Review: Walking God's Earth, Part III | National Catholic Reporter

Review: Walking God's Earth, Part III | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I would have been interested in the scriptural picture Cloutier weaves together, whether it is applicable to the carbon crisis or not.  As lovely is as the poetry is in the Bible about God, the Earth and the people of God, the more important parts of the Bible have to do with how we deal with the poor, the widow and the orphan.  The problem of our ecology is a problem of uneven impacts - with the poor getting the short end.



Big systems changes are required to deal with this issue - but they go beyond national change or the current global system to an expanding nation consisting of all those countries that share our belief in freedom and equality, excluding all others from the polity, and possibly from our commerce - although that may make their poverty even worse so maybe not.  A larger government can fix these issues, both financially and authoritatively, where the current regimes can only be overrun by global capitalism.



As for consumerism, it is the necessary outgrowth of global capitalism.  It keeps us in a gilded cage - without it would simply be a cage and we might do something - like demand shares in our workplaces to eventually kick the capitalists to the curb.  Such a system is also necessary to afford the kind of closed system habitats that will take care of our pollution crisis having to do with growing our food.  Will that reduce our obesity problem?  Only if the habitat contains no systems for producing sweetened carbonated soft drinks.  That is what has made us fat, not the availability of food.  If we eat less well, it won't create an economy that allows the poor of the world to eat better - we must raise them up, not bring ourselves down (just don't sell them Coke).



On fuel, necessity is the mother of invention.  Until whale oil ran out, no one was looking for something else until gasoline showed itself the miracle fuel of the twentieth century.  When it becomes scarce, the oil and coal companies will stop pushing the Department of Energy to slow down Helium3 Fusion research - although the necessity may be the carbon crisis.



These, of course, are not religious issues.  Indeed, on one world government, Dante was very specific in his tome on the subject to insist the Catholic Church have not role.  None.  Zilch.  Nada.  Dante was right.  While the Church and Cloutier certainly have a place in rallying the troops and focusing on the poor - as the Holy Father already does relentlessly, as did his predecessors, the solution must be governmental and probably a bit socialistic as well.  It is a good argument, however, for those who think the free market will solve our environmental issues on its own.