Calvin B. DeWittNelson Institute

Laudato Si’ ---Care for Our Common Home

Published worldwide in a single day.Addressed to “every person on earth.”An impressively comprehensive treatise on understanding and caring for the Earth System

as Our Common Home

St. Francis:Patron Saint of Ecology

“Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.” (¶ 10)

He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. (¶ 10)

Laudato Si: On care for our common home An Encyclical Letter that ddresses:

climate change biodiversity loss ocean degradation atmospheric pollution & social degradation

Its 246 paragraphs reintegrate fragmented disciplines and specialties to propose

an Integral Ecology

Integral EcologyHuman Ecology & Natural Ecology come fully

together in “Integral Ecology, says Pope Francis. “Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for

the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.” (¶ 10)

He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. (¶ 10)

There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. (¶118)

There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology. (¶118)

Fragmentation of Knowledge:“fragmentation of knowledge and the

isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance, unless they are integrated into a broader vision of reality” (¶ 138).

Each specialty promotes its “isolation and the absolutization of its own field of knowledge”

—all of which “prevents us from confronting environmental problems effectively” (¶ 201).

My University of Wisconsin Assignment:

To Address the Problem of the

Fragmentation of the

Disciplines

The Wisconsin Idea views the boundaries of the University of Wisconsin-Madison as the boundaries of the state, and by extension, the boundaries of the biosphere and beyond. In this view the university consists of the people, the land,

and the systems that sustain planetary life—and thus the university is an institution in which theoretical

knowledge intersects with actual practice by people and institutions in the state and around the world.

Implementing the Wisconsin Idea means informing praxis with knowledge and informing knowledge with praxis.…

.....Discovery

Jill Baron, David Inouye, and Monical Turner

Posted by the Ecological Society of America from its Past-President, President, and President Elect --

ESA Past-President, President, and President Elect: Jill Baron, David Inouye, and Monica Turner“The Ecological Society of America commends

Pope Francis for his insightful encyclical on the environment. Addressed to everyone on this

planet, the letter issued on 18 June 2015 is an eloquent plea for responsible Earth

stewardship. “We hope his leadership will lead to serious dialogue among – and action by –the world’s religious, political and scientific leaders on the environmental challenges facing this and future generations of humanity.” -- • June 29, 2015 ---

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Friends Committee on National Legislation

Lutheran World Federation

National Council of Churches

Sisters of Mercy

MaryknollColumbanInterfaith Power &

LightNETWORKChurch World ServicePresbyterian Church

USACRC - Christian

Reformed Church in North America

… with website links to Laudato Si’:

Timmermans says the Christian Reformed Church affirms that the gospel must always be both proclaimed in word and demonstrated in deed, and that a central component of this task includes taking seriously God’s command in Genesis 2:15 to serve and to protect the rest of the created order and to exercise responsible stewardship

The Biblical Stewardship Commission “relación de reciprocidad”Fosters a “culture of care” (¶ 231)

that implies a reciprocal relationship (“relación de reciprocidad”)

“a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature” (¶67).

Reciprocal service (avad)

“Con-Service”

The Stewardship Commission Genesis 2:15 gives the Stewardship Commission to avad the Garden and to shamar it.

avad shamar Choose ye this day whom you shall avad… (Joshua 24:15)

(Numbers 6:24): The Lord bless you and shamar you…

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“This implies a “relación de reciprocidad” (mutual responsibility)between human beings & nature.” (¶67)

“Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence,

but it also has the duty to protect the earth & to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.”

(¶67) --Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis

The Stewardship Commission Genesis 2:15…to avad and shamar from garden to globe:

Mastery vs. Responsible StewardshipLaudato Si’ confronts “an excessive anthropocentrism” handed us as

“ a Promethean vision of mastery over the world which gave the impression that the protection of

nature was something that only the faint-hearted cared about” (¶ 116).

Laudato Si’ confirms the biblical commission of Genesis 2:15 --- understood “in the sense of

responsible stewardship”(¶ 116)

Con-Service We must return creation’s service to us with service of our own.

‘avad Genesis 2:15

The Con-Service Principle (“mutual responsibility between human beings & nature”)

—as a “culture of care” (¶ 14)Such caring relationship

opens us to awe & wonder, speaks of fraternity & beauty, & unites us intimately with all that exists (¶ 11).

It sees earth’s climate system as “a common good, belonging to all & meant for all

... a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life” (¶ 23).

Earth Stewardship as a Culture of Care from the 246 paragraphs of Laudato Si’

• the vulnerable (¶ 10)• all that exists (¶ 11)• creation (¶ 14, ¶ 211)• safeguarding species (¶ 42)• nature ¶ 64, ¶ 228)• the environment (¶ 64, 229)• neighbor (¶ 70)• our own lives (¶ 70)• a fragile world (¶ 78)• the world (¶ 144, 246))• indigenous communities and

traditions (¶ 146)• the land (¶ 146)

• the interior of homes of the poor (¶ 148)

• our body (¶ 155)• the ecosystem of the entire

earth (¶ 167)• our brothers and sisters (¶ 208)• the natural environment (¶ 208)• other living beings (¶ 211)• all creatures (¶ 213)• ecology (¶ 225)• the common good (¶ 225)• the quality of life for the poor

(¶ 232)

Parallel Actions on Integral EcologyEncyclical of Pope FrancisEcological Society of America’s

Earth Stewardship” Initiative (Chapin et al. 2015)Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency --- “RCP2.6” scenario -meets 2 KC cap (van Vuuren et al.

2011) Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change-IIGCC

representing US$24 trillion assets—support of 2 KC cap Papal Discussions and Talks in the U.S. (Sept 23-25, 2015)

White House, President Obama Joint Session of Congress United Nations

-*/+

Toward a Global Culture of Care

Global society is now in transition toward a global“culture of care.” This transition in many ways has been a stormy one, and is described well by Sir John Houghton’s The Eye of the Storm (2015).

Society is coming to understand earth’s climate system and has begun working seriously toward restoration of earth’s long-standing atmospheric carbonic temperature regulation.

This transition has made Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ required reading as the only comprehensive treatise on understanding and caring for the earth system as our common home.

And its title invites every person on earth to “gratefully admire the beneficent arrangement which permits the Earth to be clothed with verdure and abundant life.”

Earth Stewardship: Science for Action

to Sustain the Human-Earth SystemF. Stuart Chapin, III, Mary E. Power, Steward T. A. Pickett, Amy Freitag, Julie A. Reynolds, Robert B. Jackson, David M. Lodge, Clifford Duke, Scott L. Collins, Alison G. Power, and Ann Bartuska –--Ecosphere 2011

As Earth Stewardship advances, it should broaden the scope of ecology

& integrate it with other sources of knowledge & understanding

to stimulate new interactions & collaborations that add to basic research

& better guide the actions needed to shape a sustainable future.

Required ReadingRestoration of earth’s long-standing

atmospheric carbonic temperature regulation. This transition in knowledge and action made

Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ required reading as the only comprehensive treatise on understanding and caring for the earth system as our common home. And its title invites every person on earth to “gratefully admire the beneficent arrangement which permits the Earth to be clothed with verdure and abundant life.”

“…when media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply & to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard… ---Pope Francis (¶ 47)

“…the first rule of the criticism of books: you have to read them before you criticize them.” ---Wendell Berry

Pope Francis’ visit to the United States September 23-25 (W-F), 2015•White House Meeting

with President Obama, 9/23

•Speech to Joint Session of Congress, 9/24

•Address to U.N. General Assembly, 9/25

Take Home Talking-Points

• Integral Ecology• Culture of Care• Relación de reciprocidad

(Con-Service)

Decarbonization & Culture of CareWith these and other significant actions, world ecology and economy are moving toward global “decarbonization” and “culture of care.” Society is coming to understand

earth’s climate system and its inseparable integration within the earth system.

Society is coming to work seriously toward restoration of earth’s long-standing

atmospheric

carbonic temperature regulation

Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency --- The RCP2.6” scenario -meets the 2 KC cap (van

Vuuren and 18 other researchers 2011)This scenario reduced global IR-active gas emissions by 70% from 2010 to 2100 and by more than 95% in 2100-- a “technically feasible goal.”The Carbonic Thermostat:

Explanation of Scenario RCP2.6

The Long-Standing Stewardship Tradition Emerged in Antiquity

Ancients recognized the ordered cosmos and responded by working to sustain habitability

Developed in Classical Thoughte. g. Roman period: Varro, Columella &Pliny

Expressed by Early Church Fathers

The Long-Standing Stewardship Tradition Flickered & extinguished in the industrial revolution… Re-emerging in recent decades

in faith, civic, & scientific communities

Re-kindled on June 18, 2015 Laudato Si’ from Pope Francis

“Integral Ecology”

Requires that we now hear

“both the cry of the earth & & the cry of the poor.”

---Laudato Si’ - Pope Francis