Save the Environment, Save People

When people share their stories of brokenness with me, there are usually one of two events that led them down this path. Either someone did something harmful to them (such as physical, mental or sexual abuse) or they made poor decisions that left a destructive wake around their friends and family. While we sometimes like to think that our decisions have little or no impact on others, the stories of people I know bear a different tale.

In exploring the issues surrounding the environment and human injustices, I've discovered just how connected our global world truly is. However insulated we might be from the consequences of our decisions, as a nation we can no longer continue on with business as usual, particularly when it comes to the environment--that is if we have a heart. If we truly are a nation that cares about the rest of this world, we must weigh the consequences of our actions.

As a pastor, I know that the wake of these decisions breaks the heart of God. Those images of brokenness are what drive me to rally the church to care about these issues beyond simple awareness. Knowing these poor decisions are occurring every minute due to a selfish society is the first step; getting people to change their behavior and take action is paramount if we ever intend to make a difference.

When I learned about how a lack of clean water for many in developing nations made women and children in these areas prime targets for human trafficking, I was horrified. A mother sends her 12-year-old daughter to fetch clean water at a well two miles away. Kidnappers hide in the bushes and take her away to be sold to traffickers. The mother will probably never see her daughter again--and this story is played out hundreds of times over.

That scenario is rather benign compared to poor families who sell their kids to traffickers posing as someone promising a great job in a foreign country. These families need food or shelter, and it's the only means by which they know how to get them.

A declining environment has created an unsustainable society whereby millions of people have become desperate--and desperate people do desperate things, like selling their children to traffickers for money or sending their young ones alone to fetch fresh water miles away because they have no other way.

We must awaken to the reality that the lifestyles we have constructed in this country have far-reaching implications on the poor and the helpless around the world. How we got here or who's to blame is irrelevant at this point. Each one of us must take a look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves if we're going to be part of the solution or exacerbate the problem.

Many of the poor around the world are becoming victims of a society that either doesn't care about them or relishes the opportunity to make gains at their expense. Their stories of broken lives are less about their poor decisions and more about the environment into which they've been thrust, a physical environment that has been abused and exploited by others.

The environmental crisis facing our world today has become an issue of social justice. Everyone should have access to clean water--and it shouldn't come at the risk of having your children whisked away into the dark world of human trafficking. I hope that everyone in our country--especially the church in America--is willing to make sacrifices in taking an active role to relieve suffering caused by environmental decline. Whether it be by physically helping the poor on relief and aid trips or by changing the way one lives to shrink his or her environmental impact, we must be diligent to make the type of decisions that better all of society and create a more sustainable world.

Tri Robinson is the pastor of the Vineyard Boise Church in Boise, ID, and author of Saving God's Green Earth and Small Footprint, Big Handprint. He lives on a homestead that is almost fully sustainable and blogs about his adventures there at www.timberbuttehomestead.com

Comments

[JulieSA]

"We must awaken to the reality that the lifestyles we have constructed in this country have far-reaching implications on the poor and the helpless around the world."

I'm sorry, but I'm not clear on how my lifestyle is causing the problem for that African girl. Her problem is not a result of my carbon footprint; her problem is a public health infrastructure problem, as well as a law enforcement issue.

My lifestyle enables me to give a lot to charity and pay a lot of taxes. Charitable NGO's as well as governments and individuals should focus on providing more wells, pipes, and water treatment systems. Also, particulate matter from cooking over wood damages the lungs. Women are expected to haul firewood over long distances to cook for their families. Rural electricity, even from a coal plant, would improve these women's lives immeasurably, just as it did in our country. Access to propane and natural gas would too.

The other major impact on these people is disease. President Bush implemented by far the largest AIDS and malaria programs in history with massive aid to Africa. If President Obama cares about these people as much as Bush does, he'll try to continue these programs.

All of these suggestions I made would have far more direct effect on human welfare than outlawing SUVs or buying carbon credits.

[JulieSA]

Access to clean water is indeed one of the worst problems for poor people in developing countries. That's why humanitarians oppose spending money on frivolities like global warming, when much of the world's worst misery can be directly eliminated by money for wells and water filters, and AIDS and malaria control.

[SixBillionPlus]

A Sad Truth seldom told.
It can also be said that to save the environment we don't need to save as many people. Harsh and cruel as it may sound when the availablity of ANY product goes up (be it humans or horse meat) the price goes down.
Think about this for just a second could we really have sex slaves if we only had a million people on earth, instead of 6.7 BILLION (as of Jan. 2009)?
I could be wrong but hear me out. For one thing the market wouldn't be there. If 3% of the population are sick preverted excuses for being human out of a million people that's what? 30,000 people? Out of 6.7 billion that's 201 million people!
A world of a million people would also have far fewer cities and far more extended families. Every person would be far more valuable to their loved ones, and there would be far less need to be sold into slavery. Because unemployment would not exist, anyone could be a farmer. There would also be available land to do that, sort of like the USA after the first settlers gave most of the Native Americans smallpox.
Well that's just crazy talk you might say we don't have a million people on Earth, no but we have a way to get there. We have birth control.

[RightWingMarine]

I agree that everyone should have access to clean water but clean water isn't free. I agree that individual people should make a sacrifice or otherwise do what they can to help their fellow man so long as the aid stops there. I am absolutely opposed to using taxpayer dollars to provide water to anyone either in this country our even moreso outside this country. fortunatly this writer doesn't call for government interference. To reach into your own pocket and help your fellow man is a good and laudable thing, to reach into someone elses' pocket regardless of what you do with the money is simply theft.

[zola77]

Marine, you seem to forget that the whole point of taxes in the first place is to secure the infrastructure and well being of the community as a whole. Just as a government funded military is necessary in protecting our well being, so is a government funded clean water supply.

Taxes are for the protection and preservation of all necessary things - clean water, clean air, roads, bridges, military, ecosystem, etc etc.

Stop being so narrow and puerile by asserting that INDIVIDUALS should pay for their own water, a fundamental human right - its such a ridiculous assertion to make!