PAS Chancellor Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson

DOI: 10.65398/ZKKG2365

Introduction

Shortly after His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople had described the abusive treatment of creation by human beings in terms of sin, Pope Francis wrote his Encyclical Letter, Laudato si’, on the Care of our common Home to address the current ecological crisis, both natural and human. Not only is our environment deteriorating globally, little effort is also made to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology (LS 5). “The destruction of the human environment”, Pope Francis observed, “is extremely serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to us men and women, but because human life is itself a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement” (LS 5).

That is why, celebrating the feast of St. Joseph, the custodian of the Holy Family at the inaugural mass of his pontificate (2013), Pope Francis invited the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s square and the whole world to listen to the cry of two fragilities in our midst: creation (environment) and the poor. Rendered fragile by the misdeeds of man, creation and the poor are to be listened to, according to the Pope, not only with the mind, but with the heart most importantly. He himself devotes an encyclical to these fragilized works of God’s creation “not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it”.[1] Man cannot be indifferent to the lot of these fragilities; for, “every effort to protect and improve our world entails profound changes in ‘lifestyles, models of production and consumption, and the established structures of power which today govern societies’” (LS 5). The human person and his culture are so central to the ecological crisis. So, how may we evaluate the place of the human person in the blend of concerns which Laudato si’ presents as integral ecology?

Integral Ecology and the Human Question: Man in His World

The outburst of ecological consciousness and interest that characterized the 70s found expression variously in the organization of summits on the level of the United Nations,[2] in studies in academic institutions and universities, and in the creation of popular green movements.[3] Universities began to dedicate Chairs, Colleges and Departments to environmental studies, dealing with it purely so, as a Department of Environmental Studies. But the academic interest in the environment also took the form of a study of the relationship between the environment and the human presence within it. This gave rise to the creation in universities of Departments of Human Ecology for the study of the impact of the human person on his environment,[4] or the human person in his environment as an instance of evolutionary adaptation to the environment. Sometimes, it also gave rise to interdisciplinary studies, involving very many of the social sciences.[5]

Governments too began to respond to concerns about the environment through the creation of Environmental Protection (or conservation) Agencies; and, beginning with its Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm (1972), the United Nations has consistently dedicated attention to the environmental question in subsequent conferences.[6] Since its meeting in Johannesburg (2002), the United Nations also consistently relates the “question of the environment” with the question of “human development”; and the current UN SDGs are, according to the (former) Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, not only a narrative about development and the protection of the environment (SDG 6, 13, 14, 15); they are also a human dignity narrative that leaves no one behind.

The UN Secretary General’s formulation of the relationship between the protection of the environment and human dignity (or development) affirms not only the physical inter-relatedness of humanity with its physical environment (nature); it also affirms the inter-dependence of their destinies, their lot and their wellbeing. But the descriptions of the nature of the inter-relatedness and inter-dependence of man with his environment has not enjoyed unanimity and agreement in the various efforts to describe it.

Some centers of Higher Education, influenced by an evolutionary sense of development, have described the relations between the human person and his environment in terms of the “survival of the fittest” (who can best adapt to the changing environment). Others describe the relationship between the human person and his environment in terms of a human ecology, which takes the form of an inter-disciplinary pursuit, that studies how the human person and his environment mutually affect each other.[7] But, there are also studies that present the presence of the human species as a (potential) menace to the environment. Related to this position are two noteworthy developments.

The first was the presentation of the limits of the earth’s resources as an issue of Human Ecology.[8] This was the tenor of the works of Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich (The Population Bomb, 1968; Population, Resources, Environment. Issues in Human Ecology, San Francisco 1970; The Population Explosion, 1991). The Ehrlichs’ human demographic threat to the environment was taken up in 1970 by an MIT team of 17 researchers, the fruit of whose study was entitled, The Limits to Growth. That study analyzed “the limits of our world system and their constraints on human growth and activity”. This study was presented in Rio de Janeiro already in 1971, and then to the “Club of Rome”, where it was adopted (1972) as the Report of the Club’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind.

The second related development of the outburst of the ecological consciousness of the 70s and an attempt to situate and define the human person within it was the positing, some thirty years later, of an Anthropocene epoch to describe a proposed new epoch in the Quaternary period when human actions have a drastic effect on the Earth. Paul Josef Crutzen, a researcher of Atmospheric Chemistry, a Nobel prize winner in Chemistry and a deceased member of this Pontifical Academy of Sciences, was the avid proponent of this definition.[9] According to him, the sheer scope of human activities and their impact on essential planetary processes have become so profound as to drive the earth out of the Holocene epoch in which agriculture, sedentary communities, and eventually, socially and technologically complex human societies developed, and to call for the use of a new geological term, which according to Donna Haraway,[10] has become a mandatory concept in framing, thinking about, and ultimately facing accelerating environmental and multi-species catastrophe.[11]

In a subsequent study, Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene[12] by Will Stefan, Johan Rockström and fourteen (14) other scholars, the extent and the intensity of human impact on the world’s ecosystems/earth system which underlies Crutzen’s Anthropocene is revisited, as “self-reinforcing feedbacks” that could push the earth system towards a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway, regardless of reduction in human emissions.

But Crutzen’s Anthropocene also shared an anthropological concern which the Report of the Club of Rome (1972) wrestles with under the heading, the “predicament of Mankind”. Can humanity be a menace to its world and its environment?

For Crutzen, not only do many human activities impact on the earth’s environment, often surpassing nature with ecological, atmospheric chemical and climatic consequences; growing human populations are burdensome to the environment: they are accompanied by their great need for food, water, improved living conditions and land use. Indeed, there has been, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, a growing disturbance of earth’s natural systems by human activities which has created, precisely, a new geological era, the Anthropocene. Human impact has so intensified since the onset of industrialization as to take us out of the Earth System state typical of the Holocene Epoch that post-dates the last glaciation.

All of this means that at the core of Crutzen’s Anthropocene lies the affirmation that human beings can change the Earth in such profound and lasting ways that they usher in a new chapter in its history – a new geological epoch of human beings. Effectively, then, Crutzen’s hypothesis means that human activity now rivals geological forces in influencing the trajectory of the Earth System; and this, according to Will Steffen and his colleagues, has important implications for both Earth System science and societal decision making: disruptions to ecosystems, society and economies.[13]

Finally, Crutzen’s hypothesis enfolds a global threat which calls for a global stewardship of the entire Earth System: biosphere, climate, ecosystems and societies, involving behavioural change, transformed social values, technological innovation and good governance. And the call of science for stewardship of the entire Earth System coincides with the Bible’s original mandate to the human race, which I shall briefly present, as defining the place of humankind in creation, for, in the words of Prof. Ramanathan, there is a foundational alliance between science and faith!

Defining the Place of Man in the World, as “Creation”

The first strikes and strokes of the Bible’s/Church’s understanding about the place of man in creation derive from the biblical account of creation in the Book of Genesis (1-3). There, in the first account of creation (Gen. 1-2:4a), created nature, the environment of human existence, is presented as the work of God’s Word and by design. The first instance of God speaking his Word was actually at the creation of the world; and it was to transform “chaos” at the dawn of creation into a “cosmos”, an ordered world system, capable of supporting human life, and suitable to be a home for the human person.

Subsequently, God created man, male and female, in his image and likeness, and to have dominion over everything that God has created. Just as Adam (man) is distinct from the rest of creation by reason of his nature – created in the image and likeness of God – so is he also distinct in his relationship with the rest of creation by his exercise of dominion over it; and the exact sense of this exercise of dominion over creation is still the subject of vivid exegetical, theological, economic and social discussions.

In the second account of creation, however, this created cosmic space was called the “earth and the heavens” (Gen. 2:4a); and in it God fashioned an earth-home, suitable for man, which was described as a “garden planted by God” (Gen. 2:8, 15). Here God placed man, formed out of the dust of the earth and the breath of God. In this second account of creation, man is more clearly related to created nature by reason of his sharing in its substance (dust), but distinct also from it by reason of his bearing within himself/herself the breath of God. But, when man is introduced into the garden planted by God, he was to till and keep it. Thus, dominion over creation in the first account of creation is replaced in the second account by tilling and keeping the garden. Though functionally formulated and presented, man’s relationship with his garden-home in the second account is clearer to decipher: it is one of a reverential responsibility and care (stewardship), expressed by the two verbs, to till and to keep. The verb which expresses the “tilling function or activity” of man (עבד), also designates the cult/worship which Israel renders to God (Ex. 4:23). Likewise, Adam’s activity of “keeping” the garden is also expressed by a verb which is also used to express a brother’s care for a brother (šmr), as between Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:9). Accordingly, Adam’s role in his garden home was to be a “godly/reverential caretaker”: Adam was to have a reverential solicitude for his/her garden-home, as if for a brother! Certainly, this account of creation was written thousands of years before St. Francis of Assisi; but his way of seeing himself as standing in a reverential and kinship ties with the elements of creation is the imagery that the account of creation evokes.

Adam (man), therefore, is not the auto-referential center of creation. In the distinctiveness of his/her creation in the image and likeness of God, and bearing in himself/herself the breath of God, Adam is more a part of an inter-connected and inter-dependent created world, which he/she must reverence/respect and care for as for a kinsman. Thus, Adam is essentially a personal being as well as a relational being, destined to coexist in communion for the common good of his type and the world.

When in the New Testament the Gospel of John attributes creation to Christ, as the Word/logos of God, creation does not become a passing encounter of God’s Word with the world. Rather the Word of God, “Logos”, reaches down to Adam (man) and creation to initiate a dialogue (a dia-logos). Adam (man) and creation are forever engaged in dialogue with God; and the human person is a dialogue partner before God. A dialogue in which the meaning of everything is to be sought and found!

This is the basis and inspiration of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, Laudato si’, Care for our Common Home (1915). There, listening to the voice of science from Centers of Learning and from the UN Climate Scientists, as well as the experiences of victims of climate disasters, he notes that this is “not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it”.[14] Crutzen’s Anthropocene means that disturbance of creation/our environment is anthropogenic: man-made and attributable to man’s responsibility. Accordingly, the subsequent teaching of Pope Francis on integral ecology underlines the fact that everything is inter-connected and inter-related in the life of man and his/her environment: nothing and nobody is an independent variable; rather a solidary compassion, which makes us all reverent care-takers of creation should binds us all together. For, one cannot love God and disregard and abusively treat what He has made! And to promote the latter idea, Pope Francis calls for a radical change in mindset about creation, change of attitudes and lifestyles in an ecological conversion to free humanity to be caretakers of creation. Next, he invites us to undergo an education for ecological citizenship: education not only for information, but also to instill good ecological habits (LS 209-215) as caretakers of our world. To this, the traditional alliance between science and faith beckons us all!

Thank you for your kind attention!

[1] Laudato si’, 19.

[2] Cf. 1972: UN Ramsar Convention to protect Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran). 1973: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Magna Carta for Wildlife). 1972: Club of Rome “Limits of Growth” on sustainability. 1972: UN Stockholm Conference (human planetary interdependence). Etc.

[3] Greenpeace was born in Canada in 1971; the World Wildlife Fund (now World Wide Fund for Nature), the world’s biggest organization for the protection of nature, had been born already in 1961 in Gland, Switzerland, with the support of very influential people (Prince Philip of Edinburg, Godfrey Rockefeller, Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld etc.); the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; and, now, several Green Movements and Green Parties.

[4] As in College of Human Ecology (Cornell University); Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (Rutgers University). Cf. also the many “Human Ecology” Journals (Hunter College, CUNY, N.Y.; KRE, India, Human Ecology Review of the Society for Human Ecology¸ etc.)

[5] As in studies by the evolutionary anthropologist Robert Foley: Another Unique Species (1987) and Humans before Humanity (1995). The related disciplines are Sociology, Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Politics, Psychology, Technology, Evolutionary Biology, etc.

[6] Cf. United Nations conference on the Environment and Development (also referred to as the Earth Summit or the Rio conference) 1992; the Rio+5 or the 19th Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (1997); the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002), where the environmental question appeared to have been recognized as a development question; and the ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Climate Change Conferences (from Cancun 2010 = COP 16 to the current COP 23 in Bonn, 2017. The UNFCCC is an international meeting of political leaders and activists to discuss environmental issues, especially the climate.

[7] Accordingly, Margaret Bobolz and Suzanne Sontag (Sourcebook of Family Theory and Methods, A contextual Approach, ed. P.G. Boss et alii, N.Y, 1993, pg. 419-450) have described a Human Ecology theory, which focuses on humans as biological organisms and social beings in interaction with their environment; and in this theory, the family is considered to have a determining role (“an energy transformation system that is interdependent with its natural physical-biological, human-built, and social-cultural milieu”, according to the authors). On the role of the family in Human Development, cf. also Urie Bronfenbrenner, “Ecology of the Family as a context for Human Development: Research Perspectives”, in: Developmental Psychology, 1986, vol. 22, #6, 723-742. James Garbarino and Deborah Sherman, “High-Risk Neighborhoods and High-Risk Families: The Human Ecology of Child Maltreatment”, in: Child Development, 1980, vol. 51 #1, 188-198. Cf. also, Robert Foley’s “What is Human Ecology”, in: Another Unique Species, Longman 1987, pg. 12.

[8] As the author indicates, this was the tenor of the works of Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich (The Population Bomb, 1968; Population, Resources, Environment. Issues in Human Ecology, San Francisco 1970; The Population Explosion, 1991). The Ehrlichs’ human demographic threat to the environment was taken up in 1970 by an MIT team of 17 researchers. The fruit of the study was entitled, The Limits to Growth. It studied “the limits of our world system and their constraints on human growth and activity”. This study was presented in Rio de Janeiro already in 1971, and then to the “Club of Rome”, where it was adopted (1972) as the Report of the Club’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. The presentation of the Report at Rio de Janeiro (1971) at the beginning of UN’s Earth Summits on the environment is noteworthy!

[9] Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoemer first proposed the “Anthropocene epoch” in a Newsletter of the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme, 41 (2000) to denote the present geological time interval, in which many conditions and processes on Earth are profoundly altered by human impact.

[10] Donna Haraway, Staying with the trouble, Duke Univ. Press, 2016.

[11] Thus, the IPCC Report (2001) claims that there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

[12] W. Steffen et alii, Perspective, PNAS, August 14, 2018, vol. 115, no. 33 (https://www.pnas.org).

[13] Idem.

[14] Laudato si’, 19.