Faith Implies Environmentalism
I have been thinking about this cryptic passage from the Qur'an:
"He has created you from a single being, then made its mate of the same (kind), and He has made for you eight of the cattle in pairs. He creates you in the wombs of your mothers -- a creation after a creation -- in triple darkness; that is Allah your Lord, His is the kingdom; there is no god but He; whence are you then turned away?" (Q39:6, Shakir)
Some pundits have interpreted this to be a reference to DNA -- three times eight adds up approximately to the number of chromosomes in our genetic material. Be that as it may, this has profound implications for our origin in nature.
God seems to be calling up the natural basis of what Plato called dialectic, that is, thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Every creature (we now know) starts off female, and after mating in those who stay female come out a new "creation after a creation." But this new creature does not start off enlightened, the new meta-creature transcends the old creation in the dark, and not ordinary dark but in "triple darkness." We are the image of God, designed to reflect the image of divine creativity, yet this birth in triple darkness means that we are protected three ways, we come from inside the womb, from inside our bodies and inside the world of materiality.
One consequence of this sanctified sexual act of creation is that we know how intolerable any kind of impurity really is. Believers cannot ignore this in the present environmental crisis, especially in view of what science is telling us too. It has long been observed that filth in the environment always seems to strike first at the ability to reproduce, be amphibians or humans. According to news reports, epidemiologists are setting off alarm bells because of the rapidly increasing percentage of babies now being born without sexual organs. No matter what the organism, it seems that the most sensitive function is reproduction. The first to suffer from impurity are the sex organs, and that is now happening to humans, not just amphibians. Shutting down sexual reproduction is nature's way of shutting off the spigot, a sort of death before we die. Otherwise, one defect will replicate and amplify. It would be quadruple darkness, for as the Qur'an says, we are by nature a creation after a creation, a meta-reflection of God's creative power in nature, which Abdu'l-Baha called the divine laboratory. The implication? Environmentalism is really learning to reflect God's transcendent dialectic.
While we are on the environment, let me call your attention to George Monbiot's latest screed, "Pulling Yourself Off The Ground By Your Whiskers," which sets out to show "the simple mathematical reason why large scale carbon offsets can't work." He concludes thusly,
"Carbon offsetting makes sense if you are seeking a global cut of 5% between now and forever. It is the cheapest and quickest way of achieving an insignificant reduction. But as soon as you seek substantial cuts, it becomes an unfair, impossible nonsense, the equivalent of pulling yourself off the ground by your whiskers. Yes, let us help poorer nations to reduce deforestation and clean up pollution. But let us not pretend that it lets us off the hook." (George Monbiot, Pulling Yourself Off The Ground By Your Whiskers, July 14, 2009 http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/07/14/pulling-yourself-off-the-ground-by-your-whiskers/)
Whatever you may say about carbon offsets, they are full conformity with the capitalist doctrine that humans are motivated primarily by greed, and that by exploiting this we are getting all we can out of people. Behind this is the underlying and even more insidious materialist dogma that humans are incorrigible products of their material surroundings. In other words, the Qur'an's third level of darkness, materiality, is deemed to be creative.
If you accept this presupposition, then carbon offsets must succeed. And they do seem already to be converting very powerful, wealthy and greedy magnates to come over to the environmentalist side. What is worrisome is that they rushing to this position not in order to save the world but to take advantage of a potentially very lucrative cash grab, which some say will be similar to the massive bailouts of the worst firms on Wall Street. As long as we keep to the belief that greed is the only thing that will ever move people, then we can all relax, the business party has it well in hand. If you believe we are capable of more than that, then you get worried.
On the 16th of July I featured on the Badi' Blog a link (http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/three-of-best-environmentalists-alive.html) to a talk lately broadcast on Ontario's educator's public television network, TVO, featuring the most admirable, the least depressing and most innovative environmental thinkers I have seen for a long time. Which is why I called it, "Three of the Best Environmentalists Alive Speak Out, one after the next." TVO introduced it thus:
"A distinguished group of environmentalists and thinkers come together in this 2-part special, "Talking about the Planet". Part 2 features J.B. Mackinnon and Alisa Smith, co-authors of The 100-Mile Diet, and Adria Vasil, author of Ecoholic."
I was especially impressed by the mocking reaction that the first two speakers, the inventors of the "100 mile diet," got when they visited a group in New York State. When they talked about living off local rather than imported resources, which for this audience would mean the Hudson River, they laughed uproariously. "How can you even think about eating anything that comes out of that polluted mess?" However Alisa Smith aptly replied,
"If you had been on the 100 mile diet from the start you would never have allowed your main local resource to be mucked up by industry in the first place."
This points to the real source of our environmental woes, forgetting our roots in the womb, neglecting to pay attention to where we came from by buying into over-centralization, which boils down to tyranny. If we get the bulk of our food from anywhere other than the local environment we are in effect giving a blank cheque to whoever finds it convenient to destroy parts of our real food supply, nature.
The search for truth involves putting the local farmer (and other food suppliers, such as fishermen) first. This is, as Monbiot puts it, letting industry off the hook. But mostly, it is letting ourselves off the hook for our first responsibility, putting farmers, especially local farmers, first.
John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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