Just a few days before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support last week for a state plan to combat global warming, Immaculate Heart Sister Nancy Sylvester outlined the catastrophic consequences of environmental business-as-usual at the Religious Education Congress.
Speaking during her "Justice for the Whole Earth Community" workshop April 1, Sister Sylvester said the earth's bio-diversity and natural resources are being threatened worldwide by a growing disregard for the planet's delicate ecosystems that sustain all life.
"Today, science and faith are teaching us that we live in a web of relationships [where] all things are connected and depend upon each other," declared Sister Sylvester, founder and president of the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue. This interdependence, she said, requires better stewardship of the earth's natural resources, including water, land and air.
Water scarcity
Since water doesn't leave the earth's atmosphere and it's continually recycled through rain and evaporation, rising water consumption and pollution are growing problems. "We are making the water we have unusable," said Sister Sylvester, who explained that per capita water consumption is doubling every 20 years.
By 2025, she noted, experts predict up to two-thirds of the expected 2.6 billion more people inhabiting the planet will be living with serious water shortages while one-third will endure water scarcity. "Demand for water will exceed availability by 56 percent. It is said that the next wars will be fought over water," said Sister Sylvester.
Besides increasing industrial, agricultural and personal water use, water is becoming unusable because of the massive pollution of world surface water systems worldwide. Among the pollution causes mentioned by Sister Sylvester were deforestation, wetlands destruction, pesticide/fertilizer waterway dumping and global warming.
"We begin to see the connection between what is happening to water and what is happening to our land and our air," she said.
Biodiversity threatened
Deforestation, particularly in the earth's rain forests, is jeopardizing ecosystems and animal habitats, said Sister Sylvester. More than one-half of the world's plant, animal and insect species live in tropical rain forests. Trees in the Amazon rain forest produce more than 20 percent of the world's oxygen.
"Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rain forest are burned every day. If nothing is to curb this trend, the Amazon rain forest might be gone within 50 years," said Sister Sylvester.
She cited the competitive global economy, driving the need for money in economically challenged tropical countries, as a contributing factor in deforestation since governments sell logging concessions to acquire foreign currency and help defray debt.
"The logging companies that seek to harvest the timber and the pulp try to make profit in the sale of hardwood and, basically, this services the needs of the industrialized world, which, by the way, has already exploited most of its natural resources," said Sister Sylvester.
"Fewer rain forests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe and an increased threat from global warming." And studies show that global warming, she added, is partly responsible for the recent increase in the intensity of storms devastating low-lying coastal areas.
Global stewardship
To offset the catastrophic environmental effects of a future where global energy is predicted to double by 2020, people need to deepen their awareness of their interconnectedness. "We need to reflect on the earth as our home --- not as a place to be exploited for profit," said Sister Sylvester.
A past advisor to the U.S. Bishops' International Policy Committee, she described Catholic social justice tradition as providing good stewardship principles starting with a respect for life in all its forms. Also, she said, Catholic teaching challenges people to understand that development has an ecological component, which needs to be evaluated in terms of the common good.
"If we truly contemplate our oneness, we'll have the courage to do the next thing, which is to change. We need to begin to change how we live, how much energy we consume, how we care for the environment and how we define progress, and that will demand sacrifices," she said.
For more information on Sister Sylvester's work promoting positive paradigm change, log on to www.engagingimpasse.org. Additional sustainable earth resource materials are available at www.earthcharter.org. Also, see page 18 for a review of "Nobelity," an environment-themed film being released on Earth Day. |