Transforming Cultures

Recently I watched Garbage Dreams, a new documentary that follows several teen boys of the Zaballeen—a group of Egyptian Christians living in Cairo that make their living sorting garbage and selling the salvageable scrap (Zaballeen literally means “Garbage People” in Arabic).

As the film demonstrates, this caste of people provide an incredibly valuable service to Cairo, recycling about 80% of trash—more than three times that of Wales, which these teens visit to “learn” from the Welsh sanitation services. While observing Welsh operations and examining all the garbage that isn’t recycled, they fairly note, “It’s a shame that we don’t live here—it’s a loss for this country.” I agree, especially since they do much of the same work with minimal technology (and thus less fossil fuel), with no support from the government (in form of trash fees), and without the aid of “source separation” where households separate recyclables from organic waste.

The movie reveals the lead conflict early on, when a multinational sanitation company arrives in Cairo to start dealing with the waste, even though the city has to pay these contractors and their recycling rates are clearly lower. A few of the young protagonists visit a landfill that is run by the company and are horrified by all the salvageable garbage being buried. The viewer can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the Cairo government had actually consulted with the Zaballeen and offered to give a small percentage of the fees they’re paying the sanitation company in the form of technology support. The Zaballeen’s efficiency would have probably shot up even higher, all at a fraction of the cost.

But while this conflict is frustrating to watch, especially since (spoiler alert) it doesn’t go very well in the end, what amazed me was how much these income-poor Zaballeen are consumers. Not only did they have all the trappings of consumers—electronic gadgets, hair gel and cosmetics, TVs, basketball shoes, and stereos, even while living in slums—but they acted as consumers too. Just one example: one of the protagonists, Nabil, describes at one point how his father was jailed for building him an illegal apartment on the roof of their building. He explains how, one day, after his father was jailed, Nabil thought about him while playing Play Station, and wanted to cry. But instead, he put in a new hit song that he bought, and felt better. That makes me want to cry. Consuming is such a good way to distract ourselves from painful moments, discomfort, boredom, etc., that we often have difficulty even dealing with these moments any longer, and retreat more and more into consuming.

But why I really was saddened by the film was that the filmmakers never drew attention to the realities of the consumer culture—the same one that the Zaballeen have joined and the same that much of the world’s people have too. Consumerism stimulates high consumption lifestyles, which not only generates massive mounds of trash but creates toxic waste, climate changing gases, encourages the exploitation of the poorest in the quest to get ever cheaper stuff, and leads to societal problems like the obesity epidemic. While a fascinating look at trash and one community’s struggle to maintain its livelihood, Garbage Dreams really missed the mark by not drawing attention to the root of this problem: a culture that makes it feel natural to consume (and waste) ever more stuff.

Pope Benedict has used his annual New Year’s addresses to talk about care for the environment, one of the reasons he is sometimes called “the Green Pope.” Part of his address this year focused on the need to overcome consumerism in advanced economies, as a prerequisite to creation of green economies.

“…the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our life-style and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view,” Benedict wrote. “We can no longer do without a real change of outlook which will result in new life-styles, in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments.”

The Pope Contemplates God's Creation

Concern over consumerism has been a feature of papal encyclicals on economics for decades. But such concern has traditionally focused on the degrading effect of consumerism on the human spirit. Benedict has added environmental decline as another reason to center economic policy around something more humane and fulfilling than consumer demand.

The critique of consumerism should be home turf for religious leaders. Of all the issues on the sustainability smorgasbord, consumerism is the one most familiar to the world’s religious traditions, as noted in this year’s State of the World report. Religious leaders, after all, have warned for millennia of the dangers of excessive attachment to the material world. Moreover, consumerism is perhaps the most intractable issue on the sustainability agenda; religious people and institutions advocating for simpler lifestyles would be seen as contributing constructively and substantively to the effort to build sustainable economies.

The challenge now for religious leaders is to take seriously their own teachings on consumerism and to do so in a sustained, culture-changing way.

Last weekend, diverse groups of people from all across the globe stood together with a united vision of leaving our children a quality of life equal to what many of us have been taking for granted in our own lives. It was a historic weekend of candlelight vigils and bells tolling in churches.

Somewhere around 3,000 cities and towns in all parts of the world held events proclaiming their support for a Copenhagen agreement that targets an upper limit of 350 parts per million of atmospheric CO2. Their thoughts were expressed by 350.org’s Bill McKibben: “The world can’t afford just any climate deal—we need a real deal that is fair enough to protect those bearing the brunt of climate impacts, is legally binding and enforceable, and is ambitious enough to get the world back on a path to 350.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and other faith leaders joined together for an interfaith celebration at which they rang the bells of Copenhagen’s Lutheran Cathedral 350 times. Churches in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and the U.S. also participated in the bell ringing.

Here in South Carolina, three cities joined their brothers and sisters throughout the world in making their voices heard. I attended a candlelight vigil held on the campus of Coastal Carolina University (CCU) in Conway, South Carolina. Organized by the Grand Strand Sustainability Network and the Coastal Carolina University Sustainability Initiative, the event brought together CCU students, area environmentalists, and representatives of the Five Rivers Friends Quaker Meeting and the Wellness Council for South Carolina. The involvement of such diverse groups highlights the understanding that the health of the planet affects all of us. Climate change is more than an environmental cause. In the words of Al Gore, it is “ultimately a moral and spiritual issue.” We are all dependent on the health of our planet and finding solutions requires us to build bridges that span the diverse perspectives through which we view our goals and values.

For information and photos of other events throughout the world, visit 350.org.

“Who’s Under Your Carbon Footprint?” asks a coalition of Catholics concerned by climate change, in a new ad in The New York Times. It’s part of a recent advocacy campaign brought on by the Catholic Climate Covenant reminding people of the connection between climate change and poverty, and calling on Catholics to reduce their carbon footprint and, subsequently, their impact on the poor.

That’s exciting news—as is the coalition’s effort to get people to take the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor, which asks people to reconsider their own lives, change their consumption patterns, and advocate for stronger action on climate change.

Certainly every bit helps, but how much will this new campaign make a difference? If the Catholic Church really stands behind this message, it will need to encourage people to make not only the little changes—such as the type of light bulb they use—but also more dramatic reductions in their consumption levels, perhaps even a reconsideration of God’s call to “Be Fruitful and Multiply.” In this full world, where Americans on average consume the resources of 9.4 people living in a poor country, this will mean consuming dramatically less and multiplying somewhat less energetically.

Will the Catholic Climate Covenant be willing to go this far, even at the risk of alienating a share of believers? For good or for ill, the Catholic Church has not shied away from controversial issues—you know the ones I’m referring to—so perhaps it will be willing to step into the ring on an even more taboo subject: questioning our perpetual growth economy and consumer culture.

But that’ll take a few things:

First, the Church will need to fully understand the stakes. Climate change is expected to disrupt society dramatically and possibly cause the death or displacement of hundreds of millions of people. Considering that many of the Church’s adherents are in Africa and Latin America—places that will probably be hardest hit from these ecological and political disruptions—this becomes not just an issue of justice but one of self-preservation.

Second, this will need to be a truly heartfelt campaign. Is this Catholic Coalition sincere, or is it just attempting to reengage less excited Catholics and make Catholicism more relevant? If sincere, then this is the exactly right moment to act. We have a window of less than a decade to stabilize the Earth’s climate, we have an international climate agreement coming up at the end of this year, and we have an economic recession.

Preach a message of simplicity and charity and help people transition away from a culture of consumerism, and in 500 years the Catholic Church might be celebrated as one the most important voices at humanity’s moment of reckoning. It might even be remembered as a central player in helping to pull humanity down a new path—one where faith and responsibility led us to a more equitable, charitable, and sustainable future.

Both of these are big “ifs” that few of even the leading climate advocates have fully considered. And whether the Catholic Church will internalize this message itself, only time will tell. But considering the stakes, let’s pray that it does.