Earth Day

The first Earth Day was 1970 April 22 -- 54 years ago. The Earth that we were trying to preserve on that first Earth Day, we failed to preserve. Our planet today is not the Earth of two generations ago. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hovered around 275 ppm for all of human history up until 200 years ago. On the first Earth Day in 1970, C02 had reaced 325 ppm but back then most of us were blithely, blissfully oblivious to what rising C02 would mean. In 1988, we reached the 350 ppm safety-line. At 350 ppm of carbon dioxide, the planet survives. If we get above 350 for very long, or if we get very far above 350, then we will trigger tipping points and irreversible impacts. The journal Nature said that above 350

"we threaten the ecological life-support systems that have developed in the late Quaternary environment, and severely challenge the viability of contemporary human societies,"

Yet we've been above 350 for 36 years now, and as of May 2022 the global average concentration of C02 in the atmosphere was 421 ppm, and we are still adding about two more parts per million every year. In fact, scientist Kevin Anderson projects that even if rich countries adopt draconian emissions reductions within a decade, it is improbable that we will be able to stop short of 650 ppm of C02.

Our planet is already not what it was 54 years ago. What I would like to do today is take a look at a theory out there that it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself and how climate change might seem to fit that theory. I will, however, be taking the chance to note that reality is never depressing. I'll mention some practical features of how we will live on this Earth that is already not the one many of us were born on. And I'll point to the spirituality - particularly the Ecospirituality, the connectedness to the sacredness of the Earth - that we need for this new Earth. I'll conclude that maybe the nature of intelligent life is not to destroy itself, but more often to work its way to the emergence of a peaceful, sustainable way of life in which the beings delight in the home they have.

The theory that it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself emerged as one possible response to the Fermi paradox. And what is the Fermi paradox?

The brilliant Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, born 1901 , reasoned as follows:

• Our Sun is a young star. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.
• There is a high probability that some of these stars have Earth-like planets which, if the Earth is typical, may develop intelligent life.
• These older stars with Earth-like planets would be way ahead of us in developing interstellar travel.
• At any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.
• Given billions of stars that have billions of years of head start on us, a few tens of millions of years is nothing.

It follows, concluded Fermi, that the Earth should already have been colonized, or at least visited. But Fermi did not think there was any convincing evidence that we had been. Moreover, not only have we not been visited, we haven't even spotted a sign of intelligence elsewhere in our galaxy. Hence Fermi's question: "Where is everybody?" This question has come to be known as the Fermi paradox.

One theory that has been proposed as an explanation of why we haven't encountered or seen other intelligent life is that it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. The theory is that, on any planet that evolved species that developed civilization and then technological civilization, those species will "usually or invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or space flight technology. Possible means of annihilation include nuclear war, biological warfare or accidental contamination, climate change." It's a conjecture some scientists have offered - just one of many possible answers to the Fermi paradox.

Is it inherent in the way that intelligence emerges that a species will arrive at enough intelligence to be able to destroy itself before it arrives at enough intelligence not to? Yes, intelligence emerges in response to competition for scarce resources. As long as resources are plentiful, species don't need to outsmart other species, and all species remain comparative simpletons. So, yes, wherever intelligence emerges, it necessarily comes with the aggressive competitive drives that spurred that intelligence to develop in the first place.

When that ancient competitive aggression and drive to consume resources, extend longevity, and reproduce suddenly becomes paired with powerful new technology: boom. That "boom" need not mean that the civilization entirely self-destructs, only that it becomes once again nontechnological.

According to this conjecture, this has already happened on billions of other planets and is now happening here. The result of that rising C02 is that the top 10 hottest years ever recorded have all been after 2000. An average temperature increase of 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures has already happened. The increase is expected to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are on track to reach 2.7 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of the century even if current pledges from governments around the world to decrease emissions by 2030 are met.

In the 20 years, 1980 to 2000, the number of distinct weather-related disasters affecting the United States and doing at least a billion dollars of damage averaged 4.75 per year. In the 20 years, 2004 to 2024, the number of distinct weather-related disasters affecting the United States and doing at least a billion dollars of damage averaged 13.35 per year. That's 2.8 times more billion-dollar weather-related disasters that in the 20 years from 1980 to 2000. This is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and their cost estimates for weatherrelated disasters are adjusted for inflation, so it's a true increase of almost 3 times more major disasters per year.

Is this intelligent life destroying itself? Three and a half billion people live in places particularly vulnerable to climate change. By 2100, 50-75% of the world population will see periods of "life-threatening climatic conditions" - mainly heat and rainfall. Food insecurity and water shortage will lead to humanitarian crises, conflict and displacement, with heaviest impact in parts of Africa, Asia, Central and South America, small islands and the Arctic. 350.org, summarizes:

"Glaciers everywhere are melting and disappearing fast, threatening the primary source of clean water for millions of people. Mosquitoes, who like a warmer world, are spreading into lots of new places, and bringing malaria and dengue fever with them. Drought is becoming much more common, making food harder to grow in many places. Sea levels have begun to rise, and scientists warn that they could go up as much as several meters this century. If that happens, many of the world's cities, island nations, and farmland will be underwater. Meanwhile, the oceans are growing more acidic because of the C02 they are absorbing, which makes it harder for animals like corals and clams to build their shells and exoskeletons."

When we speak of climate change and the long list of planetary damages it wreaks, it's common to invoke grandchildren. "Preserve the planet for the sake of our grandchildren," we say. Or, "Let's not let our grandchildren have to deal with the problem with which we should be dealing." But the Earth of the first Earth Day is already gone. As Bill McKibben says:

"Forget the grandkids. It turns out this was a problem for our parents." (16)

At this point, maybe you're thinking: "Oh, such gloom and doom! It's depressing. It's stressful. Tell me something uplifting and inspiring, not this litany of disaster scenarios." I'm going to tell you the truth as best I can discern it. And here's a truth that I think happens to also be inspiring: Reality is never depressing.

Being in denial, being out of touch with reality, pushing it out of consciousness, so that it has to sneak around, come at you from behind, and crawl up your back (for reality eventually finds a way to get through to us), that's the source of depression. Struggling to resist irresistible reality - that's what triggers depression and stress. Reality is never depressing. Paying attention to reality is the antidote of depression. Mindful attention to exactly "what is" is a practice of cultivating joy, Even if "what is" is pain. Literally. For example, if you've got a throbbing knee pain or headache, bring all your attention to the pain itself, minutely noticing every detail of its sensation. This doesn't make the pain go away, but it does make the pain bother you Less, for as long as you sustain attention. Reality presents us with challenges, and those challenges become depressing or stressful problems only when we want to push them away, push them out of mind. Instead, engage, and connect.

The good news is: you and I are going to die. (This may not be news, though you might not have thought of it as good.) That's great news because it means we don't have to figure out how to live forever - get everything solved, all threats removed, so that we can then relax into our immortality. We don't have that responsibility. We only have this short time a day, a year, a few decades and all we have to do is show up for just a few decades, just this decade, this year, this day. That's all.

Hallelujah, we do not bear the burden of eternity. Knowing I am blessed with an ironclad exit strategy, knowing the divine takes form only temporarily in the body and set of ego defenses called "me," I am liberated. My task is no more than to manifest this transience that I am. My task is no more than that - and also no less. We are, each of us, called upon only to manifest and in our manifesting engage with the challenges that happen to arise for the few years we happen to be here.

Not denying the reality we face, nor retreating into some survivalist bunker, ours is the path of open-eyed and open-eared awareness, and the path of connection to both nature and neighbor. We shall choose neither despair nor defense, but new community.

On this 55th Earth Day, the Earth we celebrate is not the Earth of 1970 - but it still has technological civilization. Intelligent life has not destroyed itself yet, and maybe won't. Our odds get better the more of us have the courage to face reality exactly as it is - and this courage comes from spiritual discipline. This courage IS a spiritual discipline.

Our capacity to hold our world in love, whatever may come is developed in spiritual practice and in spiritual community. Where love is, fear and sadness are not.

Because of climbing C02 level, and the consequent climate change, the Earth of our ancestors and of our youth is gone. We now face the prospect of developing community on a new Earth. Our new Earth will rely more on local food, and on farming that doesn't use huge quantities of fossil fuel for its fertilizers, its pesticides, its machinery, or its product transportation.

Food will cost more. For many years now food, by historical standards, has been ridiculously cheap, partly because of agriculture subsidies and fossil fuel industry subsidies (which also subsidize the type of agriculture that intensively relies on fossil fuels). Even so, rising food prices will be a hardship for some, so food aid programs will need expanding. Our new Earth will rely more on locally-produced energy - solar panels and solar water heating on your own house, and windmills in your yard because transmission across power lines loses efficiency over many miles. We'll also use the internet and Zoom instead of flying and driving places -- a move that has already begun.

To sustain us in our new Earth we need the very thing that sustained many of us on the old Earth: a spirituality of connectedness with this earth, of reclaiming a way of living lightly, carefully, gracefully on this delicate home, rituals and practices and ways of thinking that nurture attention, and calm delight in the simple beauties of life. Ecospirituality -- which "means that our experience of the divine comes through the natural world." (Jeanne Mackey) — will sustain us, individually and collectively. As Steven Rockefeller writes:

"Our environmental problems will not be fully addressed until we come to terms with the moral and spiritual dimensions of these problems, and we will not find ourselves religiously until we fully address our environmental problems."

Emerging Ecospirituality recognizes not merely that we have a religious obligation to protect ecosystems, reduce consumption, and in general be responsible stewards of our environment, but that nature itself is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is due reverent care — not simply because it is God's creation and God tells us to, but because nature tells us to, and nature has that authority based on being sacred in itself.

Connecting to the sacredness of the earth is what saves us. Wanting stuff makes us stressed, and being stressed makes it harder to step back from our desires for a larger perspective. So what I'm talking about really is not impending grim necessity - but emerging wholeness, joy, and delight. We may make for ourselves a materially sparer and spiritually fuller life on our tough little planet.

Getting there won't be easy. It takes being focused and intentional, and it takes a lot of us paying attention together.

When Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) experienced unity with the divine, she gave the experience these words:

"I am the breeze that nurtures all things green I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life."

In riding a bicycle or driving a car we can quickly come to feel the vehicle as an extension of our own bodies. In the same way, the whole world is an extension of your own body. Yes, sometimes it does things you don't want it to and can't control, but the same is true of your joints and organs (increasingly so as the years go by!) Truly, everything in the world is your joints and organs, sinews and bones, glands, skin, and hair. And brain and mind. Says Joanna Macy:

"We are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again — and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way."

We have, of course, no idea how things may have gone on other planets. If thousands or even millions of other civilizations have arisen in our galaxy, the reason we haven't heard from any of them, though, would seem maybe NOT that they destroyed themselves. It seems at least as likely the reason we haven't heard from them is that they haven't needed to go colonizing for more resources. The nature of intelligent life just might be not to destroy itself, but, more often, to work its way to the emergence of a peaceful, sustainable way of life in which the beings delight in the home they have.

Perhaps the galaxy is full of technological civilizations that found their way into the joy of living together with smallness of resource consumption and smallness of carbon footprint upon their planet. Perhaps Earth will be next.

Climate Strike! Act 5

Act 5
Thrilling Conclusion

One of Mary Oliver’s best known and best loved poems is “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Well, Mary, one thing I plan to do with my one wild and precious life is oppose the oil companies that want us to keep burning fossil fuels. Here’s what the web site 350.org says:

“Even if we do manage to keep most of fossil fuels in the ground, a world that’s 1.5°C warmer [than preindustrial] is going to be a much different, scarier place. We’re only at +1°C now, and we’re already seeing more storms, flooding, heatwaves, drought, and island nations at risk of going underwater. The basic facts of climate crisis are grim: the vast majority of fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground for us to stay below 1.5°C of warming -- and fossil fuel companies aren’t going to do that without a fight. We know exactly what we have to do — keep fossil fuels in the ground and quickly transition to 100% renewable energy. The science says it’s still possible to stay under 1.5˚C – but we’ll need to halve emissions by 2030, and increase the share of solar, wind and hydro energy dramatically in that time. Renewable energy is getting cheaper and more popular every day. As renewables grow and provide more clean, free energy to replace fossil fuels, we’ve seen emissions decrease in many countries. We’re not alone — the worldwide movement to stop the climate crisis and resist the fossil fuel industry is growing stronger every day.”

Maybe there’s a realistic chance of keeping the temperature rise to within 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial, or maybe there isn’t. I don’t think that matters. I mean, obviously the temperature increase will make a huge difference, but our odds of preventing it don't matter. What matters is that our joy and compassion call to us to put an end to fossil fuel use. What matters is that doing everything we can to put Exxon and Shell out of business is fun – whether in the end we put a dent on those behemoth corporations or not.

And when I say “fun,” I mean it’s joyous and compassionate to facilitate the transition of the beautiful and worthy human beings who work for those companies into vocations that do not stunt their spirits by paying them to harm themselves and others.

The toil of body and soul, we offer up to the universe, and what the universe makes of it is not ours to say.

Yes, strategizing is a part of doing. Goals and outcomes and plans for achieving them are the manifestations of compassion. It’s possible to plan for results, however, without expecting or needing them. Our hearts turn over to grace their labor, their sweat -- all that our hearts are and have. Grace has its own way of shaping what our hearts bequeath it.

So join me as part of the Climate Strike this Friday Sep 20. Three days before the UN Climate Summit in NYC, young people and adults across the globe will strike to demand action be taken to address the climate crisis. CUUC members will meet at Grand Central Station on Friday September 20, under the opal clock at 11:30am, or at the Starbucks by Foley Square before 1:00pm. We will join the march going to the Battery Park rally.

See the Action Network's info on the Climate Strike -- HERE.
See the info sheet for Metro New York area UUs is HERE.
CUUC members and friends, see HERE.

What else you gonna do with your one wild and precious life?

What else that would be as much fun – as joyous and compassionate?

* * *
Climate Strike! Act 1: Fermi's Question
Climate Strike! Acts 2-3: Truths Still Inconvenient. Polls.
Climate Strike! Act 4: Joy, Compassion, and the Big Picture

Climate Strike! Act 4

Act 4.
Joy, Compassion, and the Big Picture

Stop worrying. Seriously, climate anxiety is a real thing and it would be better not to suffer from it. Some people have gotten so stressed about reports of inevitable near-term social collapse due to climate change that they’ve gone into therapy. The American Psychological Association now recognizes “eco-anxiety” as "a chronic fear of environmental doom".

I know that fear can be a powerful motivator in the short term. Most of the politicians in office now got there by playing to fear. Fear works, in the short run, but it makes us miserable and stressed. We end up anxious and depressed. Let us take action to mitigate climate change, but not out of fear. We don’t need your fear, your anxiety, your stress, your worry, or your panic.

I know that Greta Thunberg – the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist – says she wants grown-ups to panic, but I disagree. What we’re after is sustainability, and panic is not sustainable.

And, no, we don’t need hope either – at least not the usual understanding of hope, which is often just fear trying to be optimistic. If you have hope, that’s fine, but it isn’t necessary. If you lose it, you can still happily carry on -- if you're spiritually prepared to. To begin that preparation, reflect on this: in a situation devoid of hope, caring for each other and our home is as worth doing as ever. We do it for its own sake -- not for the sake of a hoped-for outcome.

Maybe it’s the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself and maybe it isn’t, but even if it is, the point isn’t to last forever. Whether as individuals or as a species, the point is to have a good run while we’re here. Enjoy the bliss of existing for the instant we have – and when I say “we,” I mean both "you and me individually", and "humankind."

Our species, homo sapiens, has been around about 200,000 years. Our genus, homo, has been around ten times that long -- so the duration of the genus homo, so far, is 2 million years. Homo sapiens is the sole surviving species of that genus. The others have all come and gone. Some of the more significant or longer-lasting ones:

• homo habilus (2 mya - 1.5 mya),
• homo ergaster (1.8 mya - 1.3 mya),
• homo erectus (1.9 mya - 0.14 mya),
• homo antecessor (1.2 mya - 0.8 mya),
• homo heidelbergensis (0.75 mya - 0.2 mya),
• and most recently, homo neanderthal (0.24 mya - 0.04 mya)

Homo erectus lasted 6-8 times as long as homo sapiens has so far.

Still, we had a good run. If the measure of flourishing is population numbers, we've flourished, particularly in recent centuries. If the measure is the overall well-being of the members of our species, we were doing OK for the first 90% of our 200,000-year run, but took a bit of a hit 12,000 years ago when the agricultural revolution allowed the rise of the centralized state, concentrations of wealth, large standing armies, slavery, oppression, and a considerable boost in the proportion of us in misery. But we've also taken some strides toward equality that suggest that maybe in another century or two -- if we were to last that long -- we might work out the kinks of the agricultural revolution and enjoy its benefits more than we suffer its downsides. Moreover, even amidst our atrocities, we did some amazing stuff: art, literature, music, science, and spiritual practice. If this is the end of the run for the species -- and, indeed, the genus -- to which we belong, let us face that demise with the same equanimity and quiet pride with which we hope to face our individual demise, when that time comes.

The Earth has seen five mass extinctions. The first one was 444 million years ago: the Ordovician extinction. 86% of all species went extinct. Then life bounced back. New and different species emerged and flourished.

Then 69 million years after the first mass extinction – that is, about 35 times as long as the genus homo has existed – another mass extinction hit: the Devonian extinction of 375 million years ago. 75% of all species went extinct. Again life bounced back – new species proliferated.

124 million years went by – that’s 62 homo durations. Then the third mass extinction: the Permian extinction of 251 million years ago. This one was a real doozy: 96% of all species ended. From the 4% that were left, new life forms again sprang forth and filled the earth – this time for 51 million years.

The fourth mass extinction, the Triassic extinction of 200 million years ago, wiped out 80% of the species of the time. This time life bounced back with the age of the dinosaur – about 700 species of which we’ve identified so far, though paleontologists think there were lots more we haven’t discovered yet.

Dinosaurs owned this planet for 134 million years – about 67 homo durations – until they, along with 76% of all species then in existence – were wiped out in the fifth extinction: the Cretaceous extinction 66 million years ago.

Five mass extinctions. The time between them was anywhere from 51 million years to 134 million years -- and the last one was 66 million years ago. So if we’re heading into the sixth great extinction, that would be within the schedule range.

My loyalty and identification is with life itself. My heart’s devotion, inspiration, faith, hope, and love lie with all of life – not the DNA that defines me as an individual, nor the DNA that defines my species, nor that which defines my genus, order, class, phylum -- or even kingdom. Rather, my belonging is to the beauty and the wonder of life, always finding a way. Consider the stand of aspen trees that is actually all one plant, one root system, one organism that can live, possibly, for 100,000 years. Or the slime molds that work in tandem, signaling to each other to join and form a multicellular mass, like a “moving sausage.” Or the vast and bizarre varieties of mushrooms. We – and this time when I say “we,” I mean “we living things” – will find a way. We always bounce back.

Life. Is not that the God that is a mighty God? Is not that the love that will not let us go?

We don’t need fear or hope, but we do need two things: joy and compassion. We need as deep a sense as we can reach of the joy there is in this wonderful mystery of being alive. We may not have tomorrow, so, friends, let us delight in today. And let us reach out in compassion to do everything we can in the time left to us to ease what suffering we can.

Joy and compassion. Those are the qualities that make for a good life in a world that faces no environmental dangers. It turns out they are also the qualities that make for a good life in this world that does face environmental dangers.

* * *
Climate Strike! Act 1: Fermi's Question
Climate Strike! Acts 2-3: Truths Still Inconvenient. Polls.
Climate Strike! Act 5: Thrilling Conclusion

Climate Strike! Acts 2-3

Act 2
Truths Still Inconvenient

It’s been 13 years since the 2006 release of “An Inconvenient Truth” – the slideshow that brought so much attention to climate change that it earned Al Gore an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize. The predictions back then are all coming true – in some cases faster than predicted.

Through most of the 200,000 year history of homo sapiens, CO2 levels have been around 280 ppm. 350 ppm appears to be the upper limit of what the planet can handle without becoming a very different sort of planet. Above 350, NASA said, you couldn't have a planet "similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." The journal Nature said that above 350

"we threaten the ecological life-support systems that have developed in the late Quaternary environment, and severely challenge the viability of contemporary human societies." (McKibben, Eaarth 16)

By 1960, we reached 320 ppm.
By 1980: 341 ppm.
We passed the 350 mark in 1987 – 32 years ago.
By 2000, we were at 370 ppm.
By 2010: 392 ppm.
As of 2019 May, we’re at 415 ppm of CO2, still adding another 2 or 3 ppm every year.

The Earth has seen CO2 levels this high before – but not for at least 2.5 million years – in other words, not in Quaternary Period, and not when there were any people or civilizations or mass populations depending on agricultural and finely tuned economic systems. The longer we stay above 350 – and the further above 350 we go – the more and stronger hurricanes, floods, and droughts; more sea level rising; more dying of coral reefs.

Even if rich countries adopt draconian emissions reductions, it is improbable that we will be able to stop short of 650 ppm of CO2. As Bill McKibben notes,

"Even if you erred on the side of insane optimism, the world in 2100 would have about 600 parts per million carbon dioxide. That is, we’d live if not in hell, then in some place with a similar temperature."

Right now, annual global average temperatures are about 1 degree Celsius hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. Because of the climate change that has already occurred, increased frequency and severity of heatwaves and floods have reduced global grain yields by 10%. That’s already happened. Over 1 million people living near coasts have been forced from their homes due to rising seas and stronger storms. That's already happened.

We will probably see the annual global average temperature reach 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter by the year 2030 – and some time around mid-century, we’ll hit 2 degrees C higher than pre-industrial. The difference between 1.5˚C and 2˚C could mean well over 10 million more migrants from sea-level rise.

Act 3
Polls

Americans may be warming to the concept that the planet is warming. On Thursday September 12, the Washington Post reported results of a poll conducted by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. (The WaPo article is HERE. A PDF of the full poll report is HERE.)

“The poll finds that a strong majority of Americans — about 8 in 10 — say that human activity is fueling climate change, and roughly half believe action is urgently needed within the next decade if humanity is to avert its worst effects. 38% -- nearly 4 in 10 -- now say climate change is a “crisis,” up from less than a quarter five years ago.”

Another 38% say it’s a major problem but not a crisis. 15% say it’s a minor problem. Only 8% said, “not a problem at all.”

So, what are we willing to do about it? How about increase federal gas tax by 25 cents a gallon? Only 25% supported that.

A 2-dollar tax on monthly residential electricity bills is supported by 47% of us – almost half. A 10-dollar tax on electricity bills, however, garners only 27% support.

On the other hand, 60% of us are in support of “raising taxes on companies that burn fossil fuels even if that may lead to increased electricity and transportation prices.”

The most popular approach: raise taxes on the wealthy households. Over two-thirds of respondants – 68 percent – were in favor of that.

* * *
Climate Strike! Act 1: Fermi's Question
Climate Strike! Act 4: Joy, Compassion, and the Big Picture
Climate Strike! Act 5: Thrilling Conclusion

Climate Strike! Act 1

Act 1.
Fermi's Question

I think often of Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) – the great Italian physicist. He asked an intriguing question. He looked out at the stars and asked: Where is everybody?

Number 1: Our Sun is a young star. It's 4.6 billion years old, while most of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy are about 10 billion years old or older.

Number 2: There is a high probability that some of these stars have Earth-like planets which, if the Earth is typical, may develop intelligent life. Fermi could only make a rough guess about the number of Earth-like planets in the galaxy. Since getting the data from the 2013 Kepler mission, our current best estimate is that there are 40 billion Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way with surface temperatures conducive to life.

Number 3: These older stars with Earth-like planets would be way ahead of us in developing interstellar travel – some of them billions of years ahead of us.

And number 4: Given that one-tenth the speed of light should be achievable, and that a ship going that speed could get from the far edge of the galaxy to the opposite far edge (a journey of 105,700 light years) in just over a million years, the galaxy could be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years. Given billions of planets that have billions of years of head start on us, a few tens of millions of years is nothing.

So: where is everybody?

Scientists have offered a number of possible answers to Fermi’s question. Maybe the probability of life forming from nonliving matter -- or the chance that life would, within a few billion years, develop to the point of space travel -- is much lower than Fermi imagined. Or maybe extraterrestrials have swung by, but are too clever to have been detected. Maybe.

But the answer that haunts me is this conjecture: It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.

Intelligence emerges in response to competition for scarce resources. If resources are plentiful, or species don’t need to outsmart other species to get them, then all species remain comparative simpletons. So wherever intelligence emerges, it necessarily comes with aggressive, instinctual drives.

When that ancient competitive, aggressive drive to consume resources, extend longevity, and reproduce is suddenly paired with powerful new technology: boom. The species destroys itself through environmental destruction or super-powerful weapons, or at least blows itself back to a pre-technological stage. That's the conjecture: that any species on a trajectory of evolving increasing intelligence will necessarily figure out how to destroy itself before it figures out how not to.

If true, it would explain why no extraterrestrials have colonized the galaxy. Perhaps this self-destruction has already happened on billions of planets. Perhaps it is now happening here.

* * *
Climate Strike! Acts 2-3: Truths Still Inconvenient. Polls.
Climate Strike! Act 4: Joy, Compassion, and the Big Picture
Climate Strike! Act 5: Thrilling Conclusion

The New Earth

Because of climbing CO2 level, and the consequent climate change, the Earth of our ancestors and of our youth is gone. We now face the prospect of developing community on this new Earth -- which Bill McKibben calls "Eaarth," with an extra "a." (SEE HERE.)

The new Earth will rely much more on local food, and on organic farming that doesn't use huge quantities of fossil fuel for its fertilizers, its pesticides, it’s machinery, or its product transportation. Food will cost more -- which is not a big problem since food has for many years now been ridiculously cheap, partly because of agriculture subsidies and fossil fuel industry subsidies (which also subsidize the type of agriculture that intensively relies on fossil fuels).

The new Earth will rely more on locally-produced energy -- solar panels and solar water heating on your own house, and windmills in your yard -- because transmission across power lines loses efficiency over many miles. We'll also use the internet and connecting tools like Skype instead of flying and driving places.

To sustain us in the new Earth we need the very thing that sustained many of us on the old Earth: a spirituality of connectedness with this earth, of reclaiming a way of living lightly, carefully, gracefully on this delicate home, rituals and practices and ways of thinking that nurture attention, and calm delight in the simple beauties of life. Wanting stuff makes us stressed, and being stressed makes it harder to step back from our desires for a larger perspective.

So what I’m talking about really is not impending grim necessity – but emerging wholeness, joy, and delight. We may make for ourselves a materially sparer and spiritually fuller life on our tough new planet.

Getting there won’t be easy. It takes being focused and intentional, and it takes a lot of us paying attention together.

When Hildegard of Bingen experienced unity with the divine, she gave the experience these words:

“I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.... I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.”

In riding a bicycle or driving a car we can quickly come to feel the vehicle as an extension of our own bodies. In the same way, the whole world is an extension of your own body. Yes, sometimes it does things you don’t want it to and can’t control, but the same is true of your joints and organs (increasingly so as the years go by). Truly, everything in the world is your joints and organs, sinews and bones, glands, skin, and hair. And brain and mind.

Says Joanna Macy:

"We are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again – and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way."

I have no idea – not even a conjecture – but I like to imagine that if it’s true that there are or have been billions of other civilizations in our galaxy, the reason we haven’t heard from them isn’t that they destroy themselves. It’s that they don’t need to go colonizing for more resources. It’s that the natural development of civilization usually leads eventually to the emergence of a peaceful, sustainable way of life in which the beings delight in the home they have – and are.

* * *
This is part 4 of 4 of "The Ecospiritual Challenge."
Previous: Part 3: "Reality is Never Depressing"
Beginning: Part 1: "Fermi and the Nature of Intelligent Life"

Reality is Never Depressing

According to Mark Serreze of the National Sea Ice Data Center, the Arctic ice is in its death spiral. Within a decade or two, a summertime spacecraft pointing its camera at the North Pole would see nothing but open ocean.

When we speak of climate change and the long list of planetary damages it wreaks, it’s common to invoke grandchildren. "Preserve the planet for the sake of our grandchildren," we say. Or, "Let’s not let our grandchildren have to deal with the problem with which we should be dealing." Bill McKibben, however, says:

"Forget the grandkids. It turns out this was a problem for our parents." (16)

Faced with what we now know, some remain in denial, their fingers stuck firmly in their ears. Others, seeing the collapse coming, amass stockpiles of canned goods, bottled water, and they're down in their basements oiling their guns.

At this point, maybe you’re thinking: “Oh, such gloom and doom! It’s depressing. It’s stressful. Tell me something uplifting and inspiring, not this litany of disaster scenarios."

Gentle reader, I’m not going to tell you soothing lies in the interest of being “inspirational.” I’m going to tell you the truth as best I can discern it. And here’s a truth that I think happens to also be inspiring:

Reality is never depressing.

Being in denial, being out of touch with reality, pushing it out of consciousness, so that it has to sneak around, come at you from behind, and crawl up your back (for reality eventually finds a way to get through to us), that's the source of depression. Struggling to resist irresistible reality – that's what triggers depression and stress. Reality is never depressing.

Mindful attention to exactly what is is a practice of cultivating joy. Even if what is is pain. Literally. If you’ve got a throbbing knee pain or headache, bring all your attention to the pain itself, minutely noticing every detail of its sensation. This doesn’t make the pain go away, but it does make the pain bother you less, for as long as you sustain attention.

Reality presents us with challenges, and those challenges become depressing or stressful problems only when we want to push them away, push them out of mind. Instead, engage, and connect.

The good news is: you and I are going to die. That’s great news because it means we don’t have to figure out how to live forever – get everything solved, all threats removed, so that we can then relax into our immortality. We don't have that responsibility. We only have this short time -- a day, a year, a few decades -- and all we have to do is show up for just this decade or two, this year, this day. That's all. Hallelujah, we do not bear the the burden of eternity. Knowing I am blessed with an ironclad exit strategy, knowing the divine takes form only temporarily in the body and set of ego defenses called "me," I am liberated. My task is no more (and no less) than to manifest this transience that I am. We are, each of us, called upon only to manifest -- and in our manifesting engage with the challenges that happen to arise for the few years we happen to be here.

OK, so we, as a species, did not adopt the Ecospiritual Imperative to connect spiritually to nature in a way that would have empowered us, in joy, to preserve the Earth we knew. As a result, now we face the Ecospiritual Challenge to fashion what life we can on the new Earth.

The Ecospiritual Challenge is to walk a third way: not denying the reality we face, and nor retreating into everyone-for-herself survivalism. It is the path of open-eyed and open-eared awareness, and also the path of connection to both nature and neighbor -- not afraid to face reality, not avoiding needed knowledge because it's "depressing" and you’d rather not think about it. And at the same time not bunkering protectively.

The Ecospiritual Challenge is to choose neither despair nor defense, but new community.

This is a spiritual challenge because the courage to face reality exactly as it is comes from spiritual discipline. Our capacity to hold our world in love, whatever may come -- and I do mean whatever may come -- is developed in spiritual practice and in spiritual community. And where love is, fear and sadness are not.

* * *
This is part 3 of 4 of "The Ecospiritual Challenge."
Next: Part 4: "The New Earth"
Previous: Part 2: "The Climates They Have A-Changed"
Beginning: Part 1: "Fermi and the Nature of Intelligent Life"

The Climates They Have A-Changed

Environmental writer Bill McKibben argues that the planet we knew, that our great-grandparents and their great-grandparents knew, is gone. Old Earth was great, but it is gone. Yes, the old Earth had occasional disasters, too. It’s the pace of them now that is the fact of life on our new planet.

350 is the important number. 350 is the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that is the upper limit of what is safe.

When I was growing up, we worried about carbon monoxide, and were told that carbon dioxide was perfectly harmless. Which, for breathing, it basically is. But it traps heat in our atmosphere.

At 350 ppm, the planet survives. If we get above 350 for very long, or if we get very far above 350, then we will trigger tipping points and irreversible impacts. A lead article in the journal Nature [2009 Sep] said that above 350 "we threaten the ecological life-support systems that have developed in the late Quaternary environment, and severly challenge the viability of contemporary human societies." (McKibben 16)

Carbon dioxide levels were 275 ppm for all of human history up until 200 years ago. By 1960, CO2 was up to 315 ppm, steadily climbing. In 1960, we were blithely, blissfully oblivious to what rising CO2 would mean. By 2007, we had actually passed the 350 safety-line and were at 382 ppm. Today we are at 400 ppm, and adding two more ppm every year. And the planet of our ancestors -- and of our youth -- is gone.

In fact, scientist Kevin Anderson projects that even if rich countries adopt draconian emissions reductions within a decade, it is improbable that we will be able to stop short of 650 ppm of CO2.

As Bill McKibben notes,

"Even if you erred on the side of insane optimism, the world in 2100 would have about 600 parts per million carbon dioxide. That is, we’d live if not in hell, then in some place with a very similar temperature."

McKibben's website, 350.org, summarizes:

“So far, we’ve experienced about 1 degree (Celsius) of warming, and the impacts are frightening. Glaciers everywhere are melting and disappearing fast, threatening the primary source of clean water for millions of people. Mosquitoes, who like a warmer world, are spreading into lots of new places, and bringing malaria and dengue fever with them. Drought is becoming much more common, making food harder to grow in many places. Sea levels have begun to rise, and scientists warn that they could go up as much as several meters this century. If that happens, many of the world’s cities, island nations, and farmland will be underwater. Meanwhile, the oceans are growing more acidic because of the CO2 they are absorbing, which makes it harder for animals like corals and clams to build their shells and exoskeletons. All around the globe, we’re stacking the deck for extreme weather — like hurricanes, typhoons, blizzards, and droughts — which exacerbates conflicts and security issues in regions that are already strapped for resources. The Arctic is sending us perhaps the clearest message that climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists had previously thought. In the summer of 2012, roughly half of the Arctic’s sea ice went missing (some scientists estimate that the total volume of summer sea ice loss may be as high as 80%). The entire Arctic region is undergoing drastic changes, threatening vital habitat for countless species (yes, including polar bears) and the livelihoods of many indigenous communities. This is also bringing us closer to dangerous tipping points, like the breakdown of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from quickening permafrost melt.” (www.350.org/about/science)

And methane is four time more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat.

* * *
This is part 2 of 4 of "The Ecospiritual Challenge"
Next: Part 3: "Reality Is Never Depressing"
Beginning: Part 1: "Fermi and the Nature of Intelligent Life"

Fermi and the Nature of Intelligent Life

The brilliant Italian physicist Enrico Fermi reasoned as follows:

1. Our Sun is a young star. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older;
2. There is a high probability that some of these stars have Earth-like planets which, if the Earth is typical, may develop intelligent life;
3. These older stars with Earth-like planets would be way ahead of us in developing interstellar travel.
4. At any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years. Given billions of stars that have billions of years of head start on us, a few tens of millions of years is nothing.

It follows, concluded Fermi, that the Earth should already have been colonized, or at least visited. But Fermi did not think there was any convincing evidence that we had been. Moreover, not only have we not been visited, we haven’t even spotted a sign of intelligence elsewhere in our galaxy.

Hence Fermi's question, "Where is everybody?" This question has come to be known as the Fermi paradox.

One theory that has been proposed as an explanation of why we haven’t encountered or seen other intelligent life is this:

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.

The theory is that, on any planet that evolved species that developed civilization and then technological civilization, those species will “usually or invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or space flight technology. Possible means of annihilation include nuclear war, biological warfare or accidental contamination, climate change.”

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.

It’s a conjecture some scientists have offered – just one of many possible answers to the Fermi paradox. Do you think this is plausible? Is it inherent in the way that intelligence emerges that a species will arrive at enough intelligence to be able to destroy itself before it arrives at enough intelligence not to?

Intelligence emerges in response to competition for scarce resources. As long as resources are plentiful, species don’t need to outsmart other species, and all species remain comparative simpletons. So wherever intelligence emerges, it necessarily comes with aggressive, instinctual drives. When that ancient competitive aggression and drive to consume resources, extend longevity, and reproduce suddenly becomes paired with powerful new technology: boom. That “boom” need not mean that the civilization entirely self-destructs, only that it becomes once again non-technological.

That’s the theory: the conjecture, according to which this has already happened on billions of other planets and is now happening here. What do you think? Is it happening here? A recent NASA-funded study, due for publication in 2014, concludes that industrial society is, indeed, headed for "irreversible collapse" (CLICK HERE). There are a number of factors: unsustainable resource depletion and unequal wealth distribution among them. In what follows, The Liberal Pulpit will look at the climate change piece of the picture.

We've had some unusually cold snaps this winter. Much of the US has seen the coldest air it’s had since 1994 or ’96. One explanation is that climate change is disrupting the jet stream, breaking up the polar vortex, and chunks of that vortex are now susceptible to breaking off and drifting south. So while we had some cold down here, the arctic itself is warmer.

It has also been pointed out, as weather historian Christopher Burt said:

“Prior to 1996, cold waves of this intensity occurred pretty much every 5-10 years. In the 19th century, they occurred every year or two (since 1835).”

So we used to have more frequent intense cold – and it seems not to have come from the breaking off a chunk of the polar vortex – which is to say, intense cold snaps over the great plains did NOT used to correspond with ongoing warming at the pole.

Average weather-related disasters per year between 1975 and 2005 was 10 times the average number of annual disasters, 1900 to 1975. What used to be measured as years-per-disaster is now measured in disasters-per-year.

Are we following the cosmic pattern of intelligent life destroying itself?

* * *
This is part 1 of 4 of "The Ecospiritual Challenge."
Next: Part 2: "The Climates They Have A-Changed"

The Institution of Dark Green

Dark green religion has no institutional home: no physical building, membership list, meetings, committees, or mission statement. These trappings of institutionalization may be off-putting, but only people who commit to working together, using the tools of purpose and organization that constitute an institution, have a chance of effecting transformation -- of themselves or of the world.

I had the chance to ask Bron Taylor about institutions: do we need there to be places – buildings and memberships – where people gather for ceremonies to express and affirm the sacredness of nature?

Does dark green religion need a dark green headquarters?

Prof. Taylor said dark green religion is infusing a variety of institutions, various church denominations are beginning to embrace it, environmental organizations are increasingly speaking a spiritual kind of language about the earth they seek to protect, and dark green religion is expressed in all manner of ways in books and movies and theme parks where people are jazzed up, or awed by the majesty and sacredness of our blue-boat home, and sent out into the world without ever taking the step of being a member of an organization.

That’s rather encouraging, really – this trend all around us toward dark green religion. But we will need institutions if we are going to make it through the hard times that are coming. We will need people organizing, committing to each other to be members together of a place that will be there for them week after week to support them in remembering what is divine, and in practicing it, and in worshipping that honors this blue-green home on which we live and breath and have our being. We will need:

• a place that will call us, over and over, to practice what we preach, because Gaia knows we are prone to forget and to lapse;
• a place that doesn’t just give us an experience like a book or a movie or a speech or a theme park but that provides community support for a way of life;
• an institution (which is to say: an ongoing pattern of being together) through which there is awakening of the spirit and encouragement to action in line with our spiritual values.

Unitarian Universalism has always been about living our religion, and religioning our lives. Awaken to the sacred depths of nature. Express your worship also through acts of care for our mother, for Earth, for Gaia. Re-commit to this faith of awe and wonder and openness to whatever this universe may bring us. Re-commit to actions of care, of compassion for our planet home.

It is a new year – and like the trees outside, we are in bud with possibilities of transformation. In this time of resolution making, what bud of change – for the sake of healing, wholeness, and our planet home – will you bring forth to burst into new life? What commitment will you make as an act of love and an act of worship that will reduce your footprint in 2014?

Take some action, rise to whatever for you is the next challenge in living more wholesomely, not because you actually expect it to do any good. Do it because it might. Do it because it’s sure to do this good: you will be more whole, more spiritually alive, the more you replace mindless consumption with mindful consumption.

And begin, as Joanna Macy says, with gratitude.

“We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful self-organizing universe – to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it – is a wonder beyond words. And it is, moreover, an extraordinary privilege to be accorded a human life, to possess this self-reflexive consciousness, which brings awareness of our own actions and the ability to make choices. It lets us choose to take part in the healing of our world.”

That’s a soteriology for our time.

* * *
This is part 5 of 5 of "The Ecospiritual Imperative"
Previous: Part 4: "Dark Green Religion: Everywhere and Nowhere"
Beginning: Part 1: "Soteriology and Ecology"

Dark Green Religion: Everywhere and Nowhere

Dark green religion is popping up in a lot of places that aren’t in churches.

Christopher Hitchens was, in his time, I would say the crankiest of the cranky denouncers of religion. He seemed to have cultivated an image of being joyless and permanently annoyed. Yet even Christopher Hitchens, it turns out, had religion. It took a Unitarian Universalist minister to coax it out of him, but he had it. My colleague Rev. Marilyn Sewell interviewed Christopher Hitchens, and in the course of their conversation Hitchens declared:

“It's innate in us to be overawed by certain moments, say, at evening on a mountaintop or sunset on the boundaries of the ocean. Or, in my case, looking through the Hubble telescope at those extraordinary pictures. We have a sense of awe and wonder at something beyond ourselves, and so we should, because our own lives are very transient and insignificant. That's the numinous, and there's enough wonder in the natural world without any resort to the supernatural being required. . . . I know it's not enough for us to eat and so forth. We know how to think. We know how to laugh. We know we're going to die, which gives us a lot to think about, and we have a need for, what I would call, ‘the transcendent’ or ‘the numinous’ or even ‘the ecstatic’ that comes out in love and music, poetry, and landscape.”

Christopher Hitchens said that! Who knew he had it in him?

At least one politician, Al Gore, seems to have dark green religion. Way back in 1992, his book, Earth in the Balance, says:

“We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle of civilization. . . . As a politician, I know full well the special hazards of using ‘spiritual’ to describe a problem like this one . . . . But what other word describes the collection of values and assumptions that determine our basic understanding of how we fit into the universe?”

Disney cartoon movies from the mid-1990s express dark green religion. "The Lion King" sung to us of the "Circle of Life" that had to be respected and balanced, and in "Pocahontas," Grandmother Willow teaches of belonging to nature and of the sacred interconnections within the web of life. Pocahontas sings,

“You think you own whatever land you land on; the earth is just a dead thing you can claim.
But I know every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name.”

The 2009 film, Avatar, asked “us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other, and us to the Earth.”

There may be more religion, more spirituality, in movies these days than there is in some churches.

If you are a subscriber to Surfing magazine (as most readers of this blog naturally would be!), then you might recall the July 2008 issue which proclaims in large letters on the cover, “Surfing is a religion,” and in letters twice as big above that, it says, “Nature = God.” The article inside -- by Bron Taylor – analyzes surfing as aquatic nature religion and quotes from a number of surfers who understand their practice as spiritual. As one surfer put it:

“The ocean has a powerful energy and it connects you to the earth.”

Dude!

Dark green religion is, indeed, popping up all over the place these days! At the same time that it is everywhere, it is also nowhere. Dark green religion has no institutional home: no physical building, membership list, meetings, committees, or mission statement. As much as the apparatus of institutions elicits a semi-involuntary "ugh" reaction, only people who commit to working together, using the tools of purpose and organization that constitute an institution, have a chance of effecting transformation -- of themselves or of the world.

Next: Does dark green religion need institutionalization?

* * *
This is part 4 of 5 of "The Ecospiritual Imperative"
Next: Part 5: "The Institution of Dark Green"
Previous: Part 3: "Green Religion and Dark Green Religion"
Beginning: Part 1: "Soteriology and Ecology"

Green Religion and Dark Green Religion

I am a Unitarian Universalist. One thing that means is that I'm in a sacred covenant with every other Unitarian Universalist in this world, to, among other things, affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. That is a spiritual statement and a spiritual act. Environmental action is spiritual practice, and environmental protection is a spiritual mandate. Our relationship to our planet is as much a religious issue as our relationship to our soul is; as much a religious issue as our relationship to God is. Indeed, for many of us, our relationship to our planet is both our relationship to our soul and our relationship to God.

Every religious tradition on the planet includes a deep belief-tradition of respect and honor for our planet. Indeed, “deeply embedded in our human consciousness is a primal awe and gratitude for the air, water, solid ground, sunlight, and nourishing life forms that sustain” us. Our ancestors have “stood in awe of these at our most sacred ceremonies” for maybe a million years. Our awareness of being bound in a relationship of responsibility with our planet is religious awareness. Acting responsibly within that relationship is religious practice.

We may ignore what is happening to our home, break our connection to the holy whole, break faith with the ground of our being. We might do so out of hubris. We might do so out of despair. Either would be a form of faithlessness.

So if environmental protection is not a religious issue, then there are no religious issues.

Amidst the many trends – the resource depletion, the pollution, the greenhouse gases, there is this hopeful trend: religion is greening.

There’s green religion – and there’s also what Bron Taylor calls dark green religion. Bron Taylor is a professor of religion at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I met Bron during my time in Gainesville.

Green religion, he says, “posits that environmentally friendly behavior is a religious obligation.” A number of Christian, Jewish, or Muslim groups have in recent years shifted away from the idea that humans have been granted dominion over the earth and toward the idea that God calls us to stewardship, and that this stewardship is measured by health ecosystems and sustainable, responsible consumption.

That’s an important shift.

There are also an increasing number of people who are going beyond green religion to dark green religion. For dark green religion, it’s not merely that we have a religious obligation to protect ecosystems, reduce consumption, and in general be responsible stewards of our environment. Rather, in dark green religion nature itself is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is due reverent care – not simply because it is God’s creation and God tells us to, but because nature tells us to, and nature has that authority based on being sacred in itself.

Dark green religion is popping up in a lot of places that aren’t in churches.

Next: Where dark green religion is popping up!

* * *
This is part 3 of 5 of "The Ecospiritual Imperative"
Next: Part 4: "Dark Green Religion: Everywhere and Nowhere"
Previous: Part 2: "Sustainability: A Spiritual Problem"
Beginning: Part 1: "Soteriology and Ecology"

Sustainability: A Spiritual Problem

Personally, I know I don’t live sustainably. I took a quiz online. Try it yourself:

www.footprintnetwork.org.

It asks such questions as:

• How often do you eat meat or diary?
• How much clothing, footwear, sporting goods purchases do you make in a year?
• How often do you buy new appliances?
• How much paper and plastic waste do you recycle?
• How many people live in your household?
• What’s the size of your home?
• How far do you travel each week by car, motorcycle, bus, train, airplane?

My results? LoraKim and I are doing better than the average US resident. Being vegetarian counted for most of that: the meat industry generates tremendous pollution and greenhouse gases. In fact, a vegetarian driving a hummer is contributing less to climate change than a meat-eater driving a prius. And I am lucky enough to be able to walk to work. So LoraKim and I are doing better than the average US residents – but even so, just barely. The average US resident lives in a way which, if everyone lived that way, would take 5 earths. If everyone in the world lived like LoraKim and I do, we’d need 4.5 planet earths to provide enough resources.

If everyone lived like the average Canadian, we’d need 4.3 earths. Canadians do a little bit better than we do, eh? Fortunately, a lot of countries do a lot better than we do and many are living within the planet’s resource means -- the average US resident consumes over four times the resources consumed by the average of everybody else. US consumption rates are awfully high. Still, the US population is only 1/20 of the world population. If the US average were reduced to what the average of the other 19/20ths is now, then we'd need 1.2 earths.

Biocapacity Debtor Nations in red. Biocapacity Creditor Nations in green.

.

As it is right now, in total, we need 1.4 earths. In other words: every year humans use up 40% more resources than the earth created that year. Eventually, at this rate, we will use it all up. And that’s a problem.

It’s an economic problem. I’m not an economist.

It’s a political problem. I’m not a politician. I do have, as you do, political opinions, but I don’t have the kind of political connections to begin bringing world governments to the kinds of agreements we need.

It's a technological problem because modern technology burns huge quantities of resources. At the same time, some technological advances help other technological advances use less. It’s a technological problem. I’m not an engineer.

It’s a spiritual problem. Ah. Now we can talk. Can we talk? A spiritual problem? Oh, yes, indeed.

“Our environmental problems will not be fully addressed,” says Steven Rockefeller, “until we come to terms with the moral and spiritual dimensions of these problems, and we will not find ourselves religiously until we fully address our environmental problems.”

Connecting to the sacredness of the earth is what saves us – and it’s also what will save the Earth, if it will be saved. Ecospirituality -- which “means that our experience of the divine comes through the natural world.” (Jeanne Mackey) – is the path of salvation.

Ecospiritual literature began to take off about 25 years ago. One of its most prominent voices was that of Thomas Berry, Catholic priest, cultural historian and ecotheologian. Wrote Thomas Berry:

“The universe is the primary revelation of the divine, the primary scripture, the primary locus of divine-human communion.”

For Berry,

“a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species.”

As a recent campaign from the Sierra Club put it:

“This is not about getting back to nature.
It is about understanding we've never left.”

* * *
This is part 2 of 5 of "The Ecospiritual Imperative"
Next: Part 3: "Green Religion and Dark Green Religion"
Previous: Part 1: "Soteriology and Ecology"

Soteriology and Ecology

It's winter in New York. The trees outside look bare to a casual glance. Upon inspection, I notice they are not bare – not bare in the way a dead tree would be. There are buds on them: little buds. I never noticed the buds on the trees before until late winter or early spring, but here I have noticed that even before the last leaf had fallen, or turned completely whithered-brown on the branch, already there were tiny buds. They’ll stay tiny until spring. But they’re already there: the promise that this beauty of white will give way again to a beauty of green.

There’s a salvific power in this reliable rhythm. Salvific.

There’s a traditional branch of theology that deals with the study of what salvation is and how it is obtained. It’s called “Soteriology,” from the Greek “soteria” meaning “salvation.” “Salvation,” in turn, comes from the Latin “salvare”, to save, and it is from that root that we also get our word, “salve.” What, then, is the healing ointment for our hearts and spirits, the salve for our brokenness that will help us heal into wholeness? Which is to say: what saves us? And what does being saved, salved, salvation look like? What makes us whole? What sources are available to us for meaning and hope -- peace? For mystery, awe, and wonder before the fullness of reality? For equanimity, awareness of the beauty of each moment, and the one-ness of all things? For loving-kindness, compassion, and a trust of our own intuitive wisdom?

Let me ask you, then: what is your soteriology? What is your account of what it is that can save a person, salve woundedness, engender wholeness?

Salvation lies, I believe, in our connection with this world of ours. The salve for our woundedness, our fragmentation, lies in nature, in an ecological spirituality.

And, oh, we are feeling the wound. A sense of doom permeates the zeitgeist of our age. On the right-wing this manifests in the Left Behind series of books and all the talk about a rapture. On the left-wing it manifests as urgent warnings from environmentalists who describe impending catastrophe: climate change, melting icecaps, species extinctions from loss of habitat, impending shortages leading to resource wars.

Maybe those environmentalists are right. Indeed, much of what they say almost certainly is right. What they don’t tell us with any authority or consensus, though, is how much time we've got. Certain factors the models have overlooked might buy us a few more years. We might make some behavior changes that will buy us some more. Or not. Many of the environmentalists giving speeches on the first Earth Day back in 1970 didn't expect our planet would last 44 years without ecological collapse. The good work of the environmental movement since the 1970s helped buy us some time. How much, we don’t know.

What I do believe the evidence is clear about is that we will eventually need to change our ways. Hard times are coming – we don’t know how hard how soon. We as a species are going to have to develop and adopt sustainable ways of living if we are to survive – and our present ways, particularly in the US, are not sustainable. Nowhere close. Salvation for ourselves and salvation for the planet are inextricably linked.

* * *
This is part 1 of 5 of "The Ecospiritual Imperative"
Next: Part 2: "Sustainability: A Spiritual Problem"