Brad and Lori Martell are environmental educators. Lori is outreach director for Georgia ForestWatch, a citizen-based forest conservation nonprofit. Brad is working on his doctoral degree in environmental studies at Antioch University New England. They live in Ellijay, Georgia.

Reflection and Discussion Discernment Processes

Doctrine and Covenants 163 Commentary Series

The Earth Shudders in Distress

by Lori and Brad Martell

“The earth, lovingly created as an environment for life to flourish, shudders in distress because creation’s natural and living systems are becoming exhausted from carrying the burden of human greed and conflict. Humankind must awaken from its illusion of independence and unrestrained consumption without lasting consequences.” —Doctrine and Covenants 163:4b

For a moment we can forget everything outside this sacred forest where life flourishes abundantly. Eastern hemlock trees form an emerald cathedral of lace that renders the low-hanging winter sun in a shimmer of light and shadow. Nearby, crystalline waters slide over ancient stone, filling the air with a liquid song resonant with layers both crisp and hollow. Feathered flocks of busy little dark-eyed juncos have come to winter here, and something about their happy flittering is like giggles. In unseen places beneath rocks and fallen logs salamanders slip away into a season-long slumber.

In the forest we find peace, yet in the depths of our hearts there is a shuddering unrest. We are concerned for the future of this forest. We feel overwhelmed by what is at stake if the health trends of our planet continue. We struggle through the fear that makes our contribution pale in the face of all that needs to be done. And yet we feel the Spirit directing our lives, encouraging us to act on behalf of this lovingly created earth.

Doctrine and Covenants 163:4b is the most poignant counsel so far on the environmental crisis. It clearly states the earth is loved by God; it is being desecrated; and we must change the way we live. Our journey as people of faith is not complete without healing our relationship with the earth. We can start by understanding our belonging within the divine creation. The earth and everything in it is held in God’s loving embrace and filled with the Spirit—a belonging together in Christ that is the heart of sacred community.

In his book The Gift of Good Land, Wendell Berry reminds us that though we depend on the resources of the earth for life, the intention of how we go about living makes all the difference:

To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.—p. 281

Human greed and conflict arise from a focus on our belongings rather than our belonging. Our Western consumer culture offers false promises and instant gratification, and it assumes we will have infinite and controlling access to the world’s resources without regard for people and the environment. This disposable mentality and unrestrained consumption of resources has created a legacy of ecological decay and declining physical, emotional, and spiritual health for people.

To fulfill our mission to create communities of joy, hope, love, and peace, we must embody and act on the knowledge that social justice and environmental justice are inseparable. The impoverishment, marginalization, and persecution of human beings are interconnected with the distress of “creation’s natural and living systems.” Asthmatic children and acid-rain–stressed forests both struggle under the same polluted air. A river system impoverished with industrial pollution is intertwined with the families depending on its water for drinking, bathing, fishing, and growing food. Wherever the interests and rights of commerce take precedence over all else, people and places will be exploited unjustly.

Section 163:4b recognizes that this exploitation has reached dangerous levels and we teeter on the brink of lasting consequences. There are challenging times ahead as we endure the local and global effects of the damage already done. This includes major extinction of human cultures, animals, and plants, and legacies of deforestation, drought, glacial melt, and pollution that will affect many generations around the globe. Now, with the increasing impacts of global warming, the consequences threaten life on a hardly imaginable scale. Future generations could face hundreds of millions of refugees as sea levels rise; the extinction of a third of global species; extreme shortage of freshwater; a decrease in agricultural yield; and a dramatic rise in catastrophic weather events.

While Western nations are by far the greatest contributors to global warming, trends point to the consequences, placing disproportionate and heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries. As the climate changes, how are we as a people of faith going to support our brothers and sisters at home and throughout the world? What constitutes an appropriate Community of Christ local and international response to global warming? As we continue the discernment process necessary to address these questions, we need to understand the climate crisis and its implications.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created twenty years ago in response to concerns about global warming. It is a voluntary network of thousands of scientists from around the world with the goal to establish a worldwide consensus. Comprehensive reports that summarize current knowledge and future projections of climate change were released in 1990, 1995, 2001, and November 2007. Their message is increasingly urgent and clear:

• Human-caused global warming is real and is getting worse.

• It will get much worse if current trends continue.

• We can do something about it and we already know what to do.

• There’s no time left for delay.

• If we do nothing, long-term climate change would be likely to exceed the ability of natural and human systems to adapt.

The goal is to ensure that our planet remains capable of supporting life. To lessen the lasting effects of global warming, what we need to do is reduce greenhouse gases (the pollutants that cause global warming) at least 80 percent in the next few decades.

Some might say it is too late, but this is not the spirit of hope. Some fall into despair and do nothing, but this is not the path of the disciple. Christ, as our friend and mentor, serves as a constant reminder that God lives, hope lives, and miracles do happen in the world and in our own backyard.

As thoughts return to our [the authors’] own “backyard” here in the southern Appalachian Mountains, we pray for the future of the hemlocks that we love. A tiny sap-suck-ing insect (the hemlock woolly adelgid) hitched a ride from Asia and is killing hemlocks, moving southward from New England and now reaching Georgia. Warmer than normal winters appear to have intensified its spread, and the worst drought in recorded north Georgia history is an added stress. We are concerned for the future of all the life that depends on this one species of tree and all the people who directly or indirectly depend on the important ecological services hemlocks provide.

No one meant to bring that insect here—it was an unforeseen consequence of importing an Asian hemlock more than eighty years ago. No one meant to cause dangerous changes to the climate of our globe—it was an unforeseen consequence of putting too much carbon into the atmosphere from decades of the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. But here we are, and it is time to make amends.

As we seek answers and wade through these challenges together, we will engage in the work of remaking our world and the way we live, respecting ecological limits, and learning to control our impulse to consume ever more.

To salve the world’s wounds demands a response from the heart…. Making amends is the beginning of the healing of the world. These spiritual deeds and acts of moral imagination lay the groundwork for the great work ahead…. All people and institutions, governments, schools, churches, and cities need to learn from life and reimagine the world from the bottom up, based first on the principles of justice and ecology. Ecological restoration is extraordinarily simple: You remove whatever prevents the system from healing itself. Social restoration is no different. We have the heart, knowledge, money, and sense to optimize our social and ecological fabric. It’s time for all that is harmful to leave…. We are the transgressors and we are the forgivers.—Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest, pp. 188–190

Now, we must also be the healers. We must work together to

• dramatically reduce the amount of energy we consume;

• dramatically reduce pollution from vehicles and power plants;

• convince our legislators to (a) adopt effective policies to address global warming now, (b) remove policy barriers to implementing renewable energy, (c) stop fossil fuel subsidies and improve vehicle fuel economy, and (d) invest in and support the shift from fossil fuel jobs to renewable energy jobs.

The Community of Christ is among the host of vibrant witnesses moving toward a healing transformation of this world. The challenge before us is to reduce our carbon emissions in our homes and congregations, throughout our mission centers, and at International Headquarters. It is crucial that we, as individuals and as a body, engage in a transformative political dialogue with local and national decision makers, because we cannot get there if our choices are restricted by ecologically destructive policies. Let’s quicken our collective efforts and be in the forefront of ensuring that humankind will “awaken from its illusion of independence and unrestrained consumption without lasting consequences.”

The blue orb that is home to a mindboggling diversity of life reflects the love of the Creator. We are beautifully enmeshed in complex natural systems, all intricately interwoven in a sacred tapestry of life. We belong. This is our gift and our responsibility.