The original peoples of the North American continent understand that we are all connected, and that harm to one part of the sacred circle of life harms the whole. Scientists, both the ecological and physical sorts, know the same reality, expressed in different terms. The Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) also charge human beings with care for the whole of creation, because it is God's good gift to humanity. Another way of saying this is that we are all connected and there is no escape; our common future depends on how we care for the rest of the natural world, not just the square feet of soil we may call "our own." We breathe the same air, our food comes from the same ground and seas, and the water we have to share cycles through the same airshed, watershed, and terra firma.
The still-unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is good evidence of the interconnectedness of the whole. It has its origins in this nation's addiction to oil, uninhibited growth, and consumerism, as well as old-fashioned greed and what my tradition calls hubris and idolatry. Our collective sins are being visited on those who have had little or no part in them: birds, marine mammals, the tiny plants and animals that constitute the base of the vast food chain in the Gulf, and on which a major part of the seafood production of the United States depends. Our sins are being visited on the fishers of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, who seek to feed their families with the proceeds of what they catch each day. Our sins will expose New Orleans and other coastal cities to the increased likelihood of devastating floods, as the marshes that constitute the shrinking margin of storm protection continue to disappear, fouled and killed by oil.
The oil that continues to vent from the sea floor has spread through hundreds of cubic miles of ocean, poisoning creatures of all sizes and forms, from birds, turtles, and whales to the shrimp, fish, oysters, and crabs that human beings so value, and the plankton, whose life supports the whole biological system -- the very kind of creatures whose dead and decomposed tissues began the process of producing that oil so many millions of years ago.
We know, at least intellectually, that that oil is a limited resource, yet we continue to extract and use it at increasing rates and with apparently decreasing care. The great scandal of this disaster is the one related to all kinds of "commons," resources held by the whole community. Like tropical forests in Madagascar and Brazil, and the gold and silver deposits of the American West, "commons" have in human history too often been greedily exploited by a few, with the aftermath left for others to deal with, or suffer with.
Yet the reality is that this disaster just may show us as a nation how interconnected we really are. The waste of this oil -- both its unusability and the mess it is making -- will be visited on all of us, for years and even generations to come. The hydrocarbons in those coastal marshes and at the base of the food chain leading to marketable seafood resources will taint us all, eventually. That oil is already frightening away vacationers who form the economic base for countless coastal communities, whose livelihoods have something to do with the economic health of this nation. The workers in those communities, even when they have employment, are some of the poorest among us. That oil will move beyond the immediate environs of a broken wellhead, spreading around the coasts of Florida and northward along the east coast of the U.S. That oil will foul the coastal marshes that also constitute a major nursery for coastal fauna, again a vital part of the food chain. That oil will further stress and poison the coral reefs of Florida, already much endangered from warming and ocean acidification. Those reefs have historically provided significant storm protection to the coastal communities behind them.
The dispersants that are being so wantonly deployed will have consequences we're not yet cognizant of, and the experience of gold and silver mining in the West is instructive. The methods used in those old mining operations liberated plenty of arsenic, mercury, other heavy metals, left cyanide and acids, all of which have significant health effects on those who live in the immediate area of mines and tailings, as well as those who use water downstream and breathe downwind air.
There is no place to go "away" from these consequences; there is no ultimate escape on this planet. The effects at a distance may seem minor or tolerable, but the cumulative effect is not. We are all connected, we will all suffer the consequences of this tragic disaster in the Gulf, and we must wake up and put a stop to the kind of robber baron behavior we supposedly regulated out of existence a hundred years ago. Our lives, and the liveliness of the entire planet, depend on it.
Louisiana Oil Spill 2010 PHOTOS: Gulf Of Mexico Leak Reaches Land
GlobalWarming.House.Gov | Oil Spill in the Gulf LiveCam
A New Setback in Efforts to Contain the Gulf Oil Spill - NYTimes.com
Gulf oil spill: 100-ton box positioned over undersea leak in ...
Gulf Oil Spill: Containment Dome Drops; New Orleanians Stock Up on ...
Gulf oil spill: Setback for untested containment dome | Greenspace ...
When someone such as the Most Reverend Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church becomes publicly verbal about the excessess of her community, I have to ask the question, how do you live? Do you use automobiles and airplanes? Do you live in a house with easily accessible heat, air conditioning and clean water? Do you eat fresh foods imported daily via truck and air? Are the vestments and accoutrements of your profession neceessarily made with satin and precious metals and stones? Is your church, that is made with stained glass and precious woods and gold more meaningful and worthy of God's forgiveness than the adobe hut with no doors or windows?
The truly poor are never offered a pulpit; instead it is the upper middle classes who are allowed to deplore greed and make statements about how we all suffer the consequences of consumerism while never acknowledging that their moderate lifestyles are exactly what is destroying the world's ecosystems. They preach that no one is above the laws of morality, and yet these are the people who invest and reap benefits from stocks and bonds issued by the same companies that they publicly deplore.
The worst sin is not greed, it is hypocrisy. Christ carried a staff made of wood and died on a cross made of wood. People who do not suffer have no right to speak for the suffering.
by Pope John Paul II
http://conservation.catholic.org/pope_john_paul_ii.htm
We are all complicit in this spill and in every other spill due to our oil-intensive lifestyles and chasing every increasing 'wealth'.
We need an absolutely massive paradigm shift in what we value.
If there is a silver lining, perhaps this will be the turning point for us and we will begin to reduce our consumption of ... well ... everything.
Please copy and past this article and spread it far and wide:
A Lesson from the Gulf Oil Spill: We Are All Connected
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori/lessons-from-the-gulf-oil_b_591160.html
On another note, we learned that some banks that were considered to big to fail (thereby requiring the populace to bail them out) wreaked havoc on the people, just as some oil wells are too deep to drill.
Dancing connects us and until very recently was commonly used to bring the community together - to pray, to celebrate, to set intentions. That was something that got lost along with so many other beautiful native traditions. It may sound trivial, but dance puts bodies in motion which quiets the ego-driven mind.
I dance everyday to make this point. www.thefreebox.org
The Western faiths are "man-centered" and see the rest of nature in a subordinate position. The Western faiths are more preoccupied with the end of days and belief in heaven and hell (with some ethics thrown into this world). One can cherry pick "holy" passages depicting lofty ideas regarding nature. But to a greater extent, we also discern Humanity's wanton domination over the Earth in the Bible and Koran.
In the end, most religious texts are left to interpretation. The results are revealed in the current state of our Environment. Humanity has largely not been taught to love nature, of which he/she is part of.
It is time to revisit and question the fundamentals of our belief system.
by Pope John Paul II
http://conservation.catholic.org/pope_john_paul_ii.htm
In my tradition (Episcopal) we are trying on a new liturgical season--Creation Cycle--in order to do this more intentionally. We've celebrated Creation Cycle in our little mt parish in NC for 15 years now, and a more 'whole' awareness is percolating through our community.
I think it's fair to say that both this crisis and the virtual collapse of our financial system in 2008 are the result of pushing the "techonology of complexity" far past our ability to control it.
These catastrophes would have been preventable if our nation and its institutions were less interested in earning that fast buck (to the tune of billions of dollars) and more interested in transparancy and hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Some critics will charge that what we are seeing represents the worst abuses of Capitalism. I disagree. What we are seeing has less to do with economic philosophy and more to do with all the privileged classes that wreck havoc on our environment globally at the expense of their citizens.
Everywhere and anywhere this is occuring, we must stand up and say "No" to the destruction of our planet for immediate gain. We must say "No" to the government and corporate leaders who would, literally, sell the future of their children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren away.
I pray that this Gulf disaster, and its long-term consequences, will be the final wake-up call; I pray also, that it is not too late.
We *all* have a responsibility to coming generations, they will have a hard row to hoe considering the messes we are making. I tire of hearing all the voices that blame the corporation (it's a song I sing my own self on a regular basis) but do little or nothing to change their personal impact on the world... here is my list... just for starters.
Use it up, repair it and wear it out before you buy a new one. Dry your clothes on a line outside when the weather permits. Locate and patronize local farmer's markets. Drive less. Buy a water filter and stop buying disposable water bottles. Stop buying "health and beauty" products that contain petrochemicals. For that matter, don't buy clothes made with synthetic fibers.