IN time forgot, an early morning drive in the South Expressway was a pleasurable one—you could keep your windows open and breathe in the cool crisp air and enjoy the view, the clear blue skies, Laguna Lake, and in the distance, Mount Makiling capped by frothy white clouds. Today you have to keep your car windows closed in a vain attempt to save your lungs from the pollution of smoke-belching buses and the emissions from the factories that line the east and west sides of the expressway.
This scene, repeated n times in various ways elsewhere, is the reason there is a mounting concern for what is to happen to planet Earth, our only home. Over the years, countries—in efforts to raise standards of living, satisfy their people’s needs, discover and use new technologies, as well as achieve geopolitical ambitions—have increasingly depleted their resources and destroyed the natural environment on which their sustainable development depends. Climate change, pollution of air, water, and soil resources impact on the economy, whether developed or developing, and pose risks to the present and future generations.
Laudato Si Mi Signori (Praise be to thee, my Lord), the Encyclical of Pope Francis, comes again as an urgent reminder to policy-makers and individuals that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life, and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. Today this sister cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her through our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods God has endowed us, for which we must remember that we are her stewards, not her lord and master, which we are entitled to plunder at will. Do we realize that we breathe her air and receive life and refreshment from her waters, that we ourselves are dust of the earth to which we eventually will return?
This encyclical is already being attacked, just as Evangeli Gaudium was, because of the notion that Pope Francis once attain reproves the capitalist system (he was even accused of being a Marxist) and its overdependence on free markets and the self-serving idea of the “trickle down” effect (which he says has not been validated by fact). But is it not true that international responses have been weak, and as the Holy Father says in paragraph 54, “The failure of global summits on environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.”
Another wake-up call is found in paragraph 21, “Account must be taken of the pollution produced by residue, including dangerous waste. . . . Each year, hundreds of millions of tons of waste are generated, much of it nonbiodegradable, highly toxic and radioactive, from homes and businesses, from construction and demolition sites, from clinical, electronic, and industrial sources. The earth, our home, is beginning to look more like an immense pile of filth.”
Francis spoke of the urgent need for a radical change in humanity inasmuch as the rapid scientific and technical advances that have accomplished economic growth are a potential for ecological catastrophe unless they are accompanied by authentic social and moral progress.
The destruction of the human environment is extremely serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to us, but because human life itself is a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement. Indeed, he says that there has to be a change in lifestyles, models of production and consumption, and the established structures of power which today govern societies.
There is interdependence between the economy and ecology, but because of narrowly defined objectives and separate fields of responsibility, the protection of the environment is not coordinated with policies for economic development. It is necessary to integrate the concerns of the environment with policies and programs that target economic growth, and the government should ensure that its key national and sectoral agencies coordinate their efforts in targeting developmental objectives which are ecologically, as well as economically, sustainable.
The government should use a wider array of policy instruments, both direct and indirect, which are market-based, as well as public finance policies, including “command and control” regulations, such as effluent charges and the requiring of permits; regulations on emissions; equipment and processes; incentives such as taxes and subsidies; or direct government expenditures on purification, cleanup, waste disposal, or development of appropriate technologies. The destruction of rain forests, exploitation of natural resources, the amounts of toxic chemicals that pollute the soil and water resources, and the emission of gases that produce the “greenhouse effect” that have led to raised temperatures are problems faced not only by the Philippines but also by other countries.
In fine, the protection and preservation of the world environment will come about if sanctions imposed by governments and market incentives are put in place, first at the national levels (charity begins at home), and second, harmonized at the international levels. Countries must believe and demonstrate that environmental protection and economic prosperity are not “either-or” choices, and that the economy and ecology are not incompatible, but are indeed interdependent. Otherwise, our future generations may never have an inkling of the pleasures of a clear day, the natural purity of water, and the beauty and bounty of nature that was only given to us by God as stewards of His creation.