Rivers Unlimited

It's fitting that our first article here address the essence of our river work. It is ethics.

These 31 years every single issue and program we have worked on had and has to do with our country's public health ... our life expectancy ... environmental justice ... sustainability of our natural resources ... our future and the world's future ... our quality of life ... our economic welfare ... and the birds, beasts, fish and bugs we inhabit the planet with.

The world's great religions and for all I know many lesser ones including tribal beliefs acknowledge these interests as ethical ones, and for many years now religious leaders have gotten together, have passed down to their individual churches, temples and mosques copious environmental information and urged attention to the message. The results indicate that the message is not getting to the public.

Nine of us met in Cincinnati to consider an Interfaith - Environmental Conference to explore the local connection of religion to ethics in the environmental sphere and see if it can bring about action. Perhaps a majority of people adhere to some religion and are exposed to the teachings thereof. Locally, statewide and nationally the general public is flatly not exposed to environmental facts because of an inimical political party now in power, a corporate-controlled Congress and media. Perhaps, then, only religion can get the message across, at least in macro terms as Lester Brown has in his book, Plan B. Under the circs it is hard to imagine a better ally, an indisputably ethical ally, to help us, the activists, protect our public health, life expectancy, environmental justice ...

As to why we don't register the genuine commitment of our religious leaders, some reasons may be:

That individual ministers represent and are bombarded by a great diversity of people with diverse interests who seek attention to their particular concerns.

Environmental matters may seem too far away, too long term, too controversial.

Church leaders are also obsessed with raising money for their institutions, which may require approaching those with means who - often - have private interests at odds with environmental improvement, protection and/or regulation.

Our work is extremely sophisticated. We cannot expect clergy to be advocates from the pulpit if they don't know enough about the issue. Not even one issue, like the restoration of Mill Creek, which affects tens of thousands of people, much less the universe of environmental concerns.

We'll be looking more closely at this at a meeting October 17th (2003). Let us know if you want to know more about it or have suggestions.

posted by Mike at 6:27 PM