations: Readings in World Federation. World Federalist Association, 1993.

Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos. One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law. Origin Press, 2005.  (This is quite readable, comprehensive, and current.)

Mortimer J. Adler. How to Think About War and Peace. Simon and Schuster, 1943.     

Greenville Clark and Louis Sohn. World Peace through World Law. Harvard University Press, 1960.

Benjamin Ferencz and Ken Keyes. Planethood: The Key to Your Future. Love Line Books,       1991.

David Oughton, The Implications of Henry Nelson Wieman’s Philosophy of Creative Interchange for World Peace. Ph.D. dissertation, Saint Louis University, 1998.

Radioactive Earth

"Sometimes nuclear opponents are called idealists, out of touch with reality, but it's hard for me not to feel that it is the nuclearists who are the ones living in a fantasy world, which they are trying to convince the rest of the world has some validity.  The need for global cooperation on the issues of radioactive materials, environmental contamination and nuclear waste has never been greater, but never has there been less government commitment to scientific integrity, international diplomacy and dialogue." Carol Rainey, Foreword by Wendell Berry, One Hundred Miles From Home  Nuclear Contamination in the Communities of the Ohio River Valley:Mound, Paducah, Piketon, Fernald, Maxey Flats and Jefferson Proving Ground, Little Miami Press, 2008, 170.

Food and the Environment

 We need to reduce food miles. The average over-processed, over-packaged, chemically and genetically-contaminated food product in the US has traveled 1500 miles (burning up incredible amounts of non-renewable energy and releasing climate disrupting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere) before arriving at the supermarket. The single greatest cause of global warming and climate destabilization is industrial agriculture (i.e. non-organic, non-sustainable, non-locally produced).

Kentucky farmer and author Wendell Berry: "Industrialism is a way of thought based on monetary capital and technology; agrarianism is a way of thought based on land. An agrarian economy rises up from the fields, woods, and streams. It is not regional or national, let alone global, but local. It must know on intimate terms the local plants and animals and local soils."

Genetic contamination of organic crops by genetic drift from farms growing genetically engineered crops must be stopped. There is a growing international call, endorsed by the British Medical Association among others, for a global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops.

Billions of pounds of pesticides and nitrate fertilizers are contaminating more and more of the nation's municipal water supplies. The US has a food and water-related cancer epidemic (48% of all males and 38% of all females in the US can now look forward to getting cancer). There is an even deadlier toll resulting from heart disease and obesity--directly related to our over consumption of junk food, meat, and animal products.
(Consult Pesticide Action Network North America http:www.panna.org They are dedicated to reducing the use of pesticides and promoting safer, more ecologically sound farming practices. They specifically oppose the commercial sale of crops genetically engineered to be herbicide tolerant.)

In the New York Times Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004 A 21 Duke University says: "It's time to get serious about global warming. Evidence from more than twenty years of peer-reviewed studies, including research by scientists from the Nicholas School at Duke, shows we are experiencing unprecedented environmental change. We, not nature, are the most significant agents of this change. On this, there is broad scientific consensus. Left unchecked, climate change will have far-reaching impacts on our lives . . .It is well past time for delay. Our children and grandchildren may look back one day and say the most controversial aspect of global warming was why it took us so long to do something to curb it."

                                                                       Agroterrorism
 

Floyd Horn of the US Department of Agriculture calls agroterrorism on our nation's farms or its agricultural research facilities quite plausible. Chemical or biological attacks against food crops or livestock would be substantially easier and less risky to carry out than attacks on people. There are at least twenty-two germ agents that are lethal or contagious to animals. Overuse of antibiotics and steroids has lowered the natural tolerance of animals to disease and bred drug-resistant strains of germs. We need to change current large scale farming and marketing strategies. We need to promote small farm agriculture, sustainable agriculture and rural social justice, natural farming practices, smaller concentrations of livestock, less reliance on single varieties of seeds, less reliance on heavy dosages of antibiotics and the development of markets for products closer to where they are produced. (See National Catholic Reporter  Nov. 9, 2001, pp. 8-9)

                                                                      Gardening

For those who garden I recommend Spiritual Growth Through Domestic Gardening by Fr. Al Fritsch, S.J.

                                                                Bioengineered Seed

After World II, some scientists began what was called the "green revolution." Corporations produced hybrid seeds, built expensive farm machinery, manufactured chemical fertilizers and pesticides--all of which depended heavily on oil. It was an energy-intensive revolution. "Three kilocalories of fossil-fuel energy are required to produce just one kilocalorie of human food. Our soil is being eroded and our aquifers depleted at a cost of $17 billion per year. This does not include the more important social costs of farmers and the decline of whole rural communities." (World Hunger, Twelve Myths, p. 100) The green revolution increased the farmers' yield--at least temporarily. But critics bemoaned the depletion of the soil and often the degradation of the environment. They also questioned how healthy it was to eat food produced with so many chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

A small but significant number of farmers started to return to the traditional way of producing food "organically." Since organic farming was not as capital-intensive and energy-intensive, organic farmers felt their method was more sustainable in the long term, healthier, and better for the environment, more accord with nature than the green revolution.

The organic farming movement believes in a good livelihood for farmers and strong rural communities. Organic farming depends on energy from the sun and on natural biological processes for fertility and pest management.

                                                               Gene Revolution

As we enter into the twenty-first century, we are now faced with a "gene revolution." Traditionally, the movement of genes from one species to another has only been possible between closely-related species. Now scientists can remove genes from a trout or a mosquito and implant them into a tomato to delay ripening, or make for easier processing and shipping. Now scientists can take bacillus thuringiensis, the soil bacterium that produces the organic insecticide know as BT, and insert it into a potato gene. When a beetle eats a potato which now has BT inside it, the beetle dies. Although there might not be enough BT in the potato to kill us immediately, I can't imagine that a pesticide will be beneficial to us. At least I want to know I'm eating a potato with BT in it if I'm to make a reasonable choice. If a scientist can reassure me that eating a pesticide is not harmful to me, I'm all ears.

Organic farmers are concerned that pests will build up resistance to BT if it continues to be so widely used by the gene revolution. This will ruin the use of one of the few natural pesticides of organic farmers. Wind blows pollen from a field planted in bioengineered seed to a neighboring organic field contaminating it. The environment and ourselves become the guinea pigs for an enormous irreversible experiment.

                                                                   Co-creators with God

I believe a farmer is a co-creator with God, a junior partner with God perfecting the original act of creation. Appropriate technology and organic farming works with nature, is regenerative and sustainable. I believe a scientist working to perfect appropriate technology and organic farming is also a co-creator with God.

We have the capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through our own work, but we can't forget that "this is always based on God's prior and original gift of the things that are. Instead of carrying out this role as cooperator with God in the work of creation, we can set ourselves up in place of God and thus provoke a rebellion on the part of nature." (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, No. 37) "One cannot use with impunity the different categories of beings, whether living or inanimate--animals, plants, the natural elements--simply as one wishes, according to one's own economic needs. On the contrary, one must take into account the nature of each being and of its mutual connection in an ordered system" (Pope John Paul II, Solicitudo Rei Socialis, No. 34)

Is the vastness of this enterprise in accord with nature or "against the grain." (I highly recommend Lappe and Bailey, Against the Grain, Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food.) There is an order in nature which has evolved over millions of years. Without prejudging what's happening, in principle I think science needs to work with nature, respect nature, not subvert it. If we abuse and manipulate God's creation, we are not working with God but usurping God's role. We are not working with nature but against nature. How tell the difference? To me, that's a matter for group spiritual discernment.

                                                            Labeling of Biotech Foods

Do you know whether you're eating food produced by biotechnology? Would it make a difference to you? Personally, I consider freedom to choose what I eat a basic freedom. To make that choice, I need food that is labeled and a distributor that I trust. With the concurrence of the US Food and Drug Administration, the biotech industry has decided we don't need to know we are now eating food which contains genes that are pesticides. They argue that there has been no substantial change. Millions of acres are now planted with seeds produced through biotechnology. Such farms are not registered. The food produced by them is not labeled.

Critics wonder how we will be able to trace the health and environmental effects of the gene revolution. Bumblebees carry grains of pollen from biotech plants to neighboring fields. Biological pollution is not like an oil spill that eventually disperses but more like a disease. Will corporations be held legally responsible when one of its transgenes creates a superweed or resistant insect?

Biotechnology creates new kinds of food that have never been digested before. Starlink corn which had only been approved for animal consumption became mixed with corn for human consumption. Will corporations be held responsible for this dangerous experiment?

The 1918 influenza virus started in pigs and killed between twenty and forty million civilians worldwide, many more than died in World War I. Xenotransplantation breaks the species boundary and may cause new infections that could bring about a global pandemic. (See the Campaign for Responsible Transplantation 212-579-3477, action alerts at http://www.crt-online.org.)

"There are over 1,600 different species of microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil. Figuring out their interdependencies is a huge task." (Laura Ticciati & Robin Ticciati, PhD Genetically Engineered Foods, Are They Safe? You Decide. 1998, p. 49)

The European Union has passed a law that requires labeling of genetically engineered foods. Scientists from the US FDA itself suspect that genetic engineering could make foods toxic. FDA scientists also warn that genetically engineered foods could produce a new protein allergen or enhance the synthesis of existing plant food allergens. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that when a gene from a Brazil nut was engineered into soybeans, people allergic to nuts had serious reactions. Without labeling, people with certain food allergies will not be able to know if they might be harmed by the food they're eating.

Many biotech foods are modified with antibiotic resistant genes. People who eat genetically modified foods may become more susceptible to bacterial infections. The British Medical Association said that antibiotic resistance is "one of the major public human health threats that will be faced in the 21st century."

President Clinton was beholden to campaign monies from biotech corporations. He told the FDA not to be concerned about biotech foods since they weren't substantially different.

(Consult a coalition of 60 organizations, the Turning Point Project www.turnpoint.org; info@turnpoint.org)
(See also the Center for Food Safety http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org)

                                                                    Organic Consumers

The Organic Consumers Association (http://www.organicconsumers.org) promotes food safety and sustainable agriculture. It calls for a moratorium on genetically engineered foods; wants to stop factory farming; works for at least 30% organic production in US agriculture by 2010.

Action concerning Genetically Engineered Food   http://www.geaction.org

                                                                       Common Security

In February, 1999, a UN-backed summit of 174 nations met in Cartagena, Columbia, debating how to regulate trade in gene-engineered potatoes, cotton, grains and trees. Six nations blocked the rest of the world from agreeing on a treaty.
If we had democratic international law, citizens of the world could insure our common security. Now we have rule by the World Trade Organization which is a tribunal of corporate executives. Farmers in third world nations are being ruined.
Third world nations have to export more food to be able to pay their unfair debt. Now the US sets world prices.

                                                                     Agricultural Diversity

Those who favor organic farming assert that agricultural ecosystems must become diversified again. Monoculture croping, growing acre upon acre of the same crop is unstable, subject to insect swarms, drought, and blight. Monocultures can only be sustained by intensive, expensive inputs of water, energy, chemicals, and machinery. Many see an urgent necessity of preserving biodiversity, in terms of food crops, animal breeds, and wild species.
(See BioDemocrtacy News # 25 http://www.purefood.org BioDemocracy Camapaign)

                                                                   Economic Democracy

In Laborem Exercens, On Human Work, (No. 14) Pope John Paul II states that the moral title to ownership is legitimate only if capital and land serves the people, is democratically controlled, and is treated with responsible stewardship. If only a few own the land, we call for land reform. If only a few own the seed-if the seed is not democratically controlled-if the seed is not being handed in a responsible way, I think we should call for seed reform. A farmer can't grow crops without land. Nor can she/he grow food or fibre without seed. Today seeds are made by large corporations through biotechnology. These seeds are patented and controlled legally by these same corporations. Farmers can be and are prosecuted if they try to use seeds from one crop for the next year as they always have through the centuries. In fact, through terminator technology, second-generation seeds can now be made sterile. A major issue is control of our world food supply by a small number of seed corporations.

If you have absolute trust in corporations and our government, there's no need to worry. If you feel you have a responsibility as a citizen or a stockholder, I suggest for your reading Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey, Against the Grain; Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food. To work for genuine democracy in the important choices facing us, I recommend Alliance for Democracy. You could also ask the Attorney General for legal action against seed monopolies: Attorney General, US Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20530

Many consider capital-intensive, energy-intensive farms of the green revolution as an enormous success if we consider the abundant yields the superfarm has given us. Others want democratic control of the land. They opt for appropriate technology and organic farming which is regenerative, sustainable, and safer for the consumer. Sustainable agriculture depends on energy from the sun and on natural biological processes for fertility and pest management. If the farmers lack fertile land, our supermarkets will be empty. At any one time we usually have about a two week supply of food. A blight or a man-made disaster like a nuclear war would empty our stores in a short time.

The US has ordered Iraqi farmers to buy bio-engineered seed from US corporations. The US has continually pressured Europe and Asia to use bio-engineered seed. These are other attempts to limit economic democracy.

                                                                    Country of Origin Labeling

US consumers and independent producers have asked for many years that our food be labeled. Where is our food being produced and under what conditions? We know where our clothing is made. If our clothing is being produced in sweatshops, we want to know that. If our food is being grown in ways harmful to farmers, farm workers, the earth, not to mention ourselves, we want to know that. If animals are being treated cruelly, we want to know that. Country of origin labeling is required by most of our competitors. We should be proud to label all our food and farm products as Grown in the USA. If it isn't, we should know that.

                                                                           World Hunger

Those who favor bioengineered food say the latter will solve world hunger. The chronic hunger of 800 million people doesn't make the evening news. Every day hunger and its related preventable diseases, kill as many as thirty-four thousand children under the age of five! That's twelve million children each year--more than the total number of people who died each year during World War II, equivalent to the number killed instantly by a Hiroshima bomb every three days! Hunger means the anguish of choosing between paying the mortgage and feeding your children. Hunger means the grief of watching people you love die. Hunger means humiliation and fear. I certainly want to end hunger as much as anyone.

What I suggest is research and social analysis beginning with the second edition of World Hunger, Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset with Luis Esparza. You may come to the same conclusion of the authors that the answer lies in economic democracy, local regions taking charge of their own food production and doing it in a sustainable way. The answer does not lie in self-deception and myths. "There's Simply Not Enough Food." "Nature's to Blame." "Too Many Mouths to Feed." "The Environment Would Suffer." "The Green Revolution Is the Answer." "Small farms are inefficient." "Free trade is the answer." "The poor don't have the know-how to feed themselves." "US aid can feed the hungry." "We will suffer if the poor are fed." "To feed the hungry means we have to give up our freedom."

Another book dealing with hunger and famine is Professor Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, Development as Freedom. "Inequality has an important role in the development of famines and other severe crises. Indeed the absence of democracy is in itself an inequality." p. 187 "famines can occur even without a large--or any--diminution of the total food supply." "Hunger can coexist with a plentiful supply of food in the economy and the markets. . .Famines are, in fact, so easy to prevent that it is amazing that they are allowed to occur at all. . . What makes widespread hunger even more of a tragedy is the way we have come to accept and tolerate it as an integral part of the modern world as if it is a tragedy that is essentially unpreventable. . . What is really remarkable is the smugness and inaction that characterizes the world reaction to extensive hunger. . .not only is the problem of world hunger decisively solvable, the greatest barrier to achieving a solution is the defeatist and baseless fear that we shall not succeed against so big a challenge."

Global agribusiness corporations, including those involved in genetic engineering, are driving self-sufficient farmers off their land and increasing poverty and hunger.

“Thanks to science and technology, human society is able to solve problems such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or developing more just conditions of life but remains stubbornly unable to accomplish this. How can a booming economy, the most prosperous and global ever, still leave over half of humanity in poverty? ‘We can no longer pretend that the inequalities and injustices of our world must be borne as part of the inevitable order of things. Is it now quite apparent that they are the result of what we ourselves in our selfishness have done. . Despite the opportunities offered by an ever more serviceable technology, we are simply not willing to pay the price of a more just and more human society. . Injustice is rooted in a spiritual problem, and its solution requires a spiritual conversion of each one’s heart and a cultural conversion of our global society so that humankind, with all the powerful means at its disposal, might exercise the will to change the sinful structures afflicting our world. . . We need a sustained interdisciplinary dialogue of research and reflection, a continuous pooling of expertise. The purpose is to assimilate experiences and insights according to their different disciplines in ‘vision of knowledge which, well aware of its limitations, is not satisfied with fragments but tries to integrate them into a true and wise synthesis’” Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. spiritual leader of the Society of Jesus, Address at Santa Clara University, October, 2000.

                                                                    Science and Biotechnology

From a report written by V.V. Raman at the Rochester Institute of Technology concerning the meeting of the Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, December, 1999. "The 'Walk Through Time' exhibit is a mile long tapestry of our planet's history, presented with colorful images, scientific depth, and consciousness-awakening commentaries. It highlights the fascinating geological and biological transformation that have occurred in this speck of ours in the cosmic expanse. Just inspecting it reminded me that there is something unique about our planet in that it harbors not just the throb of life, but a self-aware being, for in this creature called Homo Sapiens blind nature and the created multiplicity become beautiful, meaningful, and inquiry-worthy. Of what significance or charm would all this be were it not for an experiencing human spirit? The Walk, in which each foot corresponds to an eon, deserves to be displayed in every public school and mall across the country and all over the world. It adds poetry and majesty to the vision of science, and is certain to light a revelatory spark in any intelligent mind as to how humankind and microbe came to be.

Yet the exhibit also provoked a response to the effect that all this knowledge was wrought with grave danger. Genetic engineering and microbial manipulation could lead to irrevocable damage and disaster. This was a legitimate warning, but it was provoked by some misunderstanding as to what science is all about. Science is an effort to grasp and account for the multi-faceted splendor of the phenomenal world, not a project to manipulate knowledge for good or for evil. Scientists do bear responsibility towards the use of science, but so do philosophers, religionists, politicians, indeed all people who have any concern for the well-being of the human family and of life."

Scientists can be co-creators with God. Biotechnology has produced insulin for diabetes and medicine for those with heart trouble. It's not a question of being against all biotechnology in principle. It is a question of whether the gene revolution is going too fast, too soon, without being sufficiently tested, driven not by a desire to feed the world in a more nutritious and sustainable way but by a secret and elitist quest for greater profits.

I recommend the Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org), an alliance of 70,000 committed citizens and leading scientists who aim to "augment rigorous scientific research with public education and citizen advocacy to help build a cleaner, healthier environment and safer world." They study risks and benefits of the various applications of genetic engineering and support sustainable alternatives.

                                                                           Responsibility of Farmers

Farmers should have the freedom to choose the kind of seed they will use and bear responsibility for the quality of the food produced and the effect their farming will have on the land and the interdependent systems in nature. Now the field planted by an organic farmer is exposed to pollen from a neighboring field planted with bioengineered seed. Now the monies given to extensive research in bioengineered seed are not matched by research into permaculture.

The National Family Farm Coalition has spearheaded a national "sign on statement" on genetic engineering in agriculture. Over thirty national, regional, and state farm groups have signed onto the statement. Demands include empowering consumers with the right to know whether their food is genetically engineered; banning the ownership of all forms of life including a ban on the patenting of seeds, plants, animals, genes, and cell lines; and ensuring that farmers who reject genetically modified organism will not bear the cost of establishing that their product is free of genetic engineering. The National Catholic Rural Life Conference joined farm groups from across the country in developing the statement. Farmers interested in signing onto the statement can find out more information from the National Family Farm Coalition at http://www.nffc.net

Farmers who use bioengineered seed are losing export markets since others nations have doubts about bioengineered food. Farmers have to sign an agreement not to plant their old seed since corporations have expropriated the expertise of centuries of peasant farmers who always chose their best seed from the previous year. Genetically engineered seed is easier for the large farmer who needs many farm workers. Crops from bioengineered seed will withstand sprays of Roundup Ready. Weeds or pests will not. But critics say pests will build up resistance to BT.

Should the perpetrator be able to fine the victim? See one family farmer engaged in a David vs. Goliath struggle: A law that punishes the victim and rewards the perpetrator has to be changed. Unfortunately the Supreme Court of Canada has given a mixed decision 5 to 4 against Percy Schmeiser (www.percyschmeiser.com) Percy does not have to pay Monsanto because he did not profit from the seed. However, the Court did rule that Monsanto owned the patent.

A former mayor and member of the Canadian Parliament, Percy Schmeiser has lost a life-time of saving seeds. "There is no such thing as containment of genetically modified organism farm production. There is no such thing as a buffer zone between a GMO field and a traditional field or an organic field. There is no such thing as co-existence of organic farmers and traditional farmers with GMO farmers." As human persons we should be free to make our own decisions about what kind of food we need to eat. The choice of consumers and of farmers has been taken away from them. GMO's will be able to contaminate the whole continent of Africa. GMO's result in reduction in yield, super-weeds and unknown environmental effects, and doubtful health and nutritional effects on the quality of our food. This massive GMO experiment which endangers the environment and human health has happened without the knowledge and consent of the American people or any people. This secret research often funded by the government enriches private individuals and gives five or six corporations control of the world's food supply. Seed reform is more important than land reform because it makes no difference who owns the land if a few greedy and ruthless men have control of the seed.

We have more than enough food to feed the world if we had a just economic system that provided at least the basic necessities for each human person. We need widespread and community ownership of the means of production, the factories and farms, the banks, insurance companies, the means of transportation, utilities. Research on basic life issues should be public and open.

                                                                        Moral Evaluation

Thus how do we proceed to answer the moral, scientific, social issues involved? I would suggest a holistic, interdisciplinary, spiritual approach somewhat similar to that taken by Christian Life Communities and other faith-based or value-based communities. We are all sinners, prone to rationalization and self-deception. We all have vested interests. In a process of communal spiritual discernment we can better identify our inordinate attachments. A farmer next to a field which is using Roundup Ready can have her/his crops destroyed by pesticide drift. Roundup Ready can mean more money for the superfarm who hires many farm workers. Roundup Ready means more money and control for the seed company. Roundup Ready is simpler to use. On a short-term basis, biotechnology can be seductive both to the corporation and to the farmer.

Is the starting point of our reflection our love for God, our neighbor, and the earth? How we can make this a better world? Or do we begin with a desire for an expensive home, to be well-off financially, etc, and then say to ourselves, "Sure God won't object to my ambition."

Each of our eyes has a blind spot. Since the field of vision of our two eyes overlap, we have a large area of two-eyed vision. The blind spot in one eye is overlapped by s seeing portion of the other eye. If both eyes are open and functioning, there are no gaps in our visual field. We can have blind spots in our conscience also. St. Ignatius dealt with these with detailed procedures for spiritual discernment. We best do spiritual discernment with a companion or with a small discerning group such as a Christian Life Community. What we don't see by ourselves, others can help us with.

Jesuit theologian Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. believes gnoseological concupiscence can lead to immoral decisions. Theological Investigations, Vol. XIII, "Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Sciences" (1975) "Every scientist is prone to the temptation of failing to listen to others, or being willing to hear only what is confirmed for her/him in her/his own science. Hence the strange attitude of aggression which prevails among scientists even when it is concealed by a mask of conventional politeness." (p. 83) "gnoseological concupiscence is the mortal danger inherent in every science of according itself an absolute value and of supposing that the key which it carries within itself will fit every door." Rahner admits that theology also can fail to listen and not acknowledge its need for the sciences.

In The Challenge of Peace (No. 152) the US Catholic bishops deal with probability and risk in regard to a limited nuclear war. "The chances of keeping use limited seem remote, and the consequences of escalation to mass destruction seem appalling." The danger arises not only from the power of our technology "but in the weakness and sinfulness of human communities."

As I see it, the enormity of the risk in using bioengineered seed is not proportionate to the probability of success or the good to be achieved. Some feel the risks are minimal. In their minds, if we wait until we are absolutely certain, we may lose a whole technology, a new industrial revolution. But many scientists feel the risks are enormous. Until we have a greater consensus, as a world I don't think we should proceed on the massive scale that we have.

Jonathan Schell deals with biogenics in his chapter on "The Second Death" in The Fate of the Earth. Schell points out that by nature Einstein was "the gentlest of men, and by conviction he was a pacifist, yet he made intellectual discoveries that led the way to the invention of weapons with which the species could exterminate itself. " . . . "Only a few decades ago it might have seemed that physics, which had just placed nuclear energy at man's disposal, was the dangerous branch of science, while biology, which underlay improvements in medicine and also helped us to understand our dependence on the natural environment, was the beneficial branch; but now that biologists have begun to fathom the secrets of genetics, and to tamper with the genetic substance of life directly, we cannot be so sure."

As I have said, I think our weakness and sinfulness exposes all of us to self-deception, rationalizations, illusions, psychic numbing and false perceptions. The US Surgeon General has just pointed out the large number of Americans suffering from mental illness. Without being presumptuous, can I ask how many of us have some sort of psychological weakness that we cope with but would not be enough to classify as a disability? Indeed, some psychologists have even asserted that US culture has a kind of collective psychosis. (See Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Indefensible Weapons, 1982) I certainly believe our culture suffers from massive self-deception. If any nation needs a truth commission, it's the US.

Should corporations be permitted to patent life? Where do they get the moral authority to do this? Should research into basic forms of life be public and open?

For further information check the following web sites: http://www.purefood.org
http://www.bio-integrity.org
http://www.safe-food.org

US Public Interest Research Group http://www.pirg.org

                                                        WHY SHOULD GMO SEEDS NOT BE INTRODUCED INTO ZAMBIA?

The argument is straightforward:  Food security in Zambia for all Zambians requires sustainable agriculture. GMOs will have a negative impact on Zambia’s sustainable agriculture. Therefore GMOs should not be introduced into Zambia.

But would this not cause great hunger right now in Zambia? The position is very clear: The critical point of debate and decision must be that the very serious problem of food consumption (the presence of hunger) must not be dealt with in ways that create even more serious problems of food production (the destruction of agricultural infrastructure).Do not deal with a serious short-term problem in ways that bring an even greater long-term problem


But is there any alternative to meeting the immediate short-term problem of hunger? Yes, there is and Zambia should immediately act: Contact African countries in the region that now have white non-GMO maize for sale, such as Kenya.
Request that any GMO-maize imported into the country as relief be milled outside the country.
But will not this cost extra money that Zambia does not have?

In a humanitarian crisis such as Zambia’s hunger situation, generous response can and should be expected: 

Donors from Europe can be asked for immediate assistance and have already expressed their concern and readiness.
The USA can be asked to convert their “donation” into the safe-way that Zambia wants and deserves, both by milling GMO maize and by purchasing non-GMO maize.


But will this not delay meeting our great crisis right now?

No, not if the Zambian government, backed by the Zambian people, make very clear both our demands to meet the present need for help and our desires to meet the future need of sustainable agriculture.
12 August 2002


SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE GMO MAIZE DEBATE IN ZAMBIA AND WIDER

KATC and JCTR began discussion about GMOs almost two years ago, with interest in what impact moving in this direction would have on the small-scale farmer, who produces 80% of Zambia’s food. Our concern was and is based on principles of the church’s social teaching such as emphasis on basic human rights, an option for the poor, the economy serving the people, participation in decision making, etc.


The specific KATC/JCTR study was commissioned over six months ago, long before the controversy about USA offer erupted. The focus of our study has been primarily on implications for sustainable agriculture in Zambia, the necessary prerequisite for food security in the country. We have not focused strongly on the food safety questions, as others have done that.
Our recommendation to Government to turn down the USA offer is based on our scientific study, which concludes that the acceptance of GMO “relief” maize raises the clear and present danger of introducing GMOs into our agricultural system, with consequences for small-scale farmers’ ability to maintain their contribution to Zambia’s food security, destruction of organic farming capabilities, and loss of European markets.


Operating on the grounds of the “precautionary principle,” we therefore have urged that GMO maize be kept out of the country – unless and until the aforementioned consequences to our agricultural infrastructure are adequately dealt with. That is why we have supported quicker action by Government into adopt a Biotechnology and Biosafety Policy.


Keenly aware of the current crisis of food shortage, we have supported Government’s efforts to source non-GMO maize, both within the country and from neighbouring countries (e.g., Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique). Moreover, we believe that major cooperating partners such as the EU and the USA can and should respond according to the Government’s commitments to protect Zambian interests. Only as a last resort would we consider “milled” GMO maize being brought in – we still have the legitimate questions about its safety


Indeed, we find perplexing and disturbing the current reaction to the Government’s decision by “friends” – e.g., castigation of the Government for not caring about the people, high-level pressures exerted both inside and outside the country to get the Government to change its position, outside media campaign against Zambia’s decision, etc.


Honest questions can surely be asked as to why the IMF is pushing so hard for a change, why the WFP is unwilling to accept Zambia’s position, why the USA will limit its assistance to “loans made to commercial millers.”


We are aware that some of the anti-GMO debate has degenerated into name-calling and conspiracy theories and raises scientific points that can be legitimately questioned. But that should in no way be allowed to distract from the very substantial arguments being raised on keen scientific and ethical grounds. We therefore urge an open and accountable debate, with respect for the integrity of Zambia’s official position.
Pete Henriot, S.J. 26 August 2002

                                                                        Patenting of Life

"The academic and research communities are primarily concerned about whether the patenting process would destroy the free and open exchange of information that has been the hallmark of excellence in research." Dr. Krishna R. Dronamraju, Foundation for Genetic Research, Texas, USA, Biological and Social Issues in Biotechnology Sharing
p.108 (See also pp. 66, 79, 88, 94)

How can we invent something that already exists in nature? Isn't it a discovery, not an invention?

Some feel that intellectual property rights should respect the rights of traditional cultures. Compensation is due traditional knowledge developed by peasant farmers, practitioners of indigenous medicine, and third world nations. Since in many indigenous societies property is communal, rewards can be collective.

"There are inadequate measures to compensate indigenous tribes and farmers in the developing countries who preserved tradi