Inspiring Progress: Religions’ Contributions to Sustainable Development

204 Pages·2006·8.219 MB·English

by  Gary T. Gardner

IN
I I
Religions' Contributions to
Sustainable Development
,-.
1: Gary T. Gardner
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For Mom and Dad,
who planted the vision,
For Sally,
who waters it daily,
For Sam and Clara,
who will reap the fruit:
A just and sustainable world.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..... . ...... , ...... , ...... . .... ix
INTRODUCTION ......... . ......................... 1
PART ONE-PROGRESS UNRAVEL1NG
Chapter 1. The Power of Vision: Worldviews Shape Progress .... 13
Chapter 2. The Paradox of Progress in the 20th Century ...... .. 23
Chapter 3. Tools for Course Correction: Religions' Contributions .. 41
PART TWO-PROGRESS RE-ROOTED
Chapter 4. New Vision: Nature, Then Economies ............. 57
Chapter 5. Nature as Sacred Ground ............... ........ 67
Chapter 6. Warming to the Climate Challenge ................ 85
PART THREE-PROGRESS RE-I MAGIN ED
Chapter 7. New Vision: Choosing Well-Being ...... ... ....... 105
Chapter 8. Hungry for More: The Consumption Challenge ..... 115
Chapter 9. Mindful Investments .. ...... ... ......... .... .. 129
PART FOUR-INSPIRING PROGRESS
Chapter 10. New Vision: Toward an Ethics of Progress ... ..... 145
Chapter 11. Getting to a New Progress ..................... 155
APPENDIX . . ..... ... ...... . ...... . ............. 167
NOTES ........ . ...... . ............. . ...•. , ... 173
INDEX . ............ ... ..... . ........•........ 199
ABOUT THE AUTHOR .... . . . ........... , ........... 211
FIGURES
Figure 2-1. World Ecological Footprint and Ecological Capacity,
l 961-2002 ............................ .......... ... 34
Figure 2-2. World Economic Output, Total and per Person,
1-2000 A.D ....... ................................... 35
Figure 7-1. Average Income and Happiness in the
United States, 1957-2002 ...... ...................... 108
TABLES
Table 2-1. War-Related Deaths over the Centuries ............. 27
Table 2- 2. Indicators of Environmental Decline ............... 30
Table 2-3. Footprint and Ecological Capacity of Selected
Country Groupings, 2002 .............................. 33
Table 3-1. Major Religions: Number of Adherents and
Share of Global Population, 2005 ....................... 50
Table 5-1. Activities of Interfaith Power and Light ............. 79
Table 6-1. The Evangelical Road to Commitment on Climate .... 92
Table 8-1. Selected Religious Perspectives on Consumption ... 124
Table 8-2. Annual Expenditure on Luxury Items Compared
with Funding Needed to Meet Selected Basic Needs ....... 126
Table 10-1. Questions to Shape a New Ethics for the
21st Century ....................................... 146
SIDEBARS
Sidebar 1-1. Judeo-Christian Worldviews and the Environment ... 15
Sidebar 2-1. Drivers of Progress in the 20th Century ........... 25
Sidebar 3-1. Leveraging Nature for Religious Impact .......... 45
Sidebar 5-1. Selected Religious Perspectives on Nature ........ 70
Sidebar 5-2. Earth, Faith, and Justice at a School in Brazil ...... 73
Sidebar 6-1. A Spiritual Declaration on Climate Change ....... 90
Sidebar 7-1. Bogota: The Well-being Difference .............. 113
Sidebar 8-1. Three Worlds of Consumption ........ .... ..... 118
Sidebar 8-2. Selling Simplicity ........................... 120
Sidebar 9-1. Religious Charity and Giving Potential ........... 132
Acknowledgments
he religious and sustainability communities are filled with com
mitted and generous people who were wonderfully helpful
to me in this project.
I am particularly grateful to the Trustees of the V Kann
Rasmussen Foundation for their leadership in building bridges
between the two communities and for the generous funding that
made this project possible. The Rasmussen Trustees grasp a vital
truth: values shape policies and practices, and religions are a major
force in defining the dominant values of many societies.
I am especially indebted to Mary Evelyn Tucker and Martin Palmer
for their kindness and direction with my work on the nexus between
religion and sustainability over the years. Each is a visionary leader in
the effort to engage religions on sustainability issues, and the work of
each has shaped mine. Special thanks also to Jim Burke, whose care
ful and insightful questions helped sharpen the book's focus.
I am also grateful to those who generously gave their time to
sit for interviews, including Matthew Anderson-Stembridge,
Eduardo Athayde, Rev. Jim Ball, Joy Bergey, Rev. Sally Bingham,
Rev. Dave Bookless, Sr. Diane Cardiff, Cassandra Carmichael,
Tony Deamer, Rabbi Fred Dobbs, Paul Gorman, David Hallman,
Gerald Iversen, Andy Rudin, and Sr. Pat Wolf. Many of these indi~
viduals also read parts of the manuscript and gave excellent com
ments and corrections. Others who kindly reviewed chapters
include Erik Assadourian, Martin Bauschke, Tom Dewan,
X Inspiring Progress
Gardner, Richard Gray, Brian Halweil, Danielle Nierenberg, Tom
Prugh, and Mary Redfern.
The Worldwatch Institute is full of bright researchers whose
work I have drawn on throughout the book. Chapter 2 in partic
ular benefited from the vision of Ed Ayres and from research done
by Erik Assadourian, Lisa Mastny, Michael Renner, Payal Sampat,
Radhika Sarin, andJanet Sawin. Chapter 7 relied heavily on research
originally provided by Erik Assadourian. To all of my colleagues,
I am deeply grateful.
Lisa Mastny edited the work quickly and with great precision,
and her excellent management skills kept the production process on
schedule. I am grateful for her guidance, and for Lyle Rosbotham's
creative magic with the book's design. I also appreciate the hard
work of Worldwatch's Communications Manager, Darcey Rakestraw,
and Director of Marketing, Patricia Shyne, in getting the message out
to a wide audience.
I owe a special note of thanks to my parents, Tom and Tee Gard
ner, who planted in me both the seeds of faith and the desire to build
a better world, the combination of which is represented in this book.
I am grateful for their love and guidance.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Sally, and my children,
Sam and Clara, for releasing me from family duties for many months
as the book was finished. Their patience with my absence has been
extraordinary, and without their forbearance this book would not have
been completed. They have my heartfelt gratitude and love.
Gary Gardner
Grass Valley, Ca!ifo rnia
May2006
I n t r o d u C t 0 n
"Fundamental progress has to do with
the reinterpretation of basic ideas."
-Alfred North Whitehead1*
ony Deamer is an entrepreneur, inventor, and civic leader, a
dynamo of progress in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the
South Pacific. He runs a car dealership and an air charter serv-
ice in the capital city of Port Vila, with 18 employees between the
two businesses. He is developing a new kind of fuel to power the cars
of Vanuatu. And he serves on the board of a local Baha'i school and
as president of the national Red Cross. Deamer cuts a familiar pro
file: millions of go-getters like him worldwide provided the .financial
capital, technological innovation, and civic leadership that generated
unprecedented societal advances in the 20th century, advances that
made the century synonymous with the word "progress."
But look closer and it's clear Deamer's activities have an added,
21st-century twist. His innovative "Island Fuel" is made from coconut
oil, which bums more cleanly than petroleum-a reflection of his desire
to "leave something behind for my kids, some hope of a greener
future. "2 He believes in making an honest profit, but has no plans to
patent the fuel, even after years of trial-and-error experimentation,
in the hope that it can be made widely available and affordable. And
his businesses employ as many women as men-including female
*Endnotes are grouped by chapter and begin on page 173.
2 Inspiring Progress
mechanics-because of his commitment to gender equality. A mod
est man, Deamer does not make much of these practices. But framed
as a set of principles, his approach to progress is decidedly cutting
edge: prosperity for Vanuatu should be environmentally resilient,
broadly shared, and built on justice. Think of it as "progress-plus,"
a progress inspired by ethics.
The ethical dimension ofDeamer's vision comes from his Baha'i
faith, his spiritual home for 41 years. One of the youngest of the
world religions, with roots in mid-19th century Persia, the Baha'i
faith stresses the unity of the human family, gender and racial
equality, and the complementary importance of science and faith,
among other precepts.3 And like many religions, it emphasizes
service. "The desire to do something useful for the people around
me is what drives my work," Deamer explains, adding that for him,
service is another form of worship.4
Deamer is a single individual in an isolated comer of the world.
But his life story embodies both a challenge and a hope for human
advancement in the 21st century. The challenge is to redefine
"progress:" to revamp economies and societies to work in harmony
with the natural environment and serve all people. The hope is that
religious communities and religious leaders worldwide will recognize
as many increasingly do-the powerful contributions they can make
to this work and lend their considerable influence to it. Engaging the
worlds religions in an effort to re-imagine human societies can help
ensure that the gains of the 20th century spread to all people into
the indefinite future.
The Need for Inspired Progress
Despite the contributions of economic pioneers like Tony Deamer
over the last 100 years, the word "progress" has fallen on hard times.
Human activities are changing the Earth's climate, draining whole
rivers, scalping forests, and unleashing a mass extinction-the first
since the dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago.5 The 20th century
set records for organized violence, with more wartime deaths than
in all previous centuries combined. 6 And its cornucopian abun
dance is as shameful as it is dazzling, given the billions in the human
Introduction 3
family who are left behind. These shortcomings are not just cranky
footnotes to an otherwise stunning story of human achievement.
Instead, they are major failures that threaten to unravel many of the
great advances of the century.
A fundamental reassessment of the 20th century and a correspon
ding course correction are needed. Albert Einstein once noted that
problems are not solved within the same mindset that created them,
but require a fresh perspective. Indeed, the most important questions
to guide a new vision of progress are not the "How" questions that
fueled progress in the 20th century: how do we generate more rev
enue, more kilowatts, or more kilos per hectare, for example, although
these remain important challenges.* More important are the ele
mentary "What" questions: What is progress? What is the purpose
of wealth? What is our proper relationship to other species, to other
people, even to future generations? These questions were largely
overlooked in the 20th century, or their answers were assumed to
have been settled. But when widespread environmental and social
dysfunctions-from a warming planet to a global obesity epidemic
threaten to remake whole societies for the worse, basic assumptions
about progress demand a fresh look.
Progress as Bounded Creativity
A key argument of this book is that the impressive creativity of the
20th century lacked a strong set of ethical boundaries that could sus
tain progress over the long term and orient it toward prosperity for
all. Human creativity was like a river without banks, the flow of inno
vation impressive but unchanneled. One missing riverbank was eco
logical wisdom, which might have helped us design human activities
to work in step with nature. We built economies that were resource
intensive, with an unprecedented toll on air, water, climate, and
non-human species. The other absent bank was an ethic of human
well-being, which might have helped rich and poor alike build more
dignified and fulfilling lives. The poor suffer from persistent depri-
*Units of measure throughout this book are metric unless common usage
dictates otherwise.