Interdependence

INTERDEPENDENCE

To get us thinking:

 God’s Touch by Bruce Eppery.   “From the perspective of ecology, systems thinking, and the new physics, the universe is a dynamic community of interconnected energy events in which each unique being arises from the influence of the whole universe.  Amid the complex interplay of pattern and novelty, the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in California influences the weather patterns in Washington, D.C.  Physicist David Bohm asserts that the universe is a ‘holoverse,’ or undivided whole, in which the whole is present and reflected holographically in each part, and the part shapes the character of the whole. [. . .] Love rather than alienation is essential to reality, according to the emerging metaphysical, theological, and scientific world view” (Epperly 109 - 110). 

Decisions that we make every day affect people around the world.  From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, from the cars we drive to the temperature control in our homes, our choices connect us to far away people and places in hundreds of hidden ways.  In the ever expanding reality of globalization,  our lives are intertwined with the lives of others in a complex network stretching around the world and pulling us inescapably together. This planetary order that reaches beyond ethnic, cultural, religious, economic, social, and political boundaries to facilitate the easy production and exchange of marketable goods has created a new arena for social conflicts and environmental destruction.  Many of us have tried, like the proverbial ostrich, to bury our heads in the sand pretending that we are absolutely independent.  We believe that we can live emotionally and economically isolated from God, the rest of humanity, and even the earth were we live. Yet, we all share the same air and water, we all must obtain the same basic elements to survive and to thrive, and we all have the need to be in relationship.  God is constantly reminding us through the beautiful and terrible lessons of nature that we are all  unique parts of a bigger whole.

            It is Christmas time and summer in southern hemisphere.  Every day on the weather report, besides noting the constant climb of the temperature, there are red letter  radiation warnings about the sun’s ultraviolet rays.  We are told to use sunblock, long sleeves, hats, and sunglasses.  There are recommendations that children not play outside in the hours of the day when the sun is directly overhead.  We are warned about cataracts,  skin cancers, and damage to the immune systems of our bodies as the plants shrivel and the sheep die.  We live under the hole in the ozone layer.

Far above the earth, a gaseous band in the atmosphere called the ozone layer protects plants and animals from overdoses of the sun’s powerful ultraviolet rays.   Scientists unexpectedly discovered in 1980s that this layer has thinned dramatically over the south pole and that all of the circumventing countries have suffered the effects of increased radiation.  The production and use of cloroflourocarbons (CFCs), invented in the 1920s by people working for the General Motors company, in air conditioning and refrigeration units, in the making of certain kinds of foam and plastics,  in aerosols,  in different solvents, and for sterilizing was found to be the cause of ozone reduction.   CFCs are extremely stable gases that can remain for more than 100 years in the lower layers of the atmosphere.  Each atom of CFC released can destroy up to 100,000 molecules of ozone.  In the past 20 years or so, there have been decreases of up to 50% registered in the ozone layer above Antarctica.  Perhaps one of the most serious effects of the resulting increases levels of radiation will soon appear in the ocean where many species of plankton, at the base of the marine food chain, have drastically lower levels of reproduction.

An international agreement called the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1989 and renegotiated in 1990 and 1992, calls for the reduction and, eventually, no more production of CFCs.  The countries most seriously affected by the hole in the ozone layer have continued to call on the rest of the world to respond to their plight and slowly the hole seems to be repairing itself.  Chile,  for example, which is one of the countries most seriously affected, does not make any CFCs and represents only a .07% of the world consumption.   Meanwhile, the countries of the northern hemisphere are the greatest producers and consumers of CFCs.   The decisions made by individuals and communities in the north influence the health and well-being of those in the south, and ultimately, because the earth is an interconnected web,  affect their health and well-being.  The decrease in the ozone layer has meant that the whole surface of the earth, north and south, is receiving increased levels of radiation.

Globalization has always existed in nature, whether we were aware of the intricate threads of interdependence or not..  The consequences, however, of economic and political globalization have led to an ever increasing rift between consumers and earth’s resources, between those few who hold the reins and whip of power and those millions who haul on their backs the load of  goods to the world marketplace.   Shalom, as an invitation to participate in the healing of human and earth communities, is also call to recognize our interdependence even as we experience the benefits and negative results of globalization.   Our decisions made as individuals or local communities travel rapidly along the threads of interdependence to heal or to destroy the global web of life.