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Sustainability in the Face of War The human suffering of war is well understood. Young men and women are sent to witness and participate in scenes of utter horror, many returning with missing limbs and troubled minds. Loved ones at home endure the agony of waiting, some finally to be faced with the knowledge that their children and spouses will not return at all. Innocent civilians suffer injury and death, at the same time losing access to food, water, safety, and the other essential elements of life. Meanwhile, the underprivileged at home, those from whose families the fighters come, see education and other social services cut back to finance the war. Modern warfare also imposes a great moral burden on the nations engaged in hostilities, particularly the aggressors. The requirements of the just war theory, like safeguarding civilians and assuring that the benefits are proportionate to the harm done, cannot be met under modern conditions, neither by an invading conventional army nor by guerrilla or terrorist resistance. Consciously or not, everyone suffers as shallow patriotism covers cynical untruth. Often overlooked is the damage done by warfare to the planet itself and its fragile life support system. In comparison, any benefits, real or imagined, that might be gained by a victorious army are by far outweighed by the long-term injury to the sustainability of life on earth. The culture of war fosters a feeling that there exists a “national emergency,” that ordinary prudence may be put aside for the sake of victory. In wartime all resources are mobilized in a united effort, whatever the cost. Sustainability, on the other hand, requires careful planning toward conservation of non-renewable and gradual shifting to renewable resources. The ultimate demands of sustainability are severe, but there is no alternative. The question of energy sustainability is the easiest, insofar as the technical solutions are already in hand, only awaiting implementation. Fossil fuels must be replaced by solar heating, solar electricity (photovoltaic), wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, fuels from biomass, and, easiest of all, greater fuel efficiency. Furthermore, breaking our oil addiction will presumably remove the incentive to engage in adventures in oil-rich areas like Iraq. No country, after all, has a monopoly on sunlight. Sustainability in material resources is more complex and more difficult. Natural materials, like cotton, wood, paper, and so forth, are easiest to handle. They can simply be allowed to decay in their normal natural way, in a process that can be controlled and accelerated by some form of composting. Alternatively, they can be burned to reclaim their energy content as in trash-to-steam plants. The problem is that these materials as we use them are usually mixed with non-biodegradable synthetics. Ultimately, we will have to ban natural and synthetic blends. Synthetic materials, such as oil-based plastics and fibers, along with metallic alloys, and a variety of other materials, are the most difficult. For these, the requirement is 100 percent recycling. While a few materials, like aluminum, are easily recycled, many are not. Furthermore, they are almost always mixed with other synthetics in a way that makes it almost impossible to separate them. While we may hope that research will develop practical ways to separate and recycle these materials, for the most part we can anticipate that synthetics will have to be banned. Furthermore, as many are based on oil, they will be phased out when the oil runs out. The exigencies of war tend to divert national attention from the urgent need to plan for sustainability, and this is perhaps the most dangerous consequence of war. For human beings, however, sustainability is not enough. For life to be worth living, human beings need more than physical necessities. The opportunity to develop intellectually, to be creative, to nurture the life of the spirit, to feel compassion, to love, to become fully what our unique natures promise, these we need to make survival worthwhile. Teilhard points out that the present stage of human evolution is taking us precisely in this direction, toward a state of higher consciousness. Thomas Berry, furthermore, holds that we will not be able to deal with our environmental crisis until we have begun to develop a new way of looking at the world. In other words, sustainability will come about only as a result of our more enlightened outlook. This new view will include a greater sense of the interconnectedness of all things, an understanding of the human as intimately embedded in the web of life and not apart from it, and an acknowledgment of the right to survival of all species and of the whole planet. In contrast, war-making fosters the illusion that our nation is separate from others, that we can gain advantages at the expense of others, and that human life is expendable. It teaches us that other forms of life can be ignored or exploited as convenient, that habitats can be destroyed at will, and that the future will take care of itself. A Buddhist perspective can perhaps teach us something here. Buddhists tend not to think in terms of right and wrong, but rather in terms of skillful and unskillful. Accepting the need for sustainability and working toward it would not be thought of as virtuous or dutiful, but rather as skillful. From this perspective, war is not considered immoral or unethical, but unskillful (in other words, stupid). In a culture where values are shifting and arguments between religions abound, it might serve us well to shout the slogan: “War is stupid. Caring for the planet makes sense.” An interfaith walk for peace held in Philadelphia recently (6/5/06) attracted some 500 participants to a four-mile walk with stops at a mosque, a synagogue, and a Catholic and an Episcopal church. At the mosque, all who were interested were invited to participate in the mid-day prayer, performing the traditional prostrations as the Imam chanted in Arabic. At the Catholic church, the crowd sang out “We Shall Overcome” to rock the rafters. At a synagogue, an Imam and a rabbi embraced one another to the applause of the crowd. At an outdoor circle dance at the Episcopal church, participants drew down heavenly energy and sent a blessing to a neighbor. Throughout it all, there was a deep feeling that, however different we might be, in a profound way we all were one. The walk was powerful. It was also an indication, a glimmer of hope, that in some small way the revolution in higher consciousness is actually taking place. In fact, if we care to look, we will see that there are many such indications. In fact, people are discovering that war is stupid. Peace is growing into a groundswell. Dom Roberti |