by Carl Sagan
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It has been my good fortune to participate in an extraordinary sequence of gatherings throughout the world: The leaders of the planet’s religions have met with scientists and legislators from many nations to try to deal with the rapidly worsening world environmental crisis.
Representatives of nearly 100 nations were present at the “Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders” conferences at Oxford in April 1988 and in Moscow in January 1990. Standing under an immense photograph of the Earth from space, I found myself looking out over a diversely costumed representation of the wondrous variety of our species: Mother Teresa and the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the chief rabbis of Romania and the United Kingdom, the Grand Mufti of Syria, the Metropolitan of Moscow, an elder of the Onondaga Nation, the high priest of the Sacred Forest of Togo, the Dalai Lama, Jain priests resplendent in their white robes, turbaned Sikhs, Hindu swamis, Buddhist abbots, Shinto priests, evangelical Protestants, the Primate of the Armenian Church, a “Living Buddha” from China, the bishops of Stockholm and Harare, metropolitans of the Orthodox Churches, the Chief of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy—and, joining them, the Secretary-General of the United Nations; the Prime Minister of Norway; the founder of a Kenyan women’s movement to replant the forests; the President of the World Watch Institute; the directors of the United Nations’ Children’s Fund, its Population Fund, and UNESCO; the Soviet Minister of the Environment; and parliamentarians from dozens of nations, including U.S. Senators and Representatives and a Vice-President-to-be. These meetings were mainly organized by one person, a former U.N. official, Akio Matsumura.
I remember the 1,300 delegates assembled in St. George’s Hall in the Kremlin to hear an address by Mikhail Gorbachev. The session was opened by a venerable Vedic monk, representing one of the oldest religious traditions on Earth, inviting the multitude to chant the sacred syllable “Om.” As nearly as I could tell, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze went along with the “Om,” but Mikhail Gorbachev restrained himself. (An immense milky-white statue of Lenin, hand outstretched, loomed nearby.)
That same day, ten Jewish delegates, finding themselves in the Kremlin at sundown on a Friday, performed the first Jewish religious service ever held there. I remember the Grand Mufti of Syria stressing, to the surprise and delight of many, the importance in Islam of “birth control for the global welfare, without exploiting it at the expense of one nationality over another.” Several speakers quoted the Native American saying, “We have not inherited the Earth from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our children.”
The interconnectedness of all human beings was a theme constantly stressed. We heard a secular parable, which asked us to imagine our species as a village of 100 families. Then, 65 families in our village are illiterate, and 90 do not speak English, 70 have no drinking water at home, 80 have no members who have ever flown in an airplane. Seven families own 60 percent of the land and consume 80 percent of all the available energy. They have all the luxuries. Sixty families are crowded onto 10 percent of the land. Only one family has any member with a university education. And the air and the water, the climate and the blistering sunlight, are all getting worse. What is our common responsibility?
At the Moscow conference, an appeal signed by a number of distinguished scientists was presented to world religious leaders. Their response was overwhelmingly positive. The meeting ended with a plan of action that included these sentences:
This gathering is not just an event but a step in an ongoing process in which we are irrevocably involved. So now we return home pledged to act as devoted participants in this process, nothing less than emissaries for fundamental change in attitudes and practices that have pushed our world to a perilous brink.
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Religious leaders in many nations have begun to move into action. Major steps have been taken by the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, evangelical Christians, leaders of the Jewish community, and many other groups. As a catalyst of this process, a Joint Appeal of Science and Religion for the Environment was established, chaired by the Very Reverend James Parks Morton, dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and myself. Vice President Al Gore, then a U.S. Senator, played a central role. At an exploratory meeting of scientists and leaders of the major American denominations, held in New York in June 1991, it became clear that there was a great deal of common ground:
Much would tempt us to deny or push aside this global environmental crisis and refuse even to consider the fundamental changes of human behavior required to address it. But we religious leaders accept a prophetic responsibility to make known the full dimensions of this challenge, and what is required to address it, to the many millions we reach, teach and counsel.
We intend to be informed participants in discussions of these issues and to contribute our views on the moral and ethical imperative for developing national and international policy responses. But we declare here and now that steps must be taken toward: accelerated phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals; much more efficient use of fossil fuels and the development of a non-fossil fuel economy; preservation of tropical forests and other measures to protect continued biological diversity; and concerted efforts to slow the dramatic and dangerous growth in world population through empowering both women and men, encouraging economic self-sufficiency, and making family education programs available to all who may consider them on a strictly voluntary basis.
We believe a consensus now exists, at the highest level of leadership across a significant spectrum of religious traditions, that the cause of environmental integrity and justice must occupy a position of utmost priority for people of faith. Response to this issue can and must cross traditional religious and political lines. It has the potential to unify and renew religious life.
The last phrase of the middle paragraph represents a tortuous compromise with the Roman Catholic delegation, opposed not only to describing birth control methods, but even to uttering the words “birth control.”
By 1993, the Joint Appeal had evolved into The National Religious Partnership for the Environment, a coalition of the Catholic, Jewish, mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, historic black church, and evangelical Christian communities. Using material prepared by the Partnership’s Science Office, the participating groups—both individually and collectively—have begun to exert considerable influence. Many religious communities previously without national environmental programs or offices are now described as “fully committed to this enterprise.” Manuals on environmental education and action have reached over 100,000 religious congregations, representing tens of millions of Americans. Thousands of clergy and lay leaders have participated in regional training, and thousands of congregational environmental initiatives have been documented. State and national legislators have been lobbied, the media briefed, seminarians apprised, sermons delivered. As a more or less random example, in January 1996, the Evangelical Environmental Network—the Partnership’s constituent organization from the evangelical Christian community—lobbied Congress in support of the Endangered Species Act (which is itself endangered). The grounds? A spokesman explained that while the evangelicals were “not scientists,” they could “make the case” on theological grounds: Laws protecting endangered species were described as “the Noah’s Ark of our day.” The Partnership’s fundamental tenet, “that environmental protection must now be a central component of faith life,” is apparently being widely accepted. There is one major initiative that the Partnership has not yet broached: an outreach to parishioners who are executives of major industries that affect the environment. I very much hope that this will be attempted.
The present world environmental crisis is not yet a disaster. Not yet. As in other crises, it has a potential to draw forth previously untapped and even unimagined powers of cooperation, ingenuity, and commitment. Science and religion may differ about how the Earth was made, but we can agree tha
t protecting it merits our profound attention and loving care.
THE APPEAL
What follows is the January 1990 text, sent by scientists to religious leaders, of “Preserving and Cherishing the Earth: An Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion.”
The Earth is the birthplace of our species and, so far as we know, our only home. When our numbers were small and our technology feeble, we were powerless to influence the environment of our world. But today, suddenly, almost without anyone noticing, our numbers have become immense and our technology has achieved vast, even awesome, powers. Intentionally or inadvertently, we are now able to make devastating changes in the global environment—an environment to which we and all the other beings with which we share the Earth are meticulously and exquisitely adapted.
We are now threatened by self-inflicted, swiftly moving environmental alterations about whose long-term biological and ecological consequences we are still painfully ignorant—depletion of the protective ozone layer; a global warming unprecedented in the last 150 millennia; the obliteration of an acre of forest every second; the rapid-fire extinction of species; and the prospect of a global nuclear war that would put at risk most of the population of the Earth. There may well be other such dangers of which, in our ignorance, we are still unaware. Individually and cumulatively they represent a trap being set for the human species, a trap we are setting for ourselves. However principled and lofty (or naïve and shortsighted) the justifications may have been for the activities that brought forth these dangers, separately and together they now imperil our species and many others. We are close to committing—many would argue we are already committing—what in religious language is sometimes called Crimes against Creation.
By their very nature these assaults on the environment were not caused by any one political group or any one generation. Intrinsically, they are transnational, transgenerational, and transideological. So are all conceivable solutions. To escape these traps requires a perspective that embraces the peoples of the planet and all the generations yet to come.
Problems of such magnitude, and solutions demanding so broad a perspective, must be recognized from the outset as having a religious as well as a scientific dimension. Mindful of our common responsibility, we scientists—many of us long engaged in combating the environmental crisis—urgently appeal to the world religious community to commit, in word and deed, and as boldly as is required, to preserve the environment of the Earth.
Some of the short-term mitigations of these dangers—such as greater energy efficiency, rapid banning of chlorofluorocarbons, or modest reductions in the nuclear arsenals—are comparatively easy and at some level are already under way. But other, more far-reaching, more long-term, more effective approaches will encounter widespread inertia, denial, and resistance. In this category are conversion from fossil fuels to a nonpolluting energy economy, a continuing swift reversal of the nuclear arms race, and a voluntary halt to world population growth—without which many of the other approaches to preserving the environment will be nullified.
As on issues of peace, human rights, and social justice, religious institutions can here too be a strong force encouraging national and international initiatives in both the private and public sectors, and in the diverse worlds of commerce, education, culture, and mass communication.
The environmental crisis requires radical changes not only in public policy, but also in individual behavior. The historical record makes it clear that religious teaching, example, and leadership are powerfully able to influence personal conduct and commitment.
As scientists, many of us have had profound experiences of awe and reverence before the Universe. We understand that what is regarded as sacred is more likely to be treated with care and respect. Efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the sacred. At the same time, a much wider and deeper understanding of science and technology is needed. If we do not understand the problem, it is unlikely we will be able to fix it. Thus there is a vital role for both religion and science.
We know that the well-being of our planetary environment is already a source of profound concern in your councils and congregations. We hope this Appeal will encourage a spirit of common cause and joint action to help preserve the Earth.
The response to this Scientists’ Appeal on the Environment was soon after signed by hundreds of spiritual leaders from 83 countries, including 37 heads of national and international religious bodies. Among them are the general secretaries of the World Muslim League and World Council of Churches, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, the Catholicos of All Armenians, Metropolitan Pitirim of Russia, the grand muftis of Syria and the former Yugoslavia, the presiding bishops of all the Christian churches of China and of the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Mennonite churches in the United States, as well as 50 cardinals, lamas, archbishops, head rabbis, patriarchs, mullahs, and bishops of major world cities. They said:
We are moved by the Appeal’s spirit and challenged by its substance. We share its sense of urgency. This invitation to collaboration marks a unique moment and opportunity in the relationship of science and religion.
Many in the religious community have followed with growing alarm reports of threats to the well-being of our planet’s environment such as those set forth in the Appeal. The scientific community has done humankind a great service by bringing forth evidence of these perils. We encourage continued scrupulous investigation and must take account of its results in all our deliberations and declarations regarding the human condition.
We believe the environmental crisis is intrinsically religious. All faith traditions and teachings firmly instruct us to revere and care for the natural world. Yet sacred creation is being violated and is in ultimate jeopardy as a result of long-standing human behavior. A religious response is essential to reverse such long-standing patterns of neglect and exploitation.
For these reasons, we welcome the Scientists’ Appeal and are eager to explore as soon as possible concrete, specific forms of collaboration and action. The Earth itself calls us to new levels of joint commitment.
Part III
WHERE HEARTS
AND MINDS
COLLIDE
CHAPTER 14
THE COMMON ENEMY
I am not a pessimist. To perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
It is only in the moment of time represented by the present century that one species has acquired the power to alter the nature of the world.
RACHEL CARSON,
Silent Spring (1962)
INTRODUCTION
In 1988 a unique opportunity was presented to me. I was invited to write an article on the relationship between the United States and the then Soviet Union that would be published, more or less simultaneously, in the most widely circulated publications of both countries. This was at a time when Mikhail Gorbachev was feeling his way on giving Soviet citizens the right to express their opinions freely. Some recall it as a time when the administration of Ronald Reagan was slowly modifying its pointed Cold War posture. I thought such an article might be able to do a little good. What’s more, at a recent “summit” meeting, Mr. Reagan had commented that if only there were a peril of alien invasion of the Earth, it would be much easier for the United States and the Soviet Union to work together. This seemed to give my piece an organizing principle. I intended the article to be provocative to citizens of both countries and required assurances from both sides that there would be no censorship. Both the editor of Parade, Walter Anderson, and the editor of Ogonyok, Vitaly Korotich, readily agreed. Called “The Common Enemy,” the article duly appeared in the February 7, 1988 issue of Parade, and in the March 12–19, 1988, issue of Ogonyok. It was subsequently reprinted in The Congressional Record, won the Olive Branch Award of New York University in 1989, and was widely discussed in both countries.
The controversial matters in the article were h
andled straightforwardly by Parade, with the following introduction:
The following article, which also is scheduled to appear in its entirety in Ogonyok, the most popular magazine in the Soviet Union, explores the relationship between our two nations. Citizens of both countries may find some of Carl Sagan’s insights uncomfortable and even provocative because, fundamentally, he challenges popular views of each nation’s history. The editors of Parade hope that this analysis, as it is read here and in the Soviet Union, constitutes a first step to achieve the very goals the author describes.
But things were not nearly so simple even in the liberalizing Soviet Union of 1988. Korotich had bought a pig in a poke, and when he saw my critical comments on Soviet history and policy, he felt obliged to seek the guidance of higher authority. The responsibility for the article’s content, as it appeared in Ogonyok, seems to have rested ultimately with Dr. Georgi Arbatov—Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the then Soviet Academy of Sciences, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and a close advisor to Gorbachev. Arbatov and I had privately held several political conversations that had surprised me in their frankness and candor. While in a way it is gratifying to see how much of the text was left untouched, it is also instructive to note what changes were made, what thoughts were considered too dangerous for the average Soviet citizen. So at the end of the article I’ve indicated the most interesting changes. They certainly do amount to censorship.