Greetings from Camden!
A friend of mine told me a rather disturbing story the other day. She was sharing her work on sustainability with some teachers who work in the public schools. She was abruptly interrupted by one of the teachers who asked: What is sustainability? This was disturbing because it was a teacher who didn’t know what sustainability is. If the teachers of our society don’t know what sustainability is, then is it any wonder that everyday persons on the street might have trouble getting their minds, and more importantly, their hearts, around the notion of sustainability.
So what is it? I am not an expert. If you want to hear the opinion of an expert you ought to touch base with my good friend Lori Braunstein of Sustainable Cherry Hill. Or perhaps you could talk to Ed Cohen of the Green Team of Mt. Laurel, NJ. However, I do have my understanding of sustainability that I hope might be helpful to someone. Sustainability is essentially about living on this planet in a way that will insure some semblance of the planet for our children and grandchildren. Why do we need to worry about this? The fossil fuels that make possible the lifestyle that we now enjoy are non-renewable. We are using them now at such a clip that we may well be out of fossil fuels (natural gas, petroleum, coal) long before the end of this 21st century. We are also using water at an incredible clip, and more and more places are finding it difficult to maintain adequate levels of potable water for their people. Some think that our next major armed conflict may very well be focused on water supplies. Amazingly enough, our atmosphere is under attack. The CO2 in our atmosphere is growing steadily, warming the atmosphere, which ironically makes more fresh water available via the melting of the polar ice caps. Too bad that fresh water won’t get to the places where armed conflict over water is likely to occur! The bottom line, demonstrated by many scientists, is that our natural world and its resources is not able to sustain the pressure that the demands of our lifestyle apply daily, around the world. Sustainability is an concerted effort to impact the way in which we walk on this planet, make use of its resources, and respect its rhythms.
Sustainability initiatives include reducing our energy consumption and supporting alternative and renewable energy source production. It includes thinking through the food production system which we support through our food dollars, realizing other ways in which to obtain our food that is both less draining on our limited fossil fuels but also much gentler to the soil and to the animals. It includes realizing that violence is a fundamentally unsustainable solution to recurring problems. It includes attention to the distribution of the resources of our society. It is impossible to sustain a society when its resources are distributed in a way that leaves many struggling to meet the necessities of daily living and the few capable of ignoring the vast majority behind high walls and in private, exclusive schools and clubs. I’ve just touched on some sustainability initiatives here; there are many more but I hope the direction of these initiatives is clear from these examples.
Sustainability rests on the idea that human beings, with all of our intellectual power and creative imagination, are members of the planet. We are not the monarchs, the dictators, the masters. We are embedded deeply in webs of interconnectedness, in webs of interdependence. William Faulkner wrote a short story entitled “Delta Autumn” in which he tells the story of a young boy who was taught to hunt by two older men when he was a teen. Each autumn he returns to the scene of his first kill, to reconnect with nature, and with his identity. What is clear from Faulkner’s telling is that the techniques the young man was taught enabled him to attend to nature in a very different way. He had to look at the world the way the deer or the bear looked at the world. Only by coming to a deep appreciation of the ways of the world, and of his place in it, could the young man be successful in his hunt. And when he had shot the deer, and used his knife to quickly end its life, he took a bit of the blood of the deer and placed it on his face, to remember. William E. May, in reflecting on this short story, identifies two insightful moments. First, the young man comes to realize his dependence on nature. Second, he also came to see nature as not an enemy or something to be tamed or a tool for his own delight, but a living system of which he was a part, just as much as any other animal, or any other human being. Sustainability seems to rest on some such set of insights. We are dependent on nature and we are a part of nature. Sustainability does not demand that we cease using the resources of nature to meet our needs. What it does demand is that we assess our “needs” in light of the resources of nature. It demands that we think about others’ needs before we think about our wants. It demands that we attend to our whole way of life with a view to being members of the community of life, rather than as masters of it.
Those are some of my thoughts on this expansive topic. I think we need to continue to discuss sustainability. We need to educate ourselves about it, and others as well. It is what the bible asks us to do in Genesis when, in the original Hebrew language, we are asked to “cultivate” the earth. The long standing translation of the Hebrew as “dominate” is part of the problem that sustainability means to address. I invite you to engage in the work of sustainability, and you can begin on Sunday, February 26th, in Camden from 2-5PM. See the second announcement below for more details or visit this website.
I wish you a blessed winter, one and all.
Sincerely,
Mark Doorley, Ph.D.
President, The Center for Environmental Transformation
NEWS and NOTES
1. Monthly Work Day: Spring is rushing upon us, believe it or not! Join us on Saturday, March 3rd, in Eve’s Garden where we are preparing the ground, as well as heirloom seedlings in the greenhouse. Please contact Andrea at aferich@gmail.com if you intend to come. Bring work gloves, as well as your own drinking water.
2. FEBRUARY 26TH: The Center for Environmental Transformation, as well as other regional organizations, is co-sponsoring an afternoon of conversation about the topic of diversity in the sustainability movement. A panel of presenters will share their insights on this topic, but the meat of the gathering will be the small group discussion that will follow. The event lasts from 2-5PM. It will be held at the Urban Promise Sanctuary, at 3700 Rudderow Street in Pennsauken. YOU MUST REGISTER. Visit this website for more information.
3. On Friday, February 17th, tomorrow, Sacred Heart Church, the source of our inspiration for this work, is hosting an evening of prayer and reflection for people in recovery and their families. The event begins at 7PM. This is on the corner of Ferry Ave. & S. Broadway in Camden. It is not an event about the environment, but it is certainly about the hope of transformation, which is central to our work. Please pass this on to your friends and family. All are welcome!
4. A HAIKU OPPORTUNITY: The Nick Virgilio Haiku Association is hosting a world reknown haiku writer on March 3, 2012 in Waterfront South in Camden, NJ. See the attached flier for information on this event. Consider coming out for the opportunity to discover your haiku voice.
5. Like us on Facebook, and join our group. Invite your friends to join us as well. Please use our Facebook page to let us know about interesting things you’ve read, great websites you’ve found, and activities that might interest the entire group.
6. Help us spread the word about the Center by forwarding this email to those you think might be interested. If they would like to be on this distribution list, they can email their contact information to info@camdencenterfortransformation.org
7. The 2012 Capital Campaign is well under way. We are still working to raise the funds to replace all the windows on the Center, to make it more energy efficient. We also have plans for a beautiful new porch on the side of the building, as well as a new entrance on Ferry Ave. We cannot do any of that without your generous support. Consider making a contribution to our capital campaign. Send a check payable to “The Center for Transformation” to 1729 Ferry Ave., Camden, NJ 08104.