Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

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Vanishing Species
• 1850-1950
• 1989
• 2000
1 animal species per year
1 per day
1 per hour
• Within 50 years, 25% of animal and plant
species will vanish due to global warming.
Source: Prof. John Van Klinekn, Groningen University, Germany
floods and storms. The present “fossil fuel-based economy” with its strong
emphasis on accelerated economic growth, that disproportionately
benefits the already rich, undermines life as we know it on planet earth.
This must be changed.
The ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I, did not shy away from calling
this “a sin that deeply violates God’s good will, God’s steadfast love for
life, for human beings and the whole of creation”. 16 The consequences of
climate change remind us that we belong together. What one group does
here has an effect on another group there. We are one human species. We
are called to live in just and sustainable relationships with each other for
the benefit of all - including future life on planet earth. It is a scandal if
one group or one country sees itself as being above others or as not belonging
to this earth community.
Eco-justice is not only an ethical and political demand. The struggle for
eco-justice is a strong expression of the spirituality of resistance of
Indigenous communities and those who are in solidarity with them to
protect the earth and its resources for present and future generations. Those
who suffer now in both poor and rich countries are re-visioning and renegotiating
their interaction with creation in order to live out eco-justice,
in the interests of as yet unborn generations.
Struggles over water are at the heart of people’s resistance to neo-liberal
globalization and their quest for transformation, not as an intellectual
exercise but as an urgent imperative for survival. The best example of
16
Cf. his message to the 6 th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Climate
Change in 2000, in the Hague.