Keeping the Faith: Environmental Movement Reconnects with Ethical Roots

For Immediate Release December 17, 2002                               
Contact:    Jane Elder
               Biodiversity Project
               (608) 250-9876 
               jelder@biodiverse.org

(Madison)  A resurgence of ethical concerns is bringing new energy to the environmental movement.  Moral outrage helped to ban DDT and clean up burning rivers in the movement’s early years. But decades of courtroom battles and legislative miasma have painted environmental issues into a scientific and legal corner. Now, environmentalists are rekindling the convictions that still run deep within the public.  

The editor of Ethics for a Small Planet, a recently published communications handbook that teaches people new ways to talk about environmental action, says environmentalists have an opportunity to link people’s environmental concerns with their deepest values and religious convictions. The book is part of a growing movement that encourages people to think about the environment in moral terms, e.g. “What Would Jesus Drive” campaign.

“We are losing species and habitat at an astonishing rate. To survive we are going to have to dig deeply into our values – our collective sense of right and wrong about ourselves, the generations that will follow us and the life with which we share the planet,” said Jane Elder, Executive Director, Biodiversity Project, which produced Ethics for a Small Planet: A Communications Handbook.

The problem, according to Elder, is that environmentalists tend to overly rely on data and facts to convince people, even though society’s most meaningful change (ending slavery or child labor, for example) has come about when people feel a moral imperative that tells them ‘it’s the right thing to do.’  “For me, caring about the environment is as much about love and respect for generations that follow me as it is about law enforcement and good candidates, I can't separate them.”

The Biodiversity Project is part of a growing movement in both the environmental and faith communities that hopes to bring about lasting reform in how people view the natural environment. Ethics for a Small Planet contributes to that effort by explaining how religious and moral values of the world’s many cultures play a fundamental role in responding to environmental concerns.

This movement includes many local, faith-based environmental initiatives, as well as events at the national and international level, including:

▪	What would Jesus drive? A campaign that questions the moral value of compromising air quality and depleting the world’s oil reserves in order to drive SUVs.
▪	National Religious Partnership for the Environment, formed in 1993, to “weave the mission of care for God’s creation across all areas of organized religion.”
▪	Climate Forum 2002. A landmark gathering of environmental scientists, theologians and policymakers issued a declaration stating that global warming is real. “By reducing the Earth’s biological diversity, human-induced climate change diminishes God’s creation,” their statement said.
▪	Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences. Has set up an extensive training program in environmental teachings based on the Qur’an.
▪	Visions and Values.  A working group of senior staff from the nation's leading environmental organizations.  The group is looking at ways to integrate values more fully into the work of the environmental movement.
▪	Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, Bartholomew I and Pope John Paul, issued a joint statement in June 2002, saying “God has not abandoned the world. It is His will that His design and our hope for it will be realized through our co-operation in restoring its original harmony.”

The Biodiversity Project advocates for biodiversity by communicating with the public about the ways lifestyle choices and community involvement can re-connect people to nature and build a better future.

Copies of Ethics for a Small Planet can be downloaded and obtained by calling Biodiversity Project at (608) 250-9876 or e-mail project@biodiverse.org.  Portions of the book can be downloaded from the Web at:

www.biodiversityproject.org/ethicsforasmallplanet.htm