The Global Resource Crisis And The Right Of The Poor Against Environmental Degradation
Creators: name: Brenna, Christopher E J
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017

description: I begin with two caveats. First, I realize that, in the face of 335 months of record high temperatures, global drought, shrinking polar ice caps, the collapse of oceanic ecosystems, deforestation and desertification, wildfires which threaten to deforest the American Southwest, increased volcanic and seismic activity, the consequences of climate change, scientifically verified and overwhelmingly accepted as due to human activity on the planet, some people remain unconvinced that the activity of billions of people has anything to do with the unusual weather we have been having. I understand the trauma it causes to hear these realities presented. I will not only assume the veracity of the science of climate change, but insist that the people in this room, including me, are culpable especially for this reality. I apologize if this causes substantial distress to anyone. I assume that everyone here is especially culpable because I assume that everyone here is wealthy. I understand I am speaking to \" poor \" students. I know that there's a great deal of uncertainty about the future and a compulsory austerity involved in being a graduate student. But we are none of us starving, freezing to death, in want of clean drinking water, dwelling in squalor, at risk of contracting malaria, or, most importantly for today's subject, wholly without the capability to recover from the devastation of natural disasters. The impetus for this address came from my own desire to find within Christian thought both a means to identify the victims of climate change and a conduit for their protection. We're all both responsible for global warming and victims of the consequences of our behavior. But poorer nations are less capable of countering the consequences of climate change, and therefore, these nations are extraordinary victims of climate change. I wanted the means to identify victims and the conduit for their protection to be suited to the task of defending the poor, and I wanted it to be grounded in Christian thought, specifically in the theology of my own tradition, Orthodoxy. Outline of Presentation So, I believe that the language of rights is the constructive means to identify victims and protect them from harm. Rights language can secure protection for the victim of environmental degradation from those who show themselves eager to serve their own greed. I propose today that all people have a right against environmental degradation, and that the poor have a special claim-right against wealthy people, corporations and nation states who exploit natural resources and commit environmental crimes. I will build my argument by drawing on the theology of Maximos the Confessor and the ecological theology of modern Orthodox hierarchs and patriarchs to establish a theological basis for an environmental right, by which all creation is imbued with a right to become what it is meant to be in the Eschaton, that is, to be driven toward its final purpose in Christ. This establishes the right of all people to an environment free of pollution.