“And the planet suffers. Capitalism just isn’t sustainable in its present form.”
“I see. It is revolution.”
“We have to do something to stop the destruction. If we don’t really soon, it may be too late.”
“Of course, you realise that if people stop buying, the economy will collapse. There’ll be masses out of work and businesses will fold.”
“That is quite likely.” Annie tried to keep her voice neutral as scenes from her nightmares jostled for attention. She grieved for all who suffered. “But if nothing is done there will be widespread collapse of social systems. In a climate where crops routinely fail due to adverse weather conditions, we’ll start to experience famine all across the world. Only, when it happens all over there’ll be no-one to send aid the way the countries of the world do nowadays when there’s trouble in Africa.”
“That’s only a guess. What you’re talking about is lunacy – massive disruption of our society. It’s destructive, and not only that,” Adam rose as he spoke, gathering the remains of his lunch and preparing to leave, “you’ll never get people to agree to it. Why should we change the way we live? People have a right to have what they want, live the way they want to.”
“There are always limits,” Annie replied quietly.
“Good-bye,” Adam said abruptly, turning and walking away.
“Good-bye,” said Annie, although she was sure he did not hear her sad farewell as he strode determinedly away. She felt a wave of despair. He was right. People did not want to change. So many in the Western world had lived lives of such privilege – they would not want to accept anything less.
“The more you have, the more you want,” Annie muttered under her breath. People had been groomed by the media to believe that it was their right to have anything they could afford; was it so surprising when they developed a sense of entitlement? Even to the point of being prepared to enter into debt to get what they were told they wanted.
When the environment bites back and collects our debt to the planet there’ll be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, thought Annie. Except that a broken climate system won’t be able to negotiate a payment plan.
Part of the problem was that the pay-back was so far in the future. It was easier to believe in marketing lies that insist consumer spending is good for us all. Tomorrow would be a long time coming for the people who walked past her in this busy city.
She picked up her salad and returned to eating. As she slowly munched on the juicy lettuce, enjoying the crunch of the snow peas and the tang of the gherkins (her favourite pickle), Annie observed a mother who was sitting at a nearby cafe with two small children.
“When we visit Bali,” she was saying to the twins, golden haired-cherubs, “you’ll be able to play on the beach while someone brings drinks for Mummy and Daddy.”
“I’ll fly in a aeroplane. Vrroom!”
“And we’ll have the best birthday party!” insisted his brother.
“I’ll be four years old.”
“So will I!” The small boy had knotted his hands into fists as he faced his brother. “Only I’m older than you!”
The boys now mirrored each other, facing off. Abruptly both boys stuck out their tongues, blew raspberries and fell together in a tangle of laughter.
“Excuse me,” said Annie. “I couldn’t help but overhear. You’re planning a holiday to Bali.”
“Yes,” replied the mother, surprised at being spoken to by a stranger.
“I’m talking to people about what they can do to fight global warming,” explained Annie. “If we don’t reduce our carbon emissions soon, your boys’ future will be very bleak.”
“What does that have to with Bali?”
“Did you know that every year there are over thirty-five million commercial airline flights around the world? The quantity of greenhouse gases created is enormous. When flights have been cancelled due to terrorism or dangerous volcanic clouds, the improvement in air quality has been dramatic.”
“Are you saying that we shouldn’t go?”
“Yes. You could holiday closer to home and have less impact on the environment, not to mention boosting the local tourism industries. The Great Ocean Road is lovely at any time of the year.”
“I don’t think our little holiday is really going to make that much of a difference!” The woman was becoming indignant.
“One person flying on a plane may not make much of a difference, but when hundreds of thousands fly every day it has a huge impact. If people stopped all the unnecessary travel it would help reduce greenhouse emissions significantly.”
“But I want the children to see Bali.”
“I want them to have a future,” responded Annie.
“Oh, this is silly. Would you please leave us alone? We have to catch a train.”
“Sorry to trouble you. Please take this leaflet. It has some web-sites you might like to look at when it suits you.”
“I don’t have time for that,” said the woman, busily packing her sons into their pram.
“What will you tell your children in ten year’s time when they ask what you did to try to save the world?”
The mother stopped and looked at Annie, then took the leaflet without a word. Shouldering her backpack, she began pushing her pram towards the station.
As she travelled home that afternoon in the rocking, lurching, noisy train, Annie reflected on the indignation that people seemed to feel when asked to change the way they lived. Was it really such a hardship to do without an overseas holiday? So many of the luxuries that our society takes for granted are bought at the expense of the future. Persuaded that it is normal to aspire to a jet-setting life-style, people seemed to see it as a right rather than a privilege.
Was the damage to the future worth their fleeting pleasure?
Chapter Seven: The Minister
Annie’s days had begun to develop a sense of routine. She would start the day at Federation Square, then take a break by walking to the gardens for lunch. If she felt like a longer walk she could head to the Flagstaff or Carlton Gardens, but her favourite was Treasury Place and the Fitzroy Gardens beyond, extending this welcome patch of green.
Treasury Gardens were a busy place, but people seemed more relaxed and likely to talk in this shady morsel of contrived nature. Sometimes Annie would delay her lunch and talk to people. Other days she would stand at the edge of crowds who were protesting and listen to their complaints. Always she would find someone to talk to.
She had found that the advice given to her by the Goth was sound. When she started with her burning question, her “victims” were more likely to hear her out.
“What are you doing to save the world?”
“What can I do?”
“Well, you know about global warming?”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Changes to the climate will affect every-one. This is something that is everybody’s problem.”
“It’s not mine. I don’t believe in global warming.”
“But . . .”
As the young woman walked away, Annie tried to be philosophical. She had begun keeping a record. She had divided a page at the back of her notebook into three columns: success, failure and maybe. Then, in a moment of despair, she had divided the failure column into two and added another category – disbelievers.
It stunned her how many people presented this as their statement about climate change. Surely they had noticed the evidence that appeared from time to time in the newspapers, on TV, on the radio? Perhaps people just ignored the unpleasant facts, refusing to listen until there was a worthwhile item; one about a cute animal or a drunk celebrity.
Annie decided to take a break and eat her lunch, heading towards a park bench. The latest disbeliever, after being startled by a twig that fell from the trees and onto her shoulder, had left the path through the park and entered the busy road beyond.
“I suppose you don’t
believe in gravity either?” Annie muttered to herself, chuckling grimly as she sat down to eat.
“What are you doing to save the world?” she found herself asking the man in the cassock.
He laughed, responding, “I try to save people’s souls. I spend a lot of time focussed on the life beyond this world.”
Annie smiled at his humour. “You’re a minister of religion. What church do you belong to?”
“I’m a Catholic priest.” He paused and looked into Annie’s eyes. “Does this affect your desire to speak to me?”
“No . . . I’d be interested to know, however, what your church has to say about the problems we are having protecting the environment.”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “most Christian faiths have an idea of stewardship which probably answers your question. Stewardship follows from the belief that human beings are created by the same God who created the entire universe and everything in it. To look after the Earth, and thus God's dominion, is the responsibility of the Christian steward.”
He warmed to his subject. “Many also practice the spiritual discipline of financial stewardship, giving to churches or other ministries. There are some who commit time in service to the needy or in other areas, often utilizing and donating specialized skills and abilities.”
“That sounds very sensible and honourable, but surely such stewards have failed in their duty.” Annie did not know how to say this without sounding harsh. “The environment is being exploited and destroyed – global warming appears to be accelerating alarmingly.”
“Yes, that is true,” he responded sadly, “but, much as I wish it were otherwise, the church has a limited ability to influence the affairs of mankind in the modern world.”
“Not to mention the problems it has had recently with its image,” replied Annie. “The paedophilia scandal has seriously tainted the church, but I have to assume that the priests who do the wrong thing are a minority.”
“Yes – but mud sticks. It saddens me when mothers see me walk past and hold their children closer, as if they need to be protected from me. I cannot minister to my congregation if they are afraid of me.”
“It must be a difficult thing to deal with.”
“It is. It offends my faith. I became a priest because of an overwhelming calling – I felt it was my purpose in life to do God’s work.”
“I understand the idea of a calling,” said Annie thoughtfully. “I am here talking to people because of a deep knowing in my soul that I must do something to try to save the earth. If people don’t change their way of living soon, we may be unable to stop climate change.”
“Yes. Global warming. It appears to be so much more serious than we had all thought. And it is so contrary to the true beliefs of the church. I have spent some time studying the writing of Pope John Paul II. He says: ‘Since each created thing blesses and praises God in its natural state, simply by existing, we ought not to take away that praise from God unless we have good reason. For natural things are not simply at our disposal, but exist ‘to complete each other, in the service of each other.’ If we use them for frivolous reasons, or for things which ultimately are harmful to human society, then we are not using them in our service, but to our hurt.’”
Annie listened as he continued. She had not realised that these teachings existed within a church. Why had she not heard this before?
“ ‘The mere piling up of consumer goods, the spending of huge sums on unworthy objects, our insatiable appetite for amusements — are any of these sufficiently important to justify our taking away things of the natural order from their work of praising God?’ John Paul further says in Centesimus Annus: ‘It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards “having” rather than “being,” and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.’ I suspect you’ll agree that the base cause of many of our current problems is the materialistic, consumer-oriented life-style that people are encouraged to live these days.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Annie, surprised. “I didn’t realise that the church held these attitudes to the world around us. I just remember that bit in the bible that says God gave mankind dominion over the earth.”
“Yes, but that is not the whole of what the Church teaches. The fact that man is the ‘summit of the Creator's work’ does not mean that everything he desires to do with the natural world is good. The desires that flow from the heart of a fallen man are not all for the good or for the glory of God. We cannot cloak man's frequent misuse of the natural creation by saying that we have been commanded by God to subdue the earth, for God has not given us authority to do absolutely anything we may want with the created cosmos.”
“Are you saying that the church is actually opposed to the consumer culture?”
“What our fore-fathers considered luxuries are now items of daily use, or have even been surpassed. In fact, our economic system requires such a continual and irrational consuming in order to stave off economic disaster that unless corporate profits are increasing, businessmen are likely to be dissatisfied. But I fear that most of us forget St. Paul's dictum in I Timothy 6: ‘There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.’ Since we have much more than “food and clothing,” perhaps we should be content with that.”
“But people aren’t. Are they?”
“Ah, well, my child. I have struggled for many years to help people understand the will of God. In my work at outreach programs I see many who stray far from the teachings of my church. Even within my own congregation it is often difficult to persuade good Christians that God does not approve of greed. There is nothing that exists which does not owe its existence to God the Creator.”
The priest’s voice took on the confidence of a sermon. “Instead of looking on the natural world as something alien or other, something neutral or passive, something waiting for us to use or shape, we should see that world as alive with praise of God. This doesn’t mean we cannot use these natural creatures and objects, but it does mean that even as we use, we ought to use with reverence; we ought to realize that they are ordered, not just to our use and benefit but directly to God also. The mere piling up of goods is going to be a misuse rather than a legitimate and respectful use of what the Good Lord has provided for us.”
“Okay. I’m reassured to know that true Christians should protect the earth. What I can’t get past, though, is the reason I do not belong to a religion or believe in any god.” Annie paused. The priest had been open and friendly; she found his explanation of church doctrine rather reassuring. It felt rude to turn her conversation into accusation. But the question had dogged her for twenty years; since she had learned at the age of ten that the Christian God was meant to be omnipotent.
“Have you seen what’s happening? If there is a God, why doesn’t he, or she, do something to stop this? If God is all-powerful, why does this Being allow such suffering to continue in the world?”
“God has given mankind free will,” the priest gently replied. “It is people’s own choices that cause them to suffer.”
“Choices like drought and earthquakes?”
“Good can come from suffering.”
“It’s not enough. I mean, I love all the Sermon on the Mount stuff: ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is a great philosophy; but it isn’t being followed.”
“Because people have free will.”
“Because Adam ate an apple, mankind has it within their power to destroy this sacred creation? God is prepared to let us pollute ourselves to death and befoul the rest of this corner of Paradise at the same time?”
“I am sorry, my child.” His face was framed by compassion. “We
cannot know God’s plan. Perhaps He waits to give us the opportunity to live up to his trust in us. In the meantime we must have faith.”
“But I don’t.”
“We have a prayer group three nights a week. Would you like to join us? Perhaps you will find the answers you seek.”
“Thank-you. That’s kind of you, but I’m not likely to make it.”
“God bless you, child. Try to have faith.”
The priest took Annie’s hands in his and shook them in a fond farewell. She watched him leave, unsure about the comfort she felt at his blessing. Yet Annie had no doubt that this was a good man.
Annie was resting on a shady park bench when she was startled by a familiar voice.
“Hello. Are you annoying people in the parks now?” The words were accompanied by a smile.
“Hello Adam. How are you?” Annie could not hide her surprise as he took a seat on the bench with her.
“I’m good thanks.” He paused, a brief moment of uncertainty. “Do you have a moment? I’d like to talk.”
“All the time in the world,” said Annie with a laugh.
“You realise that I’m in business, don’t you?”
“Well, the suit was a bit of a clue. It’s an Armani, isn’t it?”
He nodded and looked down at the stylish outfit, a little embarrassed.
“What can I do you for?” asked Annie light-heartedly; she had not meant to reproach.
“I can’t stop thinking about what you said to me . . . over a week ago, now. I just can’t get it out of my head.” Annie noticed the worry lines around his eyes. Had they been there before? “I’ve been doing some research, asking around. Some of what I found was rather frightening. Scientists do seem to agree that human actions are responsible for a lot of the warming that is taking place.”
“I think you’d find that we’re responsible for most of the warming, but being good scientists they can’t rule out the possibility that this warming is, at least partially, a natural phenomenon. Very cautious people, scientists.”
“Yet there seems to be widespread agreement that we need to act.” Adam had been looking past Annie, watching a busker who was juggling for the lunch-time crowd. “What’s the answer then? What do we do?”