PART 2:
Some more of BXVI’s
2008 World Day for Peace Message.
[No. 7 continued]…Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying.
This does not mean we shouldn’t do all we can as individuals to mitigate environmental problems. JPII made it clear in his
1990 World Day for Peace Message that it is everyone’s responsibility to do so; and the Church recognizes subsidiarity – which means functions which subordinate or local organizations perform effectively belong more properly to them than to a dominant central organization.
What BXVI recognizes here is that there are also decisions to be made at higher levels. For instance, if only committed and moral individuals reduced their oil consumption, then the price of oil would go down, and the less moral and the evil would simply use more. There has to be some mechanism at a higher level than the individual that has the effect of reducing fossil fuel burning and other environmental harms – whether by getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies and tax-breaks, or by some fee or tax imposed on fossil fuel consumption, or by promoting alternative energy, or by some other means. We as a moral community need to come up with effective solutions, and very soon, not postponing it.
- In this regard, it is essential to “sense” that the earth is “our common home” and, in our stewardship and service to all, to choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions.
The tactics of refusing to participate, of disrupting international discussion, and refusing to play along are really bad. Bush REALLY should have signed the Kyoto Protocol, or at the least (as a Papua New Guinea man pleaded with the U.S. delegate in the 2007 Bali CC Conference) – “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
Further international agencies may need to be established [like the IPCC] in order to confront together the stewardship of this “home” of ours; more important, however, is the need for ever greater conviction about the need for responsible cooperation. The problems looming on the horizon are complex and time is short.
We are fast approaching tipping points, beyond which we will not be able to stave off very serious environmental problems. The complexity of these problems makes them even more difficult to predict and solve, so we must act now to reduce dire risks.
In order to face this situation effectively, there is a need to act in harmony. One area where there is a particular need to intensify dialogue between nations is that of the stewardship of the earth’s energy resources. The technologically advanced countries are facing two pressing needs in this regard: on the one hand, to reassess the high levels of consumption due to the present model of development [this speaks loud and clear for itself], and on the other hand to invest sufficient resources in the search for alternative sources of energy and for greater energy efficiency. The emerging counties are hungry for energy, but at times this hunger is met in a way harmful to poor countries which, due to their insufficient infrastructures, including their technological infrastructures, are forced to undersell the energy resources they do possess. At times, their very political freedom is compromised by forms of protectorate or, in any case, by forms of conditioning which appear clearly humiliating.
Our greed for oil and other resources for our profligate (inefficient/liberal) use has lead to poverty and ruin in many poor nations. We break it, we buy this problem, and must work to solve it.
