“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that … we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies”
(Romans 8:22-23).
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
In 1988, we issued a groundbreaking
Pastoral Letter on Ecology entitled, “What is Happening to Our Beautiful
Land?” In its opening paragraph, we
noted, “Our small farmers tell us that their fields are less productive and are
becoming sterile. Our fishermen are
finding it increasingly difficult to catch fish. Our lands, forests and rivers cry out that
they are being eroded, denuded and polluted.
As bishops we have tried to listen and respond to their cry. There is an urgency about this issue which
calls for widespread education and immediate action…”
Three Decades of Commitment to Ecological
Concerns
Since 1988, we have sustained this concern
about ecology that runs through our subsequent pastoral teachings. We may
recall that in 1998 we collectively expressed in A Statement of Concern on the
Mining Act of 1995, highlighting the ill effects of mining operations both on
the environment and on the people, particularly indigenous communities. In
2000, we issued Water is Life calling for a concerted effort to address the
problem of water insecurity and the urgency to protect our remaining
watersheds. In 2003, we issued Celebrating Creation Day and Creation Time to
introduce the celebration of Creation Day on September 1st of every year and
the observance of Creation Time between September 1 and October 4. In 2008, we
issued Upholding the Sanctity of Life (20 years after the CBCP Pastoral Letter
‘What is Happening to our Beautiful Land?’) not only to reaffirm our rejection
of irresponsible mining and illegal logging operations but also to crucially
include the challenges of global warming and climate change among “the new
threats to our environment”. In 2013, we issued a Pastoral Statement on the
Recent Earthquake and Typhoon that Devastated the Central Region of the
Philippines to express our solidarity with the victims of calamities and to
preempt their future recurrence. We also remember that in 2015, we clearly
manifested that climate action is an issue of life and justice through the
statement entitled Stewards, Not Owners: “Climate change has brought about
suffering for nations, communities and peoples. It is that kind of suffering
that, in the words of Benedict XVI’s ‘Deus Caritas Est’, ‘cries out for
consolation and help’.” (n. 28). When they who are in need cry out, it is not
an option to respond. It is an obligation.” In all these statements, we
have taken for granted that concern for our environment is an essential
dimension of our pastoral ministry.
The Continuing Destruction of Our Common
Home
Given the high rate of poverty in the
Philippines, the need to manage the environment is paramount. Poverty and
environmental degradation mutually reinforce each other. ‘In today’s world,
hunger, violence and poverty cannot be understood apart from the changes and
degradation affecting the environment.’ Pope Francis’ recognition of this led
him to introduce an eighth work of mercy in 2016: ‘care for our common
home’. He expressed this in his message
for the 2016 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This new work of mercy, he insisted, should
be both corporal and spiritual.
Biodiversity is also a concern that has a
direct connection to poverty and development. The poor in the rural areas are
directly dependent on biodiverse resources for food, fuel, shelter, medicine
and livelihood. This variety of living organisms together with its environment
provide critical services that are necessary for survival such as air and water
purification, soil conservation, disease control, and reduced vulnerability to
disasters such as floods, droughts and landslides. When these resources or
their environment are subjected to pressures that exceed their capacity to be
resilient or to bounce back to their original state, imbalance in the ecosystem
is created, leading to degradation. When situations like these arise, they make
lives, especially in the rural areas, more difficult; they also make
development efforts more challenging.
Our remaining forests and biodiversity are
continually being threatened by extractive mining operations and the building of
dams. Respect for God’s creation is disregarded when irresponsible mining
practices are allowed to continue. Land and life is desecrated when almost
two-thirds of the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples and more than half of
protected and key biodiversity areas are directly threatened by mining
applications and operations. Despite evidences against 26 mining operations
ordered closed or suspended last February 2017, not one mine has stopped
extracting because of technical administrative loopholes. Social justice is not
served when only the few mining companies, many of which are also owned by
political leaders, reap the benefits from mineral extraction. The rural poor
remain poor as mining only contributes less than one percent to our GDP,
employs less than 0.4% of our labor force and directly threatens agriculture,
forestry, watersheds and fisheries resources that are essential for the
survival of the rural poor.
Another problem related with mining is the
phenomenon of our country’s growing dependence on fossil fuel-based energy,
such as coal. There are at least 23 existing coal-fired power plants operating
across the country; 28 more may be operational by the year 2020. To support and
sustain this dependence, a huge number of coal power plants involved in
extensive coal extraction has to be put in place. Thus, coal mining projects
have been allowed to increase to 186, including small-scale ones. Worse is,
most of these coal projects are located within the vicinity of communities of
indigenous Filipinos and are supported by rich ecosystems and biodiversities.
Centuries of emissions from coal have been
scientifically proven to be among the lead causes of the current climate
degradation. Coal projects also further exacerbate the vulnerability of
impoverished host communities in the Philippines already struggling to cope
with the effects of the worsening climate. Many coastal and agriculture-reliant
communities face the loss of their livelihood because of land conversion and
the pollution of resources caused by coal. Health problems also plague such
communities due to the toxic substances and heavy metals released into the air
and water resources by the mining, transporting, and burning of coal.
The burning of coal and other fossil fuels
and the destruction of nature are natural consequences of extractive mining.
Needless to say, these industries are pursued primarily for profit accumulation
and rarely, if at all, in response to peoples’ needs. This is the root cause of
the continuous escalation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere which,
in turn, is causing the climate crisis. The climate crisis has thus far claimed
tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people, and brought about
tragic devastation in many parts of the world. This climate crisis is bound to
get much worse in the years ahead.
We affirm the prevailing science of climate
change that the present global warming is due to the abnormal buildup of
greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere which traps the heat and makes the
earth dangerously warm. The IPCC scientists have a very solid consensus that
global warming is not caused by natural factors (e.g., volcanic activity,
variations in the earth’s orbit and axis, or the solar cycle) but by GHGs
coming mainly from two unsustainable human activities. One is the reliance on
fossil fuels (e.g., oil, natural gas, coal) and other non-renewable energy
sources since the advent of western industrialization in 1750. Another is the
massive deforestation that deprived the earth of the sufficient forest cover
needed to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHGs.
The Philippines, being an archipelago, is
prone to climate-induced disasters brought about by sea level rise, storm
surges, prolonged droughts, and flash floods, among others. We are known to be
the second among the countries with the greatest exposure to disaster risks
worldwide. We are at the doorstep of all
the major threats of climate change which cause irreversible damage to
agriculture, marine resources and the entire bio-networks. Moreover, extreme weather events are
occurring more frequently in our country. The catastrophic super typhoons like
Yolanda, Ondoy, Sendong, and Pablo, that have devastated several of our
regions, attest to this level of climate vulnerability. On record, Yolanda
(Haiyan) is the strongest tropical cyclone ever to make a landfall on our
country. The damage from Yolanda was catastrophic, resulting to an estimated
8,000 casualties, affecting 16 million people in 10 provinces, while over 1.1
million homes were damaged, about half of them completely destroyed. The
sources of livelihood of an estimated 5.6 million poor people were severely
affected.
Climate-related disasters threaten us all.
The reality of the climate crisis, proven by the catastrophic impact of
typhoons and other human induced-disasters, has made us aware that the time to
act is now, not tomorrow. We must activate climate action on behalf of the
voiceless people and the planet.
Laudato Si’ and the Care for Our Common
Home
On June 18, 2015, as the global leaders
were preparing for the climate summit in Paris, Pope Francis issued Laudato
Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. The encyclical highlights the adverse impacts
of the climate change on the poor and most vulnerable. Pope Francis aptly articulated
the scale of the climate crisis: “Climate change is a global problem with grave
implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the
distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing
humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing
countries in coming decades.” (LS, 25)
Laudato Si emphasizes the underlying moral
and ethical context of our ecological problems and the call for meaningful
commitment, not just for the Church, but for all people, because what is at
stake is our common home! Pope Francis
calls for a re-evaluation of the prevailing models of global development and a
redefinition of our notion of progress so that it can truly serve the common
good. For the Church, climate change is an urgent issue that is clearly related
to our Christian responsibility to care for the earth and to care for the poor
and vulnerable in our midst.
In December 2015, at the 21st Conference of
Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) in France, the Paris Agreement was also adopted calling all nations to
act on the climate crisis by keeping a global temperature rise this century
well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to
limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Holy
Father, then, said that “its implementation will require unanimous commitment
and generous dedication by everyone” and nations “pay special attention to the
most vulnerable population . . . to carefully follow the road ahead, and with
an ever-growing sense of solidarity.”
In 2018, however, three years after the
Paris Conference, the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change
(IGPCC) reported that we have only 12 years left before reaching “the tipping
point” of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial temperature. This means, starting 2019, we have only 11 years remaining to act.
Moreover, the UN report on 4 May 2019 warns us that failure to limit global
warming to 1.5°C would lead not only to human suffering but also to the
extinction of one million flora and fauna species.
During his meeting with oil industry
executives and some of their biggest investors on 14 June 2019, Pope Francis
prophetically declared “Time is running out!” He also insisted that “a radical
energy transition is needed to save our common home.” With a sense of urgency,
he declared that we are facing a “climate emergency” that impels us to “take
action accordingly, in order to avoid perpetrating a brutal act of injustice
towards the poor and the future generations.” His urgent call deserves a
decisive response.
Pope Francis also expressed his unequivocal
critique of dirty energy, because “most of the global warming in recent decades
is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a
result of human activity” (LS, 23). The encyclical also strongly advocated for
a clear policy direction: “We know that technology based on the use of highly
polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree,
gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay.” (LS, 165)
The Theological/Moral Basis of Our Response
to Climate Emergency
The foregoing ecological analysis strongly
calls all human beings to urgently respond to the climate crisis. As
Christians, however, we have a deeper reason to be concerned with climate
because it is “a common good” (LS 23) and to cause its undesirable change is “a
moral issue” (St. John Paul II, Peace with God the Creator, no. 15). Along this
line, Laudato Si’ cites Patriarch Bartholomew who “has spoken in particular of
the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for
‘inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage’, we are called to
acknowledge ‘our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and
destruction of creation’.” This challenges us “to acknowledge our sins against
creation.” Foremost among them is our tendency “to degrade the integrity of the
earth by causing changes in its climate” (LS 8).
In this light, our efforts to mitigate
global warming and our collective moves aimed at helping others adapt to the
new normal brought about by climate change may be meaningfully viewed both as
acts of reparation for our ecological sins. We need to go beyond the prevailing
meaning of reparation in a manner that includes restitution for the ecological
damages we have done to nature.
Societal indifference to climate change is
immoral as it affects even the innocent, especially “the poor who live in areas
particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and [whose] means of
subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services
such as agriculture, fishing and forestry” (LS 25). Our preferential option for
the poor pushes us to prioritize the most affected “poorest of the poor” who
cry out to God for justice. It is our moral obligation to respond to their
suffering.
Moreover, the evils of climate change are
evident in the destruction of biodiversity as other living species of the
planet face the risk of becoming extinct due to their inability to adapt
quickly to the changes that we have caused. Pope Francis laments, “Because of
us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very
existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right” (LS 33).
Creatures “have a value of their own in God’s eyes” (LS 69, 221) and they have
the inherent right not only to exist but also to fulfill their particular
function in the community of life (i.e., ecosystem) and to reach the fullness
of life as far as their nature would allow. If we recognize that all created
realities originate from the Creator, we must also see to it (Psalm 24:1) that
they are respected and valued.
Biblical Basis of Our Effort to Care for
All Creatures
The Book of Genesis tells us that when God
looked at all that he had created, he “saw that it was good.” He “blessed them,
saying, ‘Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the
birds multiply on the earth’” (Gen 1:21-22). God placed Adam in the garden he
had planted in order “to till it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15). He also assigned
humans to exercise stewardship over all the creatures that inhabit sea, air and
land (Gen 1:26-28). After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his
descendants “and with every living creature … that never again shall all
creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood” (Gen 9:9-11).
We likewise believe that because “the Word
became flesh” (Jn 1:14), the whole cosmos has been renewed. As St. John Paul II
concisely explained, “the incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up
into unity with God not only of human nature, but in this human nature, in a
sense, of everything that is ‘flesh’: the whole of humanity, the entire visible
and material world” (Dominus et Vivificantem, 50). Thus, with St. Paul, we hope
that “creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in
the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).
Did not the Lord often exhort his disciples
against greed and lifestyle excess (Lk 12:16-21)? Did he not teach us to trust in Divine
Providence and learn from the birds of the air and the wild flowers of the
field? (Mat 6:25-34)
Intergenerational Responsibility and
Solidarity
In An Open Letter of the Filipino Youth to
the Catholic Church in the Philippines, the Filipino youth verbalized some
sentiments related to ecology while drawing a roadmap for the celebration of
the Year of the Youth (YOTY) in 2019. They expressed their dream “of a safe and
sustainable world to live in” as they “value Mother Earth and all of God’s
creation.” They also emphasized “the importance of caring for our common home,”
stressing in particular the “need to realize that our seemingly small actions
can either have a greatly positive or negative impact.
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