Ecological crisis is not a science issue but justice and moral issue

 

    Most of us are not scientists and we cannot digest graphs and statistics. That is why the ecological crisis is often depicted as mysterious and hard to understand.  But we all know that as long as the majority general public does not have the awareness of wanting to push a revolutionary change, we are doomed, humanity may just end very soon.

        You may be confused with the title but it is true that ecological crisis (especially climate change) is not a science issue but justice and moral issue. Many would say that environmental issues are too complicated and have too many causes and there is no one solution for all. But from what I know, almost all environmental issues start from a human heart where there is indifference, injustice, selfishness and greed. And above all is putting self-love above love for others. Science is only a great tool of trying to understand all the issues and try to solve it using technology and science knowledge to adapt and mitigate environmental issues. Science is great and very helpful but it rarely addresses the problem from human heart, the problem of indifference towards another human that has no choice but to bear our environmental impacts. We need to admit that we have failed to be a good steward towards our home, but we can still make changes now, it is not too late.

        Let me show you some evidence to show that ecological crisis that we face now is not a science issue but justice and moral issue.

1. Inequality in wealth and quality of life across the nation

Figure 1: Global Wealth Pyramid  (Global wealth report 2019)

• In 2019, 0.9% of the population own the total wealth of 158.3 Trillion USD  which is 43.9% of global wealth and the lowest 56.6% of the population owns only 1.8% of global wealth which is 6.3 Trillion dollar USD.

• In more simple words, the top 1 per cent of people in the world own 44% of global wealth and the bottom 57% own only 1.8% of the wealth.

• In 2017, 9.2% of the global population (689 million)  live under extreme poverty which is living on less than $1.90 a day. At a higher poverty line, 24.1% of the global population (1.8 billion) lived on less than $3.20 a day and 43.6 % (3.3 billion) lived on under $5.50 a day.

• This poverty is also distributed extremely uneven across nations. (Figure 2)

Figure 2: Distribution of the poor across nations (The World Bank, 2019)

2. The problem with unlimited economic growth and GDP.

Most of the country now uses GDP(Gross Domestic Product) to measure how good the country is doing. But GDP is a bad measurement to measure how well a country is doing because it is a measurement of the economic activities in the country and divided it to the population of the country. GDP does not show the problem of inequality and poverty. When there are economic activities that do not make society better such as drug dealing, illegal exchange and human trafficking but they are still counted in the GDP. Some may say that to solve poverty is too continuously allow the economy to growth or "to make the cake bigger" but in reality, it does not work, when the cake is bigger, the extra cake will only go to the rich and the poor will become poorer because of inequality. As long as the problem of inequality is not addressed, continuous economic growth will only bring more harm than good.

3. Impacts of ecological crisis always hit the poor the most.

• There is a strong relationship between poverty and the ecological crisis. Unfair distribution of resources, lack of education, land degradation, poor soil health, water pollution, climate change, flooding and drought contributes to poverty. Poverty at the other hand because of the pressure of livelihood to feed the family, lack of environmental knowledge, lack of education will often make choices that will further degrade the environment, but they do it without choices. And the cycle will continue.

• It is a very sad reality that environmental impacts always hit the poor first and at the most.

4. Overconsumption, over-materialism, wasteful lifestyle are the main causes of ALL ecological crisis.

• Some may propose that as long as we try hard to reduce population size, environmental issues will be solved. In my opinion, that is totally not true. Yes, with more population, pressure on the resources of the Earth increases too but the pressure from our luxury lifestyle has definitely overweight the pressure of an increase in population.

• The lifestyle of wealthy countries such as owning private cars, high animal-based protein diet, wasting food, heating/cooling of houses and high urbanisation in the city will have a significantly higher pressure compared to people that live in a poor nation where they own less, eat less and consume less. If everyone in the world lives the way that Americans lives we will need 4 Earths to fulfil our wants(not needs). At the same time, we need to realise that we have only one Earth. I strongly believe that with selfless policy and law, the resources in the Earth is enough to fulfil all our needs not wants.

5. Ecological crisis is just the consequence of our sin:- self-love above loving others.

• You may have already felt the effects of ecological crisis, the climate became extreme, rain becomes stronger, wildfires became more and more common, unusual high temperature in where you live etc. Because climate change is not happening 20 years later but now. Most scientists agree that the worse is yet to come, we are only experiencing the introduction of climate change.

• The good news is we have 10 years to change, 10 years to work for our ecological conversion before the effects become irreversible. There is a lot more to be done and people need to know that science alone can't fix this, we need people's strength. The more we ignore the severity of the ecological crisis, the more we and our future generations are going to suffer.

Why should you care?

        If you believe in justice, that we should not just leave our brothers and sisters that are just victims of environmental issues at the back. Then you may want to stop your life of chasing "MORE" but speak out for them. We need a revolutionary reform on our economic system and the way we live our life before it is too late. Because the resources on the Earth is very finite, we cannot afford to live this way, even for another decade.

        If you are a believer of God, the creator of Heaven and Earth. You will know that we are only called to be a good steward to the Earth not dictators to our common home. Our livelihood and survival depend solely on the environment, if the forests and oceans die, we will go extinct as well. Everything is interconnected, the environment, our happiness, justice, God, our well-being, harmony between nature and human.  Doing this right may sound very difficult but it is possible.

Not until all people are treated justly, we cannot stop working.

With Prayer,

Jessica Dymphna

@Christ the King, Plymouth

Reference List / Further Reading

https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/relationship-between-poverty-and-environment#:~:text=Poverty%20often%20causes%20people%20to,overexploitation%20of%20natural%20resources%20and

Global Wealth Report 2019

https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-report-2019-en.pdf 

The World Bank 2019 

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/12/20/year-in-review-2019-in-charts  

Laudato Si' (2015) by Pope Francis http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html