Dr. David Hales' Introduction to Faith for Earth: A Call for Action

Two decades into the 21st century, we know far more about the complex web of forces and influences that determine the interconnected relationship between humans and nature than we did when the previous edition of this book was published in 2000. It is now indisputable that humans are a force of geological proportions, one that is putting ever-increasing pressure on natural resources and ecosystems everywhere on Earth.  

The dilemmas we face are unavoidable and grow more critical with every passing year. If business as usual were capable of solving them we would not have the poverty, the unequal distribution of wealth, the increased conflict and use of violence for political purposes, the environmental destruction, and the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption that surround us today.  

In the last 20 years, each of these dilemmas has been dramatically worsened by the realities of climate change. We are proceeding headlong into a future shaped by the discharge of our wastes into our atmosphere and our oceans.  

The decades ahead present us with a crucible of moral choices. We are the first generation in human history that has had the opportunity to achieve sustainable and just societies. We have the knowledge, the technology, and the wealth to succeed. Moreover, for half a century, we have known that the choices we make will have serious consequences for the world of the future and for our children. It is clear that most often we have lacked the courage and the will to make the morally right choices, to do what we know is necessary.  

Each and every one of us is responsible for the consequences of our choices. Each day that passes without our finding the courage to make the decisions we know are necessary adds to the unconscionable burden we bequeath to our children and grandchildren. The difficulty of the decisions we leave to them will far exceed the difficulty of the decisions we face today.  

Examples of faith-based environmental teachings and traditions in the first part of this book stand in direct contradiction to the human choices that have written our crisis across the face of the planet. The reality that results from our refusal or inability to act is clear in its outline, and even in much of its detail; an overview of the impact of our actions on the natural world is introduced in the second half of the book.  

Today the voices of our children call out to us, challenging our coward - ice and greed as they consider their legacy of emptiness, poverty, and violence — but an even more dire fate awaits our grandchildren. We leave them a world that our parents would not recognize, bereft of much of the beauty, complexity, and richness we have squandered. Our actions are poised to break the bond between grandparents and grandchildren; we will not recognize the world in which we condemn them to live, and they will be strangers to the beauty and bounty of the world our parents left to us.  

The context in which we will make our choices must include the full panoply of faith, science, and societal institutions. If these institutions are to become agents of sustainability, they will need to be enabled by knowledge and inspired by faith. 

~ David Hales – Chair, Climate Action, The Parliament of the World’s Religions.  The Co-Authors of the Faith for Earth text are David Hales, Dr. Kusumita P. Pedersen, Tatiana Brailovskaya and Michael Mahan.