Soil Not Oil, by Vandana ShivaReviewed by Libby Comeaux CoL

At a cathedral in Nantes my oldest brother

once asked, “What monument to the holy evokes a 200-year building commitment from our culture?” Peevishly I quipped, “The highway system around Houston!” In this book, Vandana Shiva contrasts India’s holiness tradition (Sacred Cow) with modernity’s icon (Sacred Car). In the process, she specifically documents the superior productivity of India’s traditional organic, local, biodiverse agriculture and argues against globalization-inspired new policies that feed cars rather than people. Paradoxically, as India invites the automobile despite its proven unsustainability, more “developed” nations seek a return to biodiverse, local organic farming to support public health, nutrition, and food security and reel from economic meltdown and high unemployment.

Shiva deplores the pressure from corporate globalization to mine the fertile agricultural regions of indigenous peoples and vulnerable communities. This form of mining includes water, fossil fuels, and land – land for manufacturing, for highways that disrupt local traditional communities and commerce, and for industrial-scale GMO crops for biofuels. She details the government-subsidized privatization of fertile farmland, transferring it from the poor who have a reciprocal relationship with it that nurtures life, to corporations whose interests lie elsewhere. In the wake of the so-called Green Revolution that promised heightened nutrition for India but

brought profits to corporations instead, she documents indigenous rebellions against monoculture monoliths, violence from police who side with industry against peasants, and farmer suicides.

She insists that criticism of China’s CO2 emissions take into account US consumer demand for cheap products from Wal-Mart. Outsourcing US high-pollution manufacturing and associated transport should not outsource US carbon debt. Indeed, because the transnational corporation drives and profits from this outsourcing, Shiva suggests climate chaos solutions target the corporate, not the national, level. She sees right through market-based strategies – such as carbon-offset trading – that distract and dissipate rather than focus. We need policy that maintains existing carbon sequestration (old-growth forests and intact prairies), while actually reducing humans’ burning of fossil fuels. For example, transferring to global corporations the newly established “carbon credits” from third-world industrial biofuel producers actually increases carbon emissions overall. Such policy builds an industry that clears forests, and for every gallon of ethanol it produces, it

consumes 1700 gallons of water and burns a gallon of gasoline! By selling off the right to pollute a given proportion of the atmosphere, such policies privatize the commons. All of nature owns the sky, not the corporations jockeying for their piece of a dumping ground.

Readers of LEN News will be familiar with many of Vandana Shiva’s insights, which have been reflected in the work of others through the years. But

encountering her thought up close and personal is very rewarding. Her underlying call to an Earth Democracy fosters climate justice, energy justice, and ecological justice on a small and fragile planet. It respects Gaia’s laws: renewability, conservation, entropy, diversity, and rights of access to ecological space for the necessary habits of life.

She disavows reductionist strategies that perceive energy only in industrial consumptive terms. Her view of energy is multidimensional and alive, the primordial power of creation the ancients knew as Shakti and Hildegard described as “the fiery life of the essence of God.” (p.136) Vandana contrasts economic notions of “development” with its biological meaning: “self-directed, self-regulated, and self-organized evolution from within,” otherwise described by Chilean scientists Maturana and Virela as “autopoetic systems”. The countless varieties of living beings who cooperate in local biodiverse organic farming – from mules and humans down to earthworms and the tiniest microbes – exchange and create energy in a vastly interconnected, coordinated

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aeration, movement, and enrichment of the soil that cannot be replicated by fossil-fuel-based combines, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. She advocates a living carbon economy – the carbon naturally productive and naturally sequestered in biodiverse agriculture — rather than the dead and deadening carbon economy that has brought Earth to a precipice.

In this interconnected universe, the solution to climate chaos is not limited to the atmosphere but stretches to agricultural practices, land use, and shopping. And the solution to the energy crisis, like the solution to the crisis of unemployment, is to unleash the life-force energy of humans and animals of all scales, with the local lands that we love and that love and nourish us in return.

Soil Not Oil by Vandana Shiva

Quotes

“The mechanical mind cannot solve the problems of the mechanical age.” (p.33)

“The solution to climate change and the solution to poverty are the same – protecting, enhancing, and rewarding livelihoods, work, production, and consumption patterns centered on people, not on fossil fuels. Food, economic justice, and energy equity demand more small farms, not fewer.” (p.41)

“To prevent climate chaos and avoid further increases in emissions we must stop the coercion of trade liberalization and rewrite the rules of trade to favor the local.” (p.47)

“In Earth Democracy, the solution to the climate crisis begins with the cultures and communities who have not contributed to it.” (p.46)

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Loretto Earth Network Meeting Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of LEN!

When: May 4 and 5 prior to Working With A Jubilee Heart.Plan to arrive in St. Louis in time for our 3:00 p.m. opening

on Wednesday, May 4.

Moments of Grace: Religious Life Enters Its Cosmological Phase

Gail Worcelo and Bernadette Bostwick, who worked closely with Thomas Berry in founding Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont, will be with us throughout the meeting as we consider the role of

religious communities today.

On Wednesday evening this conversation will be expanded to include women religious of the St. Louis Archdiocese who will be

invited to join us for a special presentation by Gail and Bernadette in the Heagney Theatre to consider the challenge by Thomas Berry to

religious communities of women.

Gail Worcelo, Thomas Berry, Bernadette Bostwick

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By Reverend Diane Walker

In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground; for out of it you were taken;

for dust you are and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19 Amplified Bible

As I reflect on this passage and consider our current accepted funeral and burial practices, I am dismayed with how far off track we are from what God intended. I am also distressed at how far removed we are from a sustainable relationship with our beloved Mother Earth and the ecological impact of a typical American burial.

Modern families spend many thousands of dollars for elaborate burials, wasting money that perhaps might be used to send grandchildren to college, to pay for healthcare for elderly family members or for charitable causes. Today’s urban cemeteries may have as many as 3,000 graves per acre in sterile, toxic environments where embalmed bodies are sequestered in bronze, steel or copper caskets and concrete vaults where they are kept from returning to the earth as God and nature intended.

Last year alone 22,500 cemeteries across the US buried our loved ones along with:

• 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid• 104,272 tons of steel (vaults & caskets)• 2,700 tons of copper and bronze• 30 million board feet of hardwoods•1.6 million tons of concrete

In purely ecological terms, how we bury our dead is unsustainable.

How did we get to this place? In earlier times, we grieved the death of our loved ones by caring for their bodies with personal, hands-on care, usually at home and naturally. It was during the Civil War that embalming and other unnatural practices were brought to this country. The intention at that time was to be able to preserve our dead soldiers’ bodies to transport them home from the battlefield so that families might grieve and plan for a funeral and burial. Embalming shacks were set up at the battlefield and sometimes over 100 bodies per day were embalmed. This practice, which certainly was well intended, quickly became a multi-million dollar industry and one we have accepted and supported as normal. I accepted it too. Then I had the personal experience of assisting my parents through their deaths and was appalled at what I discovered. I am now actively working to help create some new end-of-life options.

There are green alternatives and we do have choices. When I was creating a natural, hands-on approach with my mother as she was dying seven years ago, I became aware of the green cemetery concept. At that time there were only two such cemeteries in the US; none in the Midwest. England and Canada had a couple hundred. Now I am delighted to report that we have over 25 across the US and more being developed.

A green cemetery, also known as a woodland cemetery, an eco-cemetery, memorial nature preserve, or natural burial ground, is a place where the body is returned to nature. The resulting green space establishes a living memorial and forms a protected wildlife preserve.

Here are some of the benefits:

• Environmental impact is reduced,• Burial is in a natural environment where native flora and wildlife flourish,• Habitat is provided for endemic birds and animals, returning lands to native grasses, flowers and shrubs,• People find serenity when close to nature,• Interment is in a beautiful, natural setting honoring those we love,• Use of biodegradable burial products such as simple wooden caskets, handmade caskets including shrouds is encouraged.

I wish I could show the photos I have seen with lush green tree arbors, forests and flora, all being fed and nourished by the bodies of our deceased. It feels so right with everything. Google Green Cemeteries if you’d like to see them.

What can each of us do to start moving toward a more holistic approach to our end of life?

• Begin talking about this event that is the most natural part of our lives• Face and embrace our own mortality • Research and learn more about other cultures• Identify all of our options – ask questions and make requests• Plan and design our own graceful passage• Get our family and friends on board

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LENN Winter 2011 Page 9

• ”Go natural” with our vacated body –minimize preservatives!• Use a clean, green container• Pick our green plot and tend to its well-being until you get there•Don’t leave a mess at any level… mind, body, spirit or emotion.

Everything in this physical world eventually changes. Change is challenging for all of us and death is probably the most challenging change

and one we all have in common. Some practices that were good in the beginning have gotten out of control and no longer serve the greater good. They need to be changed and brought back into balance with nature. When I think of the work ahead of us in all the areas that we have allowed and participated in using our precious Earth and natural resources as income, I could become overwhelmed and full of despair. Then I am reminded of a favorite quote…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

And knowing that with God and love, all things are possible, I get back to the work of helping those changes occur with a bright hope for our future.

Rev. Diane Walker, Life Transition Coach & Ordained Minister, Designer & Planner of Life’s Sacred Events,Coaching, education, services and resources for holistic life transitions 502-459-8685 lifecycles @insightbb.com

Thomas Merton: Patron Saint of Environmentalism

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DUST TO DUST

By Karen Cassidy CoL

Each October Louisville, Kentucky, hosts the interdenominational Festival

of Faiths conference (www.festivaloffaiths.org/). It began this year with a one-day seminar entitled, Letters to a Green Liberal: Thomas Merton’s Call to Ecological Responsibility. Dr. Monica Weis, SSJ, a well-known Merton writer and lecturer, led the seminar.

In her talk, Turning Toward the Planet: Thomas Merton’s Ecological Conversion, she described the moment of Merton’s ecological conversion and likened it to a spurt of spiritual growth. It happened on the corner of 4th and Walnut Streets in downtown Louisville. All of a sudden “everyone was shining like the sun,” like Buddhas. Merton realized he could not hide in the monastery but must turn toward the world.

Another such event happened when a friend brought him a copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Carson was explaining: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings...Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change...There was a strange stillness...The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly.

It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices, there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.” The publication of this book caused this great scientist to be called a “hysterical woman,” not qualified to write about this subject. A huge counterattack against her research was organized by important chemical giants, i.e., Monsanto, Velsicol, and American Cyanamid. The attacks were supported by the US Department of Agriculture and strongly endorsed by the media. We environmentalists, however, credit her with beginning the American environmental movement. Yes! She even jumpstarted the EPA (established 1970) and the ban on DDT (1972).

Merton began his interest in the environment when, as a monk, he was placed in charge of the monastic woods. He took this assignment seriously, planted trees and cared for them. I suspect if he were alive today he would be horrified at the devastation of the Appalachian mountains so close to the land he loved. He wrote in his journal entry dated December 11, 1962, “I have been shocked at a notice of a new book by Rachel Carson on what is happening to birds as a result of the indiscriminate use of poisons…Some

will say: ‘You worry about birds. Why not worry about people?’ I worry about both birds and people. We are in the world and part of it, and we are destroying everything because we are destroying ourselves spiritually, morally, and in every way. It is all part of the same sickness, it all hangs together.” Merton became an environmental prophet—thinking new ideas while surrounded by nature. At this time his writings seemed to focus on a theme of the alienated self in the modern world, and it is easy to see how he connected this with environmental degradation. He was writing about the nuclear arms race, racial prejudice and war. In Merton’s words, “In short, the nuclear arms race, environmental degradation, racial prejudice, and war are deep symptoms of our spiritual capitulation to the idols of the modern world and a rejection of any ontological truths that cannot be bought, purchased, or owned by any one individuals will-to-power.”

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By Maureen McCormack SL

Maude Barlow began her stirring speech to the October, 2010 Environmental Grantmakers

Association in Pacific Grove, California, in this fashion: “Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is upon us now.”

That certainly got my attention.

But first, she details the extent of the crisis that Earth and all upon it face. You know it well, but Barlow’s take is worth reviewing. Just Google: “Maude Barlow, Our Commons Future is Already Here” for the entire presentation.

Next she takes on governments. “While mouthing platitudes about caring for the Earth, most of our governments are deepening the crisis with new plans for expanded resource exploitation, unregulated free-trade deals, . . . the privatization of absolutely everything and unlimited growth. This model of development is literally killing the planet.”

Environmentalists fare no better. “... Most environmental groups either have bought into the dominant model of development or feel incapable of changing it. They work to minimize damage to the planet, essentially fighting to curb the worst practices, but leaving intact the system of economic globalization at the heart of the problem.”

Barlow sees hope in a collaboration between environmental groups and justice groups. “For too long environmentalists have toiled in isolation from those communities working for social justice and for fundamental change to the system. Both sides have to dream into being — together — the world they know is possible and not settle for small

improvements to the one we have” in order to effect true change.

A very good example of promoting an agenda for true change is the story of how clean water became a human right. President Evo Morales of Bolivia brought the climate justice movement together in Cochabamba in April 2010, after the disappointing outcome of the 1999 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and is leading the campaign at the UN to promote the Rights of Mother Earth.

“It was this small, poor, largely indigenous landlocked country, and its former coca-farmer president, that introduced a resolution to the UN General Assembly in June 2010 to recognize the human right to water and sanitation, taking the whole UN community by surprise.”

You have heard the good news that the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt this resolution, but did you hear the amazing story of how it happened? I hadn’t until I read Barlow’s account.“The Bolivian UN Ambassador, Pablo Solon, decided he was fed up with the ‘commissions’ and ‘further studies’ and ‘expert consultations’ that have managed to put off the question of the right to water for at least a decade at the UN, and that it was time to put an ‘up or down’ question to every country: do you or do you not support the human right to drinking water and sanitation?

“A mad scramble ensued as a group of Anglo-Western countries, all promoting to some extent the notion of water as a private commodity, tried to derail the process and put off the vote. The US, Canada, the

UK, Australia and New Zealand even cooked up a ‘consensus’ resolution that was so bland everyone would likely have voted for it at an earlier date. But sitting beside the real thing, it looked like what it was — an attempt, yet again, to put off any meaningful commitment at the UN to the billions suffering from lack of clean water. When that didn’t work, they toiled behind the scenes to weaken the wording of the Bolivian resolution but to no avail. On July 28, 2010, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to adopt a resolution recognizing the human right to water and sanitation. One hundred twenty two countries voted for the resolution; 41 abstained; not one had the courage to vote against.”

Barlow affirms, “It is time for us to extend these powerful new movements, which fuse the analysis and hard work of the environmental community with the vision and commitment of the justice community, into a whole new form of governance that not only challenges the current model of unlimited growth and economic globalization but promotes an alternative that will allow us and the Earth to survive.”

HOW TO MOVE THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA FORWARD

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Maude Barlow

He believed that all kinds of evil in the world are almost entirely of our doing. What was it that resonated with Merton in reading Silent Spring? What motivated him to write a letter to Carson? Was this what he saw as contemplation in action? I believe he sensed a kindred spirit in her. He appreciated her acknowledgement of the interdependence of all creation. He resonated with her writing about the disregard for the small. To him, violence to the environment was like human injustice to the Negro. In his letter to her, he talked of our pretentious irresponsibility and the remedies we use as an illustration of our hatred of life. He equated DDT with nuclear war. He said once we label something as “other” we believe we have a right to destroy it. Violence to the environment is like human injustice. If I could choose a patron saint for environmentalism, it would be Merton. If I were pope, I would name Thomas Merton, Patron Saint of Contemplative Ecology. Merton recognized our role in the continual destruction of air and water. He encouraged us to excavate our deeper resources (the necessities of life!) through contemplation and to be prophetic voices and pioneers in the world. This is not something foreign to the Loretto Community!

The fruits of contemplation can lead eventually to action. The action that is needed today is the action to overcome the laziness and indifference that accommodates our world, which tolerates violence to Earth and allows us to waste precious resources. These are the injustices we need to confront. Dr. Weis stated that Merton saw the world as the transparent manifestation of the love of God. Wonder and humility are emotions that do not exist with destruction. We humans are a part of nature, and transcend nature. We have lost sight; all creation is part of the ecologic God. We are clay and stardust. As a nurse, I believe that things work best when everything is in balance, including contemplation and action. Merton is a good role model for that. Merton read Rachel Carson’s book; he didn’t keep it to himself; he brought it to the monastery table.

For like a grain of fireSmoldering in the heart of every living essence

God plants His undivided power-Buries His thought too vast for worlds

In seeds and roots and bladeand flowers.

-Merton

Thomas Merton Continued from page 9Continued from Page 10

How To Move ... Forward

She recommends the recovery of an old concept called the Commons. “The Commons is based on the notion that just by being members of the human family, we all have rights to certain common heritages, be they the atmosphere and oceans, freshwater and genetic diversity, or culture, language and wisdom.” I’ll leave it to you to read her elaboration on this notion as well as more good news stories.

In conclusion, Barlow believes that the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth that was drafted at the April 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia and endorsed by the 35,000 participants there is the most far-reaching proposal for the protection of nature itself. She is writing a book about this Declaration, which she envisions as a companion document to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is upon us now as we begin to understand the urgent need to protect Earth and its ecosystems from which all life comes. The Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth must become a history-altering covenant toward a just and sustainable future for all.”

Maude Barlow, a former UN Senior Water Advisor, is National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and founder of the Blue Planet Project and author of The Blue Covenant about the global water crisis and the battle for the right to water.

Conference in Cochabamba in April 2010. They seek just solutions to the climate crisis and address its root causes. In the year since Copenhagen, they were integrated into the negotiating text of the parties, and yet the Cancún text systematically excludes these voices. Bolivia cannot be convinced to abandon its principles or those of the peoples we represent. We will continue to struggle alongside affected communities worldwide until climate justice is achieved.

When the final text was presented to the conference, Bolivia’s request for further discussion was ignored and the gavel came down to signal an outcome document approved by consensus. And now, we look to Durban…

Step In The Right Direction ... Continued from Page 12

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By Sally Dunne CoL

The Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico last month ended with consensus after

days of contentious negotiations. The Cancún Accord contains some modest gains over the disastrous failure to reach agreement at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. However, the critical issue of legally binding commitments to limit carbon emissions was again pushed off into the future — a future becoming less assured with each passing year. The risk is that even if a climate treaty can be passed in December 2011 at the next meeting in Durban, South Africa, the time lost could mean we have waited too long.

Scientists tell us that global carbon emissions must peak in the next 10 to 12 years if we hope to prevent a temperature rise of more than 2°C — the maximum increase allowable if we are to avoid a calamitous rise in sea level and an acceleration of massive climate disasters. This will require rapid conversions to carbon-free economies all over the world, but the countries represented in Cancún refused to discuss the most pressing issues. These are: What is a fair and just allocation of the needed emissions reductions? How big a reduction, by when, is each country obligated to achieve? The only thing included in the Cancún Accord is a “pledge” to limit the temperature rise to no more than 2°C, with no real commitments.

Analysis of the Cancún outcomes reflects a “step in the right direction” assessment. However, even the

“pledge” signals that the major carbon emitters, US and China leading the pack, acknowledge the scientific basis and desperate need for drastic reductions in carbon emissions. There was agreement to establish a Green Climate Fund which will disburse $100 billion per year starting in 2020, under direction of a board on which rich nations and developing countries will have equal say. But, the tough questions of where the money is to come from were not addressed. That is not encouraging, especially since last year in Copenhagen the rich nations pledged to spend $30 billion in three years for adaptation assistance to developing countries already dealing with the effects of climate change — and one year later, none of that money has been disbursed.

Some analysts look to the progress made in Cancún toward a carbon-market-based mechanism called REDD — Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation — as a “step in the right direction.” This scheme would allow a rich, carbon-emitting country or transnational corporation the right to continue its emissions if it pays a poorer country to preserve and protect its forests with their offsetting carbon absorption capacity.

It has been said that the most noteworthy achievement of the Cancún Agreement may be that it solidifies the role of the United Nations at the center of international policy and cooperation moving forward. This is, indeed, a positive development after the debacle in Copenhagen when a few rich nations hijacked the outcome at the 11th hour and declared it an accord.

Bolivia stood alone in thinking the Cancún Agreement to be a giant step backward. The chief negotiator for Bolivia in Cancún was Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations. In an article written by Ambassador Solon and published

in The Guardian in the UK, the Ambassador says, “We were accused of being obstructionist, obstinate and unrealistic. Yet in truth we did not feel alone, nor are we offended by the attacks. Instead, we feel an enormous obligation to set aside diplomacy and tell the truth.”

His article goes on to say, “Many commentators have called the Cancún accord a “step in the right direction.” We disagree: it is a giant step backward. The text replaces binding mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions with voluntary pledges that are wholly insufficient…. The text is full of loopholes for polluters, opportunities for expanding carbon markets and similar mechanisms — like the forestry scheme REDD — that reduce the obligation of developed countries to act.” Both Ambassador Solon and Bolivian President Evo Morales have spoken eloquently of the immorality of commodifying nature and of the unsustainability of the continued growth model for development. President Morales has said, “We can either save capitalism or save the planet, but we cannot do both.”

In a press release after the conference, Bolivia stated: Bolivia came to Cancún with concrete proposals that we believed would bring hope for the future. These proposals had the approval of 35,000 people in the historic World People’s

Step In The Right Direction Or A Giant Step Backward?

Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the UN

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