( Article originally published in the newspaper El Pais )
CARMEN PÉREZ-LANZAC
14/02/2008 Climate change has mobilized scientists who study it, to engineers and economists are looking for technological solutions that measure. And start to catch also a spiritual dimension that is becoming, in the opinion of some, the new religion of XXI century. A new ecological spirituality. Messianic language and tools are used almost religious discourse break schemes and permeate public opinion more skeptical of past causes.
In late October last year, Al Gore arrived in Seville to discuss their movement against climate change, the Climate Project. Gore, 59, climbed on stage and played for the umpteenth time the speech enthusiastically been repeating for several years. That day, someone asked: "How are you able to repeat the same thing over and over again?" "Because I am a man with a sense of mission, so I can say the same things without losing strength, the illusion. Because I have a message I believe passionately, "he replied.
In its quest to reach the party, Gore, who is deeply religious, use phrases like" Noah was told to save the species alive today and this remains our obligation. "And before you lecture the disciples ambassadors as part of their movement, 1,700 around the globe, asked for a" spiritual connection. "
" The structure that Al Gore has organized it is almost religious, with disciples spread the good news, as Jesus Christ "reflects the biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro." Scientists usually insist on the need to rationalize the problems, but the truth is that it is vendible el mensaje emocional, sobre todo si implica a fuerzas superiores a nosotros. Ayuda a que la gente se mueva por algo que debe resultar parecido al sentir de la tribu antes ese dios mágico. A mí no me gusta esta forma de funcionar. Al Gore se considera un hombre con una misión, y yo de Mesías tengo más bien poco. Yo aviso de que algo está pasando y es la sociedad quién debe decidir qué hay que hacer. Sin embargo, soy mucho menos eficaz. Al Gore ha vuelto a demostrar que moviliza mucho más algo parecido a la fe que la racionalidad".
El de Al Gore es el ejemplo más visible, pero no el único. Frases como "Hay que salvar el planeta", "Tenemos una misión", "la culpa es del hombre (¿el sinner?) "," Climate change is coming "(is the punishment?) and do not sound so strange." The green message with religious components has permeated much, "says Miguel Ferrer, a biologist and president of the Foundation Migres." The environmental currents fundamentalists have much in common with faith-based schools. Every time you hear more discourse according to which man is the evil that causes destruction and should be expelled from the last paradises. "
However, the connection between ecology and religion is not so strange if we consider the concept neighbor, as Victor points Viñuales, director of the Foundation Ecology and Development: "Almost all religions have in the center the idea of \u200b\u200bothers. And if we expand the concept, who is your next? Today we know that in a global world the consequences of what we do here and now, affecting far away, both in space and in time. If we build a dam in a spectacular setting, our grandchildren and future generations can not enjoy it. Not only that, it will affect other living things that are dying en masse. Seen this way, there is a clear connection between religion and sustainability. "
One of the 200 ambassadors for Al Gore is John Negrillo. They met years ago during a visits the frustrated candidate for president of the United States to the Campus Party, the electronic entertainment event bringing together more than 8,000 young people in Valencia in late July and which is Negrillo organizer. He recalls that even then Gore took every occasion, like a dinner with friends, to rehearse his speech, the same thread makes his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. It was then that Malaga is engaged in the mission of the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked about the connection between his speech and religious feeling, Negrillo reflects: "All religions are rooted in faith, and in that sense it can confuse the message of environmental and climate protection religious one, because as we can not touch, smell, or even see the CO2 and is almost a matter of faith in the scientific community. "
The explanation sounds reasonable. But it can also be simply a matter of language, as Mosterín Jesus says the philosopher: "This language applied to ecology is simply metaphorical. Phrases such as punishment of climate change ... Are words without meaning literally, as when we say that a blonde girl who has golden hair. What is certain is that life is a phenomenon as rare and fascinating to understand that many people think it is a mission to preserve it. But it is not because we ordered an external authority. Einstein said that he did not believe in a god, but he was deeply religious because he was identified with the universe. "
flirting between ecology and spirituality, is not new. 1966 was a key date. That year he published Science and Survival, Barry Commoner, one of the foundational books of the ecological or environmental flows more or less religious inspiration. "The second half of the twentieth century looked at the rise of many religious movements, spiritual and spiritualists, characterized by a mix of elements different, "says the philosopher José Antonio Marina." One of them extended the ecological fervor of recent decades. For me, what matters are the factors that came together in the green spiritualization. Possibly from the hippie movement was born, his back to nature, joined with some Pantheism, then fashion, he turned to the Earth as a living being, with which established a mystical relationship. Be admired to the nature of ancient cultures, the Pacha Mama, respect for American tribes. "
" The Gaia hypothesis of Lovelock, worked, considering the Earth as a living thing must be respected " , says Marina. "theories such as Deep Ecology extolled the value of the plant world, to the point of comparing the clearing of a forest with the murder of Jews in a concentration camp. By the way, joined the ecological interest in ethics, which drew attention to the need to care for nature. And also the influence of Eastern religions, Buddhism as a light, which advocates universal compassion for all beings. Ecological spirituality is a wicker basket made many.
The author most famous of these currents is James Lovelock and his book Gaia, a new vision of life on Earth, which develops the idea that the Earth is a large living organism, an idea that has some religious because it is based on an intuition that goes beyond scientific reason. "When it was published, mid-seventies, there was a strong rejection, but is now widely accepted, "says Jorge Riechmann, professor of moral philosophy and vice president of Scholars for the Environment." It is not unusual to have some exchange between religious thought and green " he continues. "All the great religions share a sense of universal connection with the cosmos, immersion in everything."
But what environmentalists think of this? Most do not see points in common or you like the idea . 'My feeling is that there is no connection between ecology and religion. The approach is radically different and the message is not the majority that we have a mission, " Yayo says Smith, state coordinator for Ecologists in Action.
"It's not a question of religion, but of values," says Juan Lopez de Uralde, executive director of Greenpeace Spain. "I feel part of a social movement, city, trying to introduce into our values \u200b\u200bthings that were not taken into consideration, and respect for the planet, and should form part of the set of values \u200b\u200bin which we operate. And those values \u200b\u200bare both a lay person like a religion. They are not incompatible. There is some misuses of language in all this and in the pejorative sense, when the real truth is that if something pays homage to the society is consumerism and oil. "
The same argument also comes ahead of Smith:" Economic growth itself has become a religion. Western society and in the process of globalization, the purpose has acquired almost religious overtones is the financial gain at the expense of almost everything "
debate
The funny thing is that with few exceptions, the great religions have not given little attention to the ecology. "It is striking, but there is a strong official position," said Miguel Ferrer. "Catholicism For the family seems much more at risk than the planet itself." You may as of now this will change. In an unprecedented move, during the traditional Christmas message, delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, Pope Ratzinger made a discreet allusion to the problem of climate change. He said: "In the world grows ever more the number of migrants, refugees and evacuees is also due to frequent natural disasters, often caused by alarming environmental upheavals."
alarming environmental upheavals. A whole new approach in the usual papal speeches. So is the fact that the Vatican has decided to plant a forest in Hungary to offset or neutralize its CO2 emissions, like many large companies. Both groups, "are motivated by a genuine feeling of respect for the planet or as a form of advertising?
Juan Negrillo insists that, although we can not confuse ecology with religion, one should not ignore the underlying philosophical background behind the changes that we should meet to curb global warming. To support his argument, gives the example Negrillo a story that has a touch of fairy tale: "One day, a scientist from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (comprising more than 2,000 experts) told me a story that I think is very relevant. He said that when the panel began meeting, it is now a 20 years, the group was an elderly Japanese scientist who in one of the meetings intervened and said 'scientists have found that there is an emissions problem, but we can not solve. Since CO2 is produced by machines, we will call the engineers. These, in turn, say that technology exists to solve the problem, but that costs money, so that economists call. Economists say make their calculations and that to achieve this, we must change our current social model based on transport, energy waste ... so they call sociologists. These, in turn, say it is a problem scale of values \u200b\u200bthat they can not solve, so they will go to the philosophers to tell us what values \u200b\u200bwe should put our efforts and interest. "
Many of the items advertised this wise old man have been met. The engineers have years studying alternatives. In 2006, economist Nicholas Stern estimated the impact of global warming on the world economy. That our social model fails, I have made. You may be reaching the turn to philosophical questions, and hence ecology and spirituality seem closer now than ever.
CARMEN PÉREZ-LANZAC
14/02/2008 Climate change has mobilized scientists who study it, to engineers and economists are looking for technological solutions that measure. And start to catch also a spiritual dimension that is becoming, in the opinion of some, the new religion of XXI century. A new ecological spirituality. Messianic language and tools are used almost religious discourse break schemes and permeate public opinion more skeptical of past causes.
In late October last year, Al Gore arrived in Seville to discuss their movement against climate change, the Climate Project. Gore, 59, climbed on stage and played for the umpteenth time the speech enthusiastically been repeating for several years. That day, someone asked: "How are you able to repeat the same thing over and over again?" "Because I am a man with a sense of mission, so I can say the same things without losing strength, the illusion. Because I have a message I believe passionately, "he replied.
In its quest to reach the party, Gore, who is deeply religious, use phrases like" Noah was told to save the species alive today and this remains our obligation. "And before you lecture the disciples ambassadors as part of their movement, 1,700 around the globe, asked for a" spiritual connection. "
" The structure that Al Gore has organized it is almost religious, with disciples spread the good news, as Jesus Christ "reflects the biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro." Scientists usually insist on the need to rationalize the problems, but the truth is that it is vendible el mensaje emocional, sobre todo si implica a fuerzas superiores a nosotros. Ayuda a que la gente se mueva por algo que debe resultar parecido al sentir de la tribu antes ese dios mágico. A mí no me gusta esta forma de funcionar. Al Gore se considera un hombre con una misión, y yo de Mesías tengo más bien poco. Yo aviso de que algo está pasando y es la sociedad quién debe decidir qué hay que hacer. Sin embargo, soy mucho menos eficaz. Al Gore ha vuelto a demostrar que moviliza mucho más algo parecido a la fe que la racionalidad".
El de Al Gore es el ejemplo más visible, pero no el único. Frases como "Hay que salvar el planeta", "Tenemos una misión", "la culpa es del hombre (¿el sinner?) "," Climate change is coming "(is the punishment?) and do not sound so strange." The green message with religious components has permeated much, "says Miguel Ferrer, a biologist and president of the Foundation Migres." The environmental currents fundamentalists have much in common with faith-based schools. Every time you hear more discourse according to which man is the evil that causes destruction and should be expelled from the last paradises. "
However, the connection between ecology and religion is not so strange if we consider the concept neighbor, as Victor points Viñuales, director of the Foundation Ecology and Development: "Almost all religions have in the center the idea of \u200b\u200bothers. And if we expand the concept, who is your next? Today we know that in a global world the consequences of what we do here and now, affecting far away, both in space and in time. If we build a dam in a spectacular setting, our grandchildren and future generations can not enjoy it. Not only that, it will affect other living things that are dying en masse. Seen this way, there is a clear connection between religion and sustainability. "
One of the 200 ambassadors for Al Gore is John Negrillo. They met years ago during a visits the frustrated candidate for president of the United States to the Campus Party, the electronic entertainment event bringing together more than 8,000 young people in Valencia in late July and which is Negrillo organizer. He recalls that even then Gore took every occasion, like a dinner with friends, to rehearse his speech, the same thread makes his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. It was then that Malaga is engaged in the mission of the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked about the connection between his speech and religious feeling, Negrillo reflects: "All religions are rooted in faith, and in that sense it can confuse the message of environmental and climate protection religious one, because as we can not touch, smell, or even see the CO2 and is almost a matter of faith in the scientific community. "
The explanation sounds reasonable. But it can also be simply a matter of language, as Mosterín Jesus says the philosopher: "This language applied to ecology is simply metaphorical. Phrases such as punishment of climate change ... Are words without meaning literally, as when we say that a blonde girl who has golden hair. What is certain is that life is a phenomenon as rare and fascinating to understand that many people think it is a mission to preserve it. But it is not because we ordered an external authority. Einstein said that he did not believe in a god, but he was deeply religious because he was identified with the universe. "
flirting between ecology and spirituality, is not new. 1966 was a key date. That year he published Science and Survival, Barry Commoner, one of the foundational books of the ecological or environmental flows more or less religious inspiration. "The second half of the twentieth century looked at the rise of many religious movements, spiritual and spiritualists, characterized by a mix of elements different, "says the philosopher José Antonio Marina." One of them extended the ecological fervor of recent decades. For me, what matters are the factors that came together in the green spiritualization. Possibly from the hippie movement was born, his back to nature, joined with some Pantheism, then fashion, he turned to the Earth as a living being, with which established a mystical relationship. Be admired to the nature of ancient cultures, the Pacha Mama, respect for American tribes. "
" The Gaia hypothesis of Lovelock, worked, considering the Earth as a living thing must be respected " , says Marina. "theories such as Deep Ecology extolled the value of the plant world, to the point of comparing the clearing of a forest with the murder of Jews in a concentration camp. By the way, joined the ecological interest in ethics, which drew attention to the need to care for nature. And also the influence of Eastern religions, Buddhism as a light, which advocates universal compassion for all beings. Ecological spirituality is a wicker basket made many.
The author most famous of these currents is James Lovelock and his book Gaia, a new vision of life on Earth, which develops the idea that the Earth is a large living organism, an idea that has some religious because it is based on an intuition that goes beyond scientific reason. "When it was published, mid-seventies, there was a strong rejection, but is now widely accepted, "says Jorge Riechmann, professor of moral philosophy and vice president of Scholars for the Environment." It is not unusual to have some exchange between religious thought and green " he continues. "All the great religions share a sense of universal connection with the cosmos, immersion in everything."
But what environmentalists think of this? Most do not see points in common or you like the idea . 'My feeling is that there is no connection between ecology and religion. The approach is radically different and the message is not the majority that we have a mission, " Yayo says Smith, state coordinator for Ecologists in Action.
"It's not a question of religion, but of values," says Juan Lopez de Uralde, executive director of Greenpeace Spain. "I feel part of a social movement, city, trying to introduce into our values \u200b\u200bthings that were not taken into consideration, and respect for the planet, and should form part of the set of values \u200b\u200bin which we operate. And those values \u200b\u200bare both a lay person like a religion. They are not incompatible. There is some misuses of language in all this and in the pejorative sense, when the real truth is that if something pays homage to the society is consumerism and oil. "
The same argument also comes ahead of Smith:" Economic growth itself has become a religion. Western society and in the process of globalization, the purpose has acquired almost religious overtones is the financial gain at the expense of almost everything "
debate
The funny thing is that with few exceptions, the great religions have not given little attention to the ecology. "It is striking, but there is a strong official position," said Miguel Ferrer. "Catholicism For the family seems much more at risk than the planet itself." You may as of now this will change. In an unprecedented move, during the traditional Christmas message, delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, Pope Ratzinger made a discreet allusion to the problem of climate change. He said: "In the world grows ever more the number of migrants, refugees and evacuees is also due to frequent natural disasters, often caused by alarming environmental upheavals."
alarming environmental upheavals. A whole new approach in the usual papal speeches. So is the fact that the Vatican has decided to plant a forest in Hungary to offset or neutralize its CO2 emissions, like many large companies. Both groups, "are motivated by a genuine feeling of respect for the planet or as a form of advertising?
Juan Negrillo insists that, although we can not confuse ecology with religion, one should not ignore the underlying philosophical background behind the changes that we should meet to curb global warming. To support his argument, gives the example Negrillo a story that has a touch of fairy tale: "One day, a scientist from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (comprising more than 2,000 experts) told me a story that I think is very relevant. He said that when the panel began meeting, it is now a 20 years, the group was an elderly Japanese scientist who in one of the meetings intervened and said 'scientists have found that there is an emissions problem, but we can not solve. Since CO2 is produced by machines, we will call the engineers. These, in turn, say that technology exists to solve the problem, but that costs money, so that economists call. Economists say make their calculations and that to achieve this, we must change our current social model based on transport, energy waste ... so they call sociologists. These, in turn, say it is a problem scale of values \u200b\u200bthat they can not solve, so they will go to the philosophers to tell us what values \u200b\u200bwe should put our efforts and interest. "
Many of the items advertised this wise old man have been met. The engineers have years studying alternatives. In 2006, economist Nicholas Stern estimated the impact of global warming on the world economy. That our social model fails, I have made. You may be reaching the turn to philosophical questions, and hence ecology and spirituality seem closer now than ever.
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