Preparing for the Environment Day, we share a writing by Gerardo González Cortés, member of the CC Foro Espiritual de Santiago in Chile. The text deals precisely with the environmental crisis. It is titled "Our Global Responsibility: Towards a Bio-eco-centric Humanism". The second part deals with the positions of leaders of different faith traditions facing this challenge.
From the Regional Coordination of URI Latin America & the Caribbean, we consider spreading this text because it is a contribution to the entire network, an important perspective for this world, a thoughtful reading on human responsibility for the environment. Our Global Responsibility. Towards a bio-eco-centric humanism
We and planet Earth
We live in times of rapid change, fraught with challenges, dangers, expectations and promises. As Humanity it seems that we have put on "long pants" without yet assuming the responsibility that this implies. For the first time in our brief history we can say that we are in conditions of potential abundance, that if we manage it well - and we know how to do it - it would allow us to build a peaceful and prosperous global society, without hunger, without misery, with the opportunity for full personal development for everyone and, living in harmony with each other and with the nature of which we are part of. However, pockets of hunger and misery persist; the gaps between rich and poor grow and economic power is concentrated; Weapons of mass destruction increasingly smarter and scarier continue to accumulate, as bloody local wars proliferate, causing destruction and immeasurable human suffering. And together with all this we are realizing that we have abused the planet Earth, our common home, and the varied and rich community of life, to the point of inducing climate change with unforeseeable consequences for the global ecosystem and for the Humanity itself.
It seems that we are experiencing a change of epoch, in which technological development once again plays a crucial role and that gives us a power of intervention in nature never seen before, at the same time as a responsibility never thought before. I would like to reflect about this.
