<< Back 12/4/02 Raising the stakes on the environment By Scott McLeod Perhaps there is a better time of year to ponder the benefits of foregoing that fourth slab of ham and half dozen deviled eggs, of skipping that extra trip to the grocery store just to buy a few more sticks of butter. The holiday season, after all, is all about contradictions, and one that we’ve become comfortable with is the idea that doing good to others and making sacrifices is completely compatible with overindulging and eating way too much. Having one with the other is a tradition When it comes right down to it, though, this decision about food is a moral and ethical choice. What that means is that there’s no running away from the dilemma we will confront as we attend parties and visit friends in greenery-filled parlors with tables buckling under the weight of food. Eat more than you need for the sustenance of your body and you are violating our sacrament with the earth and its ability to produce bounty and provide the nourishment all people need. I’m not about to quote any scripture, but the biblical among you can, I’m sure, recall some verse about our covenant with mother earth. This whole concept of taking care of the earth as a moral and spiritual issue hit center stage a couple of weeks ago. A broad coalition of Christian groups — groups normally associated with the political right — sent a letter to automakers asking them “to recognize that transportation choices are moral choices” because of “extraordinary impact they have on God’s creation.” The group, known as the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, says it will make fuel efficiency and the American love affair with SUVs a topic of national debate. The partnership has Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish organizations. It was formed in 1991. “... today many leaders agree ... that environmental problems are fundamentally moral and spiritual problems,” said Dr. Ron Sider, one of the group’s founders. Moving our choices about food purchases (and consumption), travel and shopping from the pocketbook to the moral arena seems inevitable, but it sure makes life complicated. Most of us struggle each day to just remember all the little errands and tasks that are ours to do, so having to carefully consider the implications of our purchasing seems like almost too much to bear. The truth, though, is that this is the world we live in. I was watching the PBS special on Jimmy Carter last month when the show’s producers pointed to what some saw as the first major mistake of his presidency — going live on national television with a sweater and roaring fire and encouraging people to lower their thermostats and make other sacrifices to reduce our dependency on Arab oil. That was in 1976 or 77. Only through sacrifice could America endure, was the message. That message, of course, bombed. Americans still haven’t embraced the concept. If we have, then it has been in our own way — we will work harder and more hours so we will have a little extra cash and not have to sacrifice anything. But this seemingly positive trait of working harder so we can afford the big cars and other gadgets still leaves us dependent on foreign oil and unwilling to do without the trappings of material wealth. So perhaps this new discussion, coming from organized religious groups at a time of intense debate about our role in the Mideast, will succeed in at least raising the debate to where it is considered something of national significance. Here in North Carolina and a few other states they are already rolling out a media campaign based on the slogan, “What would Jesus drive?” The marketplace and the environment —and, in all likelihood, the future of this country — are on a collision course. In a country that credits much of its success to the market economy, it’s that same market economy — and the choices we make within it — that might eventually be the conduit through which we spread some type of environmentally-friendly truth. When Americans start making the right consumer choices, the rest of the world will follow suit. Imagine where that could lead. We now exist as the symbol of excess and indulgence, a people who lead by force but not example. Anyone who has met the schoolyard bully knows where this will inevitably lead. Thomas Jefferson and other founders participated in slavery even though many of them wrestled with it morally. Jefferson’s writings prove he struggled with it and feared the implications for the new country of participating in such an immoral activity. Today, we all drive cars and waste electricity even though we realize that we are indeed part of the problem. At some point, perhaps we will begin to believe that our own actions about energy and consumption are indeed, at the most basic level, somehow immoral — especially when we use much more than we need. Maybe this current campaign will be a cog in a greater effort that will eventually lead Americans to a truth I feel comfortable in saying we one day will accept — either voluntarily or by force. So let’s eat, drink and be merry. Have that extra helping. Drive the extra mile. But be perfectly aware of the implications of it all. And in my idle time, I’ll consider that seemingly inane question about Jesus. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)