| Popis: |
Understanding climate justice through the lens of gender and power must be founded in at least six hundred years of history. The subject and the way we address it pry at the deepest psychological and spiritual, political and social foundations of how we've been led to think about progress and development. We've hoped that the industrialized model of development would be the panacea of human, social, and economic progress, but it is deeply flawed. The model of development we've inherited intentionally created powerful trajectories of economic, social, and political inequalities (1) between nations and peoples, races and genders, inequalities that are woven into its foundations. Simultaneously, it created a trajectory in which the whole of the ecosystem--ecosystems that have supported communities of human beings for thousands of years--are now threatened. Five thousand years ago, Isaiah proclaimed to the Israelites, whose lifestyles were threatening that community, that each day was a day of ultimate choice: "God has put before us both evil and good. Therefore, choose this day whom (what) you will serve." In this day and age, to do what is good for the world around us will mean making new foundations from which we can make genuinely healthy choices for ourselves and our relationships with our neighbours. Those choices will create the foundations for the survival of our children and grandchildren. And it is those choices that will heal a history that privileged some while it oppressed others. It is those choices that can construct the truly beloved (2) community. For those who have been privileged by the system as it is, these choices can seem like sacrificial work. But if we do the right kind of work, our spirits will thrive. We will finally live with the responsibility God gave us to care for the earth and its people. This responsibility can heal our hearts and relationships because it will address the deep structural economic, political, and social injustices faced by so many of the world's people and creatures. And, if we do this with the intention and the impact that is needed, we will allow the ecological balance to restore itself (3)--and this is the ecological balance needed for our children and grandchildren to thrive. This is the basis of real joy, a well-lived life, and love. Sandy foundations "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. (Matt. 7:24-26) I had an overpowering visceral response when I first saw the oil sands in Alberta, Canada--where I was participating in the Poverty, Wealth and Ecology hearings of the World Council of Churches (WCC). My stomach tensed, my head hurt, my heart pounded, my mind whirled, my womb cramped. We looked up at a four-story high dump truck, said to be capable of holding three hundred hippopotami (according to Suncor Energy's "talking point" that day). We stood in the garage of Suncor Energy, just one of many oil companies that had been granted a lease on land from the Canadian government in northern Alberta for the sake of oil extraction. Suncor owned many of these trucks. Each of them operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This engineering marvel of a truck excavated the "overburden." An "overburden" is the term for what the oil company calls the boreal wetlands, under which the oil sands lie. For oil to come from the tar sands, the rich ecosystem, the "overburden" that has been present for millions of years, needs to be scraped down; wiped clean of trees and undergrowth, ponds, marshes. … |
