Chapter XI of the Rio Plus 20 Document by Cho Tab Khen Zambuling (Alfredo Sfeir-Younis)
XI. Why Do We Pollute?
It is important focus on the natural phenomenon, establishing the ground for management of a public good, or identifying those who pollute. While there is no doubt that each of these three dimensions offers important insights, they are yet incomplete to see the whole picture that is to be comprehensively addressed.
In particular, an additional shift in paradigm has to take place. This shift involves a primary step, which could be framed via the following questions: Why do people pollute? Or, Why do people lack a sense of care or respect for the natural environment? While answers to these questions are not trivial, there are certain hypothesis and facts that may shed light on a few critical dimensions of the problem. The ‘why’ of global warming opens new understandings of the actors, it makes them responsible for the solutions, and it sheds lots of light on important behavioral issues having to do with development and progress. When asked to respond to such questions the large majority of people make reference to the role of education, or lack there of, and existing western culture.
Let us just say that the term education has been use to blame everything in our society. Nobody can be against more education. However, the content of traditional education has not been adequate to create consciousness and enlightened awareness about global warming and environmental destruction. Certainly more of the same will yield more of the same. Thus, the education systems must be radically changed. This is not an easy task as those systems are indeed geared to job seeking, having more material wealth and the like. This is not the educational system that will sensitize people to respect nature. The role of education and media is important. But we are not referring here just to classroom education of the traditional kind. The idea is to promote all forms of education (e.g., informal education) and also to promote major changes in the content of educational programs. There must be much more about the development of the inner-self, the inner qualities of life, and the inner abilities of all beings. People must be able to be fully sensitive to warming and understand the consequences that this warming would have in all aspects of our lives.
Culture is a fundamental factor. Part of our culture is our own adopted view of nature. As it was stated elsewhere in this book, in many western cultures, nature is not us, it is outside us. Nature is for us and we are the developers of nature. Nature belongs to us and is less intelligent than humans. These are just examples of cultural landmarks that set human behavior in the directions we are witnessing today. Changing cultural patterns is not that easy and it might take generations before this happens, unless we focus on two essential ingredients.
Let us focus on them now.
Self Realization. We are experiencing an inability to self-realize human and spiritual values. For the moment, the values and principles we profess and, many times, advocate, are neither being self-realized nor practiced (at least, not enough). Thus, if we all were to move by the values of respect for nature, solidarity, and shared responsibility, for example, most people, countries, corporations, international organizations, and other relevant entities will engage themselves in a different process of human progress and will select different instruments and conditions so that these goals are fulfilled. We must be carriers of these values. We must self-realize these values in ourselves; otherwise, it is practically impossible to see them in practice. In particular, if we would have self-realized the values of solidarity and shared responsibility, we would not allow anyone in the world to go hungry every night. For the moment, there are nearly one billion people who suffer from hunger. Similarly, if we would have realized the value of respect for nature, we would not allow any environmental destruction and global warming. The same applies to such values as diversity, dignity, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, shared future and inclusion.
If we add another value, the value of interdependence, with all living beings and nature, and we had the full realization of this interdependence, we would not allow nature to be destroyed in the way we are doing it now. We will soon realize that the destruction of nature is our own self-destruction. In particular, we have come to the realization that the poverty and hunger of others greatly affects our own processes of human transformation. But, because few people have indeed self-realized this value of interdependence, the existence of poverty and hunger remains outside us. It is happening somewhere else! The same applies to our sensitivity towards the destruction of nature. Very few people have self realized this value of the respect for nature and, as a result, we have become passive observers of the destruction of the Amazon and other ecosystems. Respect for nature must be self realized. It is the insufficient levels of self-realization of these values that explains the duality we live between saying that we embrace those values in our personal life and practicing them in our lives.
Another important characteristic of these values expressed above is that they are collective in nature. These are values that are essential for us to live in a collective, and not in an individualistic, way of life. We are born in a collective and we will die as members of a collective. In particular, it is the family unit the first collective we belong to. What would be the future of the family if their members live without the self-realization of the values of solidarity and social responsibility? In our view, the family will cease to exist. It will collapse as a unit of human regard or measure. The same applies to our neighborhood, school, university, country, and now, the world at large.
Because our destiny is a collective one, these values are to be sought also in the realm of our collective future.
In addition to the above, it is also important to acknowledge that our ultimate capacity to self realize those above mentioned values depends critically on our natural and human environment. In other words, we go back to what we said two chapters back: the need to focus on development outcomes. The full expression of the new paradigm we are proposing today, demands that we close an important loop, as if we were going back to the very beginning of Part II of this book. To repeat, we have to close the gap between our capacities for the self-realization of those human and spiritual values and the nature and scope of development outcomes.
Therefore, it is essential we advance another step in the thinking by understanding that the full self-realization of these values –both individually and collectively—is essentially conditioned, and totally interdependent of, the material outcomes identified earlier. In other words, this paradigm holds the view that these relationships –outcomes, actors, values and beliefs– are part of a continuum and that these are neither hierarchical nor linear in nature. These relationships belong to singularly and interconnected layers of living experiences in the material and spiritual realms. Thus, the implication is that if we live, for example, in a decayed natural environment we will never be able to fully realize the outer and inner dimensions and expressions of all the human values that have been identified here.
Inner Toxicity. We are experiencing very high levels of toxicity; inner and outer toxicity. Experience has shown us that the human body can remain in equilibrium at any level of toxicity. Even at very high levels of toxicity, we see that the drunk driver feel fully capable of driving a car. This is the case for many other forms of toxicity: cigarettes, negative thinking, bad habits, physical abuse, etc. This is the time when television, Internet and all forms of media are intoxicating us. This is the time when the pollution of the five elements (air, wind, space, water, earth and fire) is so high that we have greatly increased our intoxication. This is the time when we are intoxicated with violence, insecurity, and instability; with bad thoughts and negative intent; with our violent look and violent touch; and with our own value and belief system, with fundamentalism of all sorts.
This high level of toxicity acts as a thick filter of our five senses and, thus, we are ever more insensitive to the progressive deterioration of the collective, to the suffering of others, and to the loss in hope by our neighbours. We are indifferent because we feel nothing about it. And, all the above applies in relation to other living beings.
This is the reason why we do not feel anything, for example, when another physical or human environment is being depleted. We do nothing about the Amazon because our level of toxicity is so high that we do not feel anything when a thousand year old tree falls down. We do nothing about the preservation of our biodiversity as we do not feel anything when, for example, an elephant in Africa is being can killed for sport right now. Thus, it is imperative that we develop programs to diminish and eliminate our level of toxicity.
All nations must engage in massive programs of detoxification.
To read the full Rio Plus 20 Statement click HERE.
