--- Ecological Sustainability

Not just faith-life, but the very “ecozoic” (ecological/zoological) basis of life on Earth is at risk of further radical collapses with the massive die-off of life, including human. The present political climate indicates a public awareness of wrong political direction and the need for change. Humankind in fact faces a global survival conundrum that demands much change in thinking and living.

The over-reach of human populations and appetites is threatening the existence of life on Earth as we know it and as we depend on it. Exploitation and pollution have to be reversed and serious work taken up to sustain and restore habitats and network ecologies. This urgent endeavor is nothing less than a global moral duty imposed by personal conscience acknowledging respect for and human dependency on nature and other life.

Our automobile dominant society did not become that way by open market forces. The General Motors Corporation led a conspiracy to make this happen. GM set up a shell company, the National City Lines that endeavored to convert cities’ transit systems from electricity driven street cars to petroleum driven vehicles and give the conspiring companies an exclusive market over their competition in the gasoline, tire and bus business.

At worst, religion eschews evolution; at best, religion is ambiguous toward evolution. In either case, neither position is tenable if in fact evolution is the dynamic of life and the universe.

Though not every aspect of evolution is known or can be known, the fact of evolution cannot be denied without doing violence to our personal self-reality. Vatican II formally accepts the reality of evolution and calls for ongoing “analysis and synthesis” so as to come to a more valid understanding of interpersonal relationships and their theological implications. [The Second Vatican Council, Const. IV, “Gaudium et spes”, Intro,, #5]

Judging by experiences of my late mother and my wife at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, I can say if you have to go to a hospital, Saint Luke’s is a good choice. For 17 years, it has received a rating as one of America’s Best Hospitals.

St. Luke’s and the Houston area hospitals did not get high acclaim by accident. There was a lot of work. Now, I am asking St. Luke’s to be a leader in the nutrition and environmental fields.

The world is in a water crisis resulting from pollution, climate change, population growth and wasteful use of fresh water. Close to two million people live in water-stressed regions. Scientists call these areas “hot stains” that now include northern China, large parts of Asia and Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the midwesterm United States and sections of South American and Mexico.

Politicians and the news media treat localities or regions as is they were droughts, a cyclical situation that would eventually remedy itself. The hydrological cycle is broken by dams, pollution, wasteful practices and concreting land. Every year, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China. The US national Center for Atmosphere Research reports that the percentage of the earth’s land area stricken by serious drought has more than doubled between the 1970s and 2005.

The “cultural spectrum” is the diversified range (spectrum) of interdependent life and the energetic, Earth-cosmic environment that self-authenitcates. The cultural spectrum is the universal biotic/ energetic continuum, the eco-environment upon which all Earth-life depends. While the cultural spectrum is the “constant” of life, it is always changing, always in process. Of great moment to all life and to humankind, at this time, is the adverse impact of cultural habits of thinking and doing that destroy culture, life and the human self.

The American fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, war, poverty, throwaway economy can not endure much longer. Lester Brown in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization describes the bleak environmental situation, presents success stories and a grand strategy that gives an outline of how we can get to there from here. Rich and poor nations must mobilize in a way reminiscent of the Allied effort to defeat the Axis Powers during the Second World War. Environmental casualties are not part of a distant future. The 2003 heat wave in Europe claimed 52,000 lives in 9 countries. The waters in the Gulf of Mexico in August, 2005 were the hottest since human beings have been recording them. These warm waters made Hurricane Katrina more lasting and violent.

The University of Saint Thomas (UST) in Houston, Texas is taking a hard look at its current curriculum. Since this planet is witnessing the Sixth Great Extinction, my recommendation is to concentrate on healing this world by environmental restoration and structuring our accounting, taxes, political, social and economic spheres to live well and get out of our fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway, war, poverty economy that requires 1.4 billion of the world’s citizens to live in poverty.