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A Water Ethic to Renew the Earth
Psalms 24:1-2
The earth is the Lord’s and all that it holds,
___the world and those who live there.
For God founded it on the seas,
___and established it over the rivers.
Introduction
The world is running out of clean water. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development last year in Johannesburg, South Africa, a sufficient supply of clean water was one of the critical and immediate issues facing the governments of the world. The connection between lack of clean water and overwhelming poverty is great:
• 40 percent of the world’s population has no access to safe drinking water.
• 80 percent of disease in two-thirds of the world is related to poor drinking water and sanitation.
• One-third of the world’s households must use water sources outside the home.
• Half the world’s poorest countries will face moderate to severe water shortages by the year 2025.
What factors cause water crises?
• Cumulative pollution of aquifers and water sources by agricultural, industrial and mining waste.
• Reduction in water-retention capacity of the earth’s soil, primarily due to the destruction of 80% of the earth’s forests.
• Excessive water consumption and wasteful overuse in the North.
• Degradation of the environment and loss of natural resources on which people in rural and remote areas depend for livelihood.
• Effects of global warming and climate change, leading to rising sea levels, altered seasonal patterns, and debilitating impacts on freshwater resources.
What is the Christian’s response to the growing scarcity of clean water? The time is coming when even those with the ability to pay will feel the thirst that poor and impoverished groups have always suffered from a lack of clean water. Last year, after Bishop David Ricken of Cheyenne, WY, became board president of NCRLC, he raised the issue of water on our list of rural life priorities. He was responding to the needs of farmers and ranchers in the mountain west and northern and southern plains who continue to suffer from the devastating drought of the past year. Besides climatic reasons, water shortages are occurring as freshwater reservoirs are depleted faster that they can be replenished. Amidst these problems, we watch with alarm as the privatization of water resources becomes the "rational solution" to the public matter of water management and distribution.
A Water Ethic Workshop
NCRLC decided to explore the issue of water during the 2003 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, DC, organized every February by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Our intent was to focus on the management and distribution of quality freshwater here in North America, where competing interests are already positioning themselves for control over future water supplies. More than this, we wanted to develop a Christian perspective, based on Catholic social teaching, that would help us examine and respond to water issues. This required an articulation of principles that would set the framework for a "water ethic" (similar to a "land ethic" that enriches the sustainable agriculture community).
The Water Workshop drew 33 participants from 16 states ranging from Alaska to Florida and New York to California. Many of the participants are social justice workers from their respective dioceses. We sought to interactively explore and contemplate the role of the church in helping to assure a sustainable supply of quality freshwater for God’s creation. To this end, the workshop examined water resource policies in the light of sacred scripture and Catholic social teaching. The goal was to frame a vision of a just and sustainable water policy for the future. This vision is still evolving and will be widely publicized as part of the program work of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. This document presents the outcome of the workshop after the prepared presentations, when participants discussed a socio-spiritual vision, the public and personal challenges to that vision, and a realistic framework for social action.
{Tim Kautza and Robert Gronski of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference prepared this document based on the proceedings of our Water Ethic Workshop.
Please contact us if you have questions or comments: ncrlctk@mchsi.com }
A Water Ethic for a Sacramental Commons
Principles of a Water Ethic
Challenges to Social Action
Social Projects: A Beginning
Conclusion
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