Editorial on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST: Huffington Post

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post, Earth911

Native Americans have a tradition of dancing to bring forth rain. Whether their ceremony results in their thirst being quenched depends on which anecdotal story one chooses to believe. But the Rain Dance in its various incarnations or rather its more conventional equivalent -- the expression of prayer by the devout for a higher power to intervene and for the faithful to do their part to bring about resolution-- has been making a reappearance around the globe as the visual and visceral evidence of climate change presents itself in stark and unforgiving ways.

Examples include the Pope's speech at an eco-youth rally, where he said: “A decisive ’yes’ is needed in decisions to safeguard creation as well as a strong commitment to reverse tendencies that risk leading to irreversible situations of degradation."

This prayer for desperately needed rain by Imam Fikret Latifoglu at Ankara's Hacibayram Mosque: "We stand before you, we beg you to answer our prayers, don't leave innocent children and the old, animals who cannot speak for themselves, the trees, the ants and the birds without water. We helplessly beg for Your mercy."

The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, which has been working since the mid-1980's to raise awareness that "our home planet Earth is undergoing rapid and sustained destruction of its eco-systems."

Christian evangelist, Rev. Richard Cizik, whose Creation Care movement represents 45,000 churches, stated that "global warming and global hunger are inescapably linked," (which put him at odds with Ted Haggard’s objections to environmentalism. Cizik's work continues. Haggard's, not so much...).

COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, which cites the Midrash as its motivation: "See my works, how fine and excellent they are! All that I created, I created for you. Reflect on this and do not corrupt or desecrate my world; for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you," for its work with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (the COEJL, the National Council of Churches, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, and the Evangelical Environmental Network) to advocate on global climate change and energy conservation.

There's Eastern Orthodoxy, whose first day of their ecclesiastical calendar (September 1st) has been a declared annual day of prayer for the protection of the environment for 300 million parishioners worldwide since 1989.

And Zoroastrianism, which has as its precept the obligation “to protect nature in all its glory” and celebrates its new year on the spring equinox (called Newroz, it’s evolved into a legend about the overthrow of an ancient tyrant, but is still observed as a spring festival in Iran, by the Parsee of India and by millions of Kurds worldwide).

None of that has stopped global warming skeptics, minimizers and deniers from insisting that environmentalism itself has become a religion and to cite Hollywood as its central church.

It was 109 F degrees in Los Angeles last weekend.

They should visit.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the one-time leader of the Soviet Union (not a religious position) who is now the leader of Global Green, USA, did visit and is working with Brad Pitt, one of those Hollywood 'environmental evangelists', to help rebuild New Orleans.

And then there's Leonardo DiCaprio, another Hollywood environmentalist, whose new film, The 11th Hour, has been receiving positive reviews across the nation.

Oh, and An Inconvenient Truth, of course.

But environmentalism is not a Hollywood intellectual property. While the environment may have become topic du jour for some and a near religious calling for others, it is a religious issue for this Grist list of 15 "green" religious leaders that includes: the Patriarch of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Dalai Lama, an Episcopal Reverend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Pope, the leader of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology, an Australian theologian, the head of the American Rabbis' Committee on the Environment, a Dominican Nun, a member of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, a Unitarian reverend, a Methodist theologian, and Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest who refers to himself as a 'Geologian.'

The comments on the Grist article are worthy of note, as well. They include suggestions for the list from other countries/world religions that are making a significant contribution.

And there's the robust environmental movement of South Asia (India, Nepal...), Harvard's FORE (Forum on Religion and Ecology) research into the environmental traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Indigenous American Indians, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the eco-spiritualism of so many other indigenous cultures on every continent.

Which doesn’t negate the considerations from the other side of the argument. This includes those who interpret the science differently, who focus on which greenhouse gas is more impactful (I’ll trade you twenty carbon credits for a methane credit on Tuesday if you’ll buy me a methane-emitting hamburger today…), the support services who genuinely worry about the impact of environmental regulation on the third-world and more than a few who seem more worried about their corporate bottom line than their impact on planet earth.

But anyone who labels environmentalism as a religion in the hope that it will invalidate the movement is as out of touch with reality as those who cite religion as an obstacle to environmentalism. While there are religious groups who eschew environmentalism, the overall environmental movement is as diverse as humanity itself. It includes the deeply religious, those for whom the environment has become a religion, professionals who keep their religion to themselves as they seek to validate the science and a growing number of ordinary citizens who are beginning to sense that something has gone terribly wrong.

It is a global epiphany.

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post

One year after Albert Einstein's publication of E=MC2, an unknown writer named Upton Sinclair published an exposé of the deplorable conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry.

The book, entitled "The Jungle," became a best seller that has stayed in print since its 1906 publication. It is not Sinclair’s impact on literature, however, that has led us to ask the question: Do we need another Jungle? It’s the recent influx of tainted goods from overseas that parallels the public outcry following the publication of "The Jungle," which resulted in the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. It was that legislation which helped to establish the Food and Drug Administration.

The same FDA that now inspects less than one percent of incoming goods ^[1], that gives bonuses budgeted to retain scientists to their administrators ^[2], that is faced with the recall of millions of U.S. toys manufactured in China, a majority of all fish imported from China lacking in inspection, the melamine in gluten that killed so many of our beloved pets that did not get inspected...

And it's not only China ^[³^]. The FDA is faced with growing imports from many countries, far more than they could ever inspect, had they the resources to do so.

The question then becomes: Do we need another exposé that will lead to a radical change in policy, a la Sinclair's "The Jungle?" This is an important consideration since these problems seem to be arising through lack of oversight. With the increasing amount of products manufactured offshore, we're at the mercy of the quality, or lack thereof, adhered to by our trading partners.

Since we do not have the inspection regimen to stop all of the dangerous products at our border, nor do we provide the incentives for our global trading partners to improve the conditions for their own workforce, and/or to regulate their diverse supply chain, we are relying on the "good faith" of foreign nations over which we have no ability to regulate. And, if we did, it might not solve the problem, as they may not be able to inspect their own supply chains of smaller manufacturers, many of which were responsible for the tainted products that then were sent on to increasingly larger companies outside our borders. -- layers within layers of inspection needed in a proactive, rather than a reactive program, as has been the case since the growing scandal of tainted products came to light.

An author, Ted Fishman (China, Inc.) made the point recently that only China can change China. Considering its size and the size of our debt to China, that seems a logical conclusion. But who then is responsible for the protection of our citizens if neither China nor our government can do so? Does it fall on the individual states to enhance their own consumer departments? Is it the impact on the marketplace that will lead corporations to both be more careful and to pressure their foreign suppliers to clean up their own supply chains?

Or is it the consumers who will apply the pressure as more problems come to light?

It was the public outcry after the revelations of the "The Jungle" that led to the change in policy in 1906. But it was a simpler society. Imported goods are now so pervasive, it may be impossible to avoid their use.

Where did the ascorbic acid in your Vitamin C come from?

Strong possibility it was imported from China.

How about that gluten in your bread (and in your pet food)? The shrimp you ate last night at that restaurant? And, here's a surprising fact: Garlic. Doesn't Gilroy, CA, [claim to be the] garlic capital of the world?

Most garlic is imported from China. ^[⁴^]

If someone ever got inside the Chinese factories, a la Sinclair, and through their supply chain, and wrote about what really happens there, it begs the question: would it make for interesting story about a foreign land or will it be seen in the context of our need for cheap goods? On the impact on quality of life for those who make those goods? Of the quality of those goods we are now required to consume?

And, of course, the jobs lost here because manufacture has moved offshore?

Sadly, even with a major overhaul and a significant budget increase, it's unlikely the FDA will be able to monitor everything coming in to the United States. The money. ^[⁵^] The cheap labor, the competition (they're doing it, so we have to...). And that startling amount of our debt the current administration has entrusted to China. It seems that might make our bargaining position a bit weakened when they're holding our notes, especially when it took
the FDA ten years to track down the toxic Chinese compound used recently in toothpaste.

It is our view that this should be a condemnation of the overworked FDA inspectors. In the case of the tainted glycerin it was a European importer that had stored the compound in their supply warehouses without the necessary paperwork from China.

Does the answer then rest with the consumer? If we can't rely on the FDA to inspect more the one percent of our imported goods. If we can't be assured that the corporations importing those goods will uncover their problems in a timely manner (many do, but not all). If we don't even know where the ingredients of a product we are about to consume comes from, how can we be certain what we're consuming is safe?

Carl R. Nielsen, former FDA Director of the Division of Import Operations and Policy: "The reality is, this is not a single-country issue at all, What we are experiencing is massive globalization. ^[6]

This problem is further exacerbated by the financial squeeze on the American consumer, as revealed by Walmart's recently declining quarterly profits. When the middle class can no longer afford cheap Chinese goods that line Walmart's shelves, what incentive will there be for anyone to buy more expensive products?

A solution -- only a partial solution, at best -- is to buy local wherever you can and reduce the amount of your consumption, where possible, to make up for the increase in cost. That means farmer's markets (list below) and goods that are made by local suppliers. This has the added benefit of fresher goods, supporting local business and reducing the carbon footprint required to come to market. For imported goods, we look to Fair Trade (list below), especially when it comes to products that could be used for conflicts, as has been reported recently with chocolate (yes, chocolate).

Beyond that, we're in the same predicament as everyone else: Crossing our fingers when we eat at a restaurant or take a vitamin or buy anything where a major corporate supplier does not reveal a point of origin on their goods. Which is why there should be no wondering as to why we're wondering if there's another Upton Sinclair who will save us from ourselves.

Here are useful links:

CPSC – Consumer Product Safety Commission (for recalled goods).
FDA – Food and Drug Administration (for recalled goods).

Farmer's Markets:

Fair Trade:

Chocolate products that are not produced by child slave labor ^[7]

chocolate, diamonds, coltan...

The website from the Mandela Project about conflict products (highly recommended):

The Inventory of Conflict & Environment (ICE)

Apologies to any links we missed and empathy for the 1,321,851,888 ^[8] Chinese at risk of their own tainted supply chain -- of which we have seen just the terrifying tip of the iceberg.

Fair trade

Thoughts on Eco-Spirituality

Do We Need Another Jungle?