Peace on Earth by Saving the Earth

By Fr. John Rausch
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 11/4/04)

When Wangari Maathai won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, some critics objected that honoring an environmentalist distracted from traditional peace work. In 1977, Maathai, a 64-year-old biologist, founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya that empowered poor women by paying them to plant over 30 million tree seedlings in their communities. Her movement promotes sustainable development while recognizing the intertwined problems of war, environmental degradation, poverty and the low status of women.

In awarding the prize to Maathai, the Nobel committee noted, "Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment." Just weeks before, a United Nations report cited deforestation and the scarcity of water — both exacerbated by global warming — as repeated causes of armed conflict in Africa.

Awareness among academics, scientists and recently the business community has begun linking peace on earth with saving the earth. In both Business Week (Aug. 16, 2004) and National Geographic (Sept. 2004) writers and editors draw attention to global warming and its dire consequences. They cite dramatic changes in climate that indicate human impact on the environment.

For example, geochemical records of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, show the current level (378 parts-per-million) at the highest-known carbon dioxide level in the last 40 million years. In Peru, the Quelccaya ice cap is shrinking at the rate of 600 feet-per-year, 40 times faster than in 1978. And, scientists recognize that hurricane strength, related to temperature, is strongly connected to global carbon dioxide levels. The result of rapid climate change means more floods, uncertain agricultural production and altered patterns of living for humanity and the rest of creation on earth.

Yet, not everyone agrees with the findings and projected scenarios of these scientists. Some argue the scientific observations could fit nature's acceptable pattern of change with little for humanity to do about global warming. They fear the rollbacks demanded by the Kyoto agreement would cripple the U.S. economy, create a carbon-constrained world and challenge the free-flowing lifestyle of many Americans. Their solution: live with a warmer world and trust science will eventually engineer schemes to create a desirable environment.

For National Geographic, global climate change is real and human activity using fossil fuels is exacerbating, if not causing, the problem: "Ice is melting, rivers are running dry and coasts are eroding ... Flora and fauna are feeling the heat too ... These aren't projections; they are facts on the ground." The editors reference a report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that human activity is almost certainly responsible for most of the past century's warming. They quote Professor George Philander, a climate expert at Princeton University, who says in a negative and alarming way: "We're now geological agents, capable of affecting the processes that determine climate."

According to Pope John Paul II, for people of faith "the ecological crisis is a moral issue." His statement, "The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility," emphasizes that "respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation." He encourages converting from a lifestyle of consumption, addressing the structures of poverty, rejecting war with its inherent ecological destruction, promoting ecological responsibility and appreciating the beauty of nature. With Wangari Maathai, John Paul shares a more holistic vision for the world than either economics or science can provide. His statement was issued on Jan. 1, 1990, the World Day of Peace, thus, like Maathai, linking ecology and peace for a world that respects the common good.

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