The writer invites us this month to observe World Environment Day and consider the urgent need for ethical responses to climate change and the sustainable use of our planet's resources.
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We will be observing World Environment Day on 5 June, and marking World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on 17 June. This period calls for renewed action to protect our natural world, remembering that the future prosperity and the peaceful co-existence of peoples will greatly depend on how wisely we conserve, protect, and responsibly use Earth’s precious natural resources.
Climate change – a change directly or indirectly related to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere – as well as deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages, and plastic pollution, are serious matters of concern. The impact of climate change, for example, can now be seen through increasingly severe weather patterns. Furthermore, climate change-induced sea-level rise is a direct threat to millions around world putting them in the path of expanding floodplains.
According to a statement of the Bahá'í International Community: “The rapid progress in science and technology that has united the world physically has also greatly accelerated destruction of the biological diversity and rich natural heritage with which the planet has been endowed. Material civilization, driven by the dogmas of consumerism and aggressive individualism and disoriented by the weakening of moral standards and spiritual values, has been carried to excess. Only a comprehensive vision of a global society, supported by universal values and principles, can inspire individuals to take responsibility for the long-term care and protection of the natural environment”.
There is a need for dynamic coherence between the material, the value-based, and the spiritual dimensions of sustainable consumption and production. Such coherence must be applied in the exploring and implementing of solutions: not only the policy and technical aspects, but the values that influence attitudes and transform behaviours.
The Bahá’í International Community states that, a “fundamental component of resolving the climate change challenge will be the cultivation of values, attitudes and skills that give rise to just and sustainable patterns of human interaction with the environment”.
Wise and responsible use of natural resources will depend on our unity. It will depend on our acceptance of the oneness of human family – which is a requirement for the achievement of global unity. Unity and cooperation among the nations is necessary, because as long as one group of nations perceives its interests in opposition to another, progress will be limited and short-lived.
The Bahá'í International Community states: “As consciousness of the oneness of humankind increases, so too does the recognition that the wealth and wonders of the earth are the common heritage of all people, who deserve just and equitable access to its resources”.
The relationships that link people to one another have a direct impact on the resources of our planet. For example, there is a close relation between inequality and environmental degradation. Current systems and practices that have resulted in large segments of society facing poverty have similarly impoverished the natural world.
In a statement to the Paris Conference entitled: “Shared Vision, Shared Volition: Choosing Our Global Future Together”, the Bahá'í International Community states: “A more balanced attitude toward the environment must therefore address human conditions as consciously as it does natural ones. It must be embodied in social norms and patterns of action characterized by justice and equity”.
* For feedback please contact: secretary.nsa@bahai.org.za or (011) 801 3100. Websites: www.bahai.org, www.bahai.org.za
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