Creation — the bad news
In 2009 I self-published a book based on my years of research on islam and the environment (‘199 ways to please God, how to [re-]align your daily life with duty of care to Creation’ [out of print now; ISBN-10: 184426629X; ISBN-13: 978–1844266296]) … with an update in mind, am here going to first share the ‘old’ version bit by bit. As a third post: the bad news news!
The Bad News*
“Corruption has appeared in the land and sea for that men’s own hands have earned, that God may let them taste some part of what they have done […]” (Ar-Rum/ The Romans [30] 41)
According to Iyad Abumoghli (Senior Environment and Knowledge Management Adviser, United Nations Development Programme) “[t]he Qur’anic term “fasad” [corruption] includes destruction of both the environment as well as man’s own destruction.” He adds: “Corruption is a serious matter in Islam where it represents the mismanagement and destruction of the balanced system God created. The Profeet has requested Justice, as part of a good governance system, in several occasions: ‘If you rule people, rule in justice’.”
The bad news is that several major issues are coming to a head and, left unchecked, could threaten the future viability of the planet, of God’s Creation for which we have been left in charge. They are climate change, peak oil, natural resource overexploitation and major population growth. As Velma Cook muses on her website (www.islamicgarden.com): “When I first came to Cairo I used to stand at my seventh floor balcony and look over the misty, polluted sky containing an endless horizon of cement buildings. It made me feel somewhat depressed and often claustrophobic! So I’d think about the past of this place and the beauty that man’s hand turned into ugliness. Yet hope remains if we, as Muslims, can align our lives with Islam and rise above the evil that surrounds us.” Or as Seyyed Hossein Nasr puts it “the environmental crisis has deep spiritual, philosophical, and religious roots and causes.” The metaphor that will bring the message home most graphically, however, is that as presented by Abdalhamid Evans (Director of Research and Intelligence, KasehDia, Malaysia) in a talk at a conference in 1987 about just trade: “Let us imagine that we are looking at the body of a crime victim. Multiple injury, heavy duty GBH [Grievous Bodily Harm, as used in English criminal law], rape and robbery of an unprecedented nature. The victim’s condition is serious, critical, but there is still life. It’s not yet time for an autopsy, but it soon will be, if something is not done. […] The victim is the planet and its inhabitants, the people, animals, plants, oceans, forests, the air, earth and water. Life itself.”
Climate change
“Behold, your Lord said to the angels: “I will create a vicegerent on earth.” They said: “Will You place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood? — while we do celebrate Your praises and glorify Your holy (name)?” He said: “I know what you know not.”” (Al-Baqarah/ The Cow [2] 30)
Human activity — particularly the burning of fossil fuels — has made the blanket of greenhouse gases around the earth ‘thicker’. The resulting increase in global temperatures is altering the complex web of systems that allow life to thrive on earth, such as cloud cover, rainfall, wind patterns, ocean currents, and the distribution of plant and animal species. The complexity of the climate system means predictions vary widely, but even the minimum changes forecast could mean frequently flooded coastlines, disruptions to food and water supplies, and the extinction of many species. This is not just the conclusion of some extremist green groups but of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN’s IPCC). It has taken six years to compile, draws on 29,000 pieces of research analysed by 2,500 scientists from over 130 countries. Or as the UK Royal Society succinctly puts it: “We know from looking at gases found trapped in cores of polar ice that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are now 35 per cent greater than they have been for at least the last 650,000 years. From the radioactivity and chemical composition of the gas we know that this is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, as well as the production of cement and the widespread chopping down (and burning) of the world’s forests” (according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation [FAO], during the 1990s the world’s total forest area shrank by 9.4 million ha — about three times the size of Belgium — each year). Note that 650,000 years includes some ice ages, so small changes in average global temperatures make a huge difference… and this time we are going for the opposite of an ice age.
Very worryingly, according to peace group International Alert, a total of 46 nations and 2.7 billion people are now at high risk of being overwhelmed by armed conflict and war because of climate change. A further 56 countries face political destabilisation, affecting another 1.2 billion individuals. Much of Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Or as UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon exemplified in June 2007 ”amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.”
And even according to NASA (again, not an extremist ‘greeny’) in May 2007 found that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet. If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones. While the researchers say it is still possible to achieve an ‘alternative scenario’ they note that significant actions will be required to do so. Emissions must begin to slow soon. With another decade of ‘business-as-usual’ it becomes impractical to achieve the ‘alternative scenario’ because of the energy infrastructure that would be in place. Research by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the EU, showed that global emissions of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases increased by 75 per cent between 1970 and 2004 to about 45,000 megaton CO2 equivalents.
There have been successful efforts at land reclamation (the creation of new land where there was once water). Notable examples are the polders of the Netherlands, the southern Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Macau and the city state of Singapore. It is, however, an expensive and risky undertaking. It is thus often only considered in places that are densely populated and/ or flat land is scarce. A related practice is the draining of swampy or seasonally submerged wetlands to convert them to farmland. While this does not create new land exactly, it allows productive use of land that would otherwise be restricted to wildlife habitat. In some parts of the world, new reclamation projects are restricted or no longer allowed, due to environmental protection laws. For example, draining wetlands for ploughing is a form of habitat destruction and ignores other misunderstood purposes of wetlands, such as ‘flood busters’.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report published in March 2005 (a five-year study by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries) estimates that up to sixty per cent of the ecosystems that support life on earth are being degraded or used unsustainably. As the report makes clear, most of this damage has been done in the last 50 years. “Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted,” the report says. Between 1960 and 2000, the world population doubled from three billion to six billion. At the same time, the global economy increased more than six-fold, the production of food and the supply of drinking water more than doubled, and the consumption of timber products increased by more than half.
There is little better news for the state of the soil: the UN estimate that at present 70 per cent of drylands and about 25 per cent of the total land area of the world is undergoing desertification (“land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting mainly from adverse human impact.”).
According to the IPCC there are multiple mitigation options, for example in the transport sector, but their effect may be counteracted by growth in the sector. And mitigation options are faced with many barriers, such as consumer preferences and lack of policy frameworks. According to research by the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) every month for the last 10 years was hotter than the average for the entire period between 1880 and 2007. Not 51 per cent, 90 per cent or 99 per cent of them. Every single month.
We might feel smug as it is China, not us, being the worst polluter in the world…but that is partly as they have 1.3 billion souls (so their per capita pollution is still nowhere near that of the UK, let alone US) and secondly much of what they produce, we buy and by blaming China for the pollution we are, according to a New Economics Foundation published in October 2007, turning China into our “environmental laundry” with devastating consequences for the planet.
Pioneered by William Rees (1943 — CE) and Mathis Wackernagel (1962- CE) in 1996, the ecological footprint approach has become one of the most widely referenced sustainability analysis tools around the globe. Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) is used to calculate the land area needed to sustain human consumption and absorb its ensuing wastes. Comparing the footprint of a given population in a discrete area with the amount of biologically productive space available to that population provides a way to estimate whether or not a population’s consumption is sustainable. Ecological footprints and bio-capacity are expressed in “global acres.” Each unit corresponds to one acre of biologically productive space with “world average productivity.” To calculate a nation’s footprint, we use official statistics tracking consumption and translate that into the amount of biologically productive land and water area required to produce the resources consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated on an annual basis. Because people use resources from all over the world, and affect faraway places with their pollution, the footprint is the sum of these areas wherever they are on the planet. And if this footprint is larger than the earth’s ‘carrying capacity’, it is just like somebody who goes into overdraft with his bank. While he will not immediately think he is in financial trouble, if he continues to stay in overdraft (and worse so, continually increases his overdraft), his bank will ultimately take him to court and have him declared bankrupt. So too Muslims as guardians of the Earth, if we neglect to keep up our duty may not immediately feel repercussions for running up an ‘ecological debt’, but if we continue like this could easily be replaced by a new people (like happened to the people of Ad and Thamud before us and is mentioned in the Quran, apparently some 22 times, as a warning for us — both were powerful tribes in their respective times and lands — Ad were “endowed abundantly with power” and Thamud were “settled firmly on earth” — but they arrogantly abused the power given to them by God, and were destroyed by an environmental cataclysm.). The destruction of the She-Camel in itself is not the reason God destroyed the nation. Rather, it is the destruction of His Special Sign which had been sent to them, such destruction symbolising their utter denial of God as the One to whom they will return, and tawheed (unity of Creation) as the religion that he ordained.
The annual number of natural disasters has more than doubled in the past decade. In the 1990s, an annual average of 354 natural disasters occurred throughout the world. Between 2000 and 2004, this figure more than doubled to an annual average of 728. The number of people who are forced to migrate as a consequence of these environmental disasters (that is, environmental refugees) already approximates, and may soon dwarf, the number of people who are forced to migrate for political reasons (that is, the UNHCR ‘persons of concern, currently estimated to be 20.8 million people). Indeed, research by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies indicates that more people are now displaced by environmental disasters than war. And according to a paper drafted for the European Council in March 2008, there are three main threats posed by climate change that will impact the EU significantly: conflict over resources, increased migration, and what happens to oil, gas and fishing resources if borders and territories change, or disappear beneath the sea? How to assess and adjudicate territorial claims, political tensions are bound to rise.
And though the world’s richest countries have together pledged nearly 18 billion USD or 12.5 billion GBP in the last seven years to help the poorest countries cope with the consequences of climate change, despite world leaders’ rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than 0.9 billion USD of that pledge has been disbursed.
Use of fossil fuels and peak oil
“To whom I granted resources in abundance, And sons to be by his side! To whom I made (life) smooth and comfortable! Yet is he greedy-that I should add (yet more); By no means! He has been stubborn to Our revelations. Soon will I visit him with a mount of calamities! For he thought and he plotted; And woe to him! How he plotted! Yes, Woe to him; How he plotted!” (The Cloaked One [74] 12–19)
Fossil fuels are energy resources that come from the remains of plants (reminds me of: “He who produces for you fire out of the green tree, so that, lo! you kindle [your fires] therewith” Yaseen/ Yaseen [36] 80) and animals. These remains are millions of years old. There are three fossil fuels: petroleum oil, natural gas, and coal. Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource as they take millions of years to develop under extreme conditions. Once they are gone, they can no longer be part of our energy mix. This cheap and abundant supply of energy changed the world in then unimaginable ways, leading to the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade and agriculture. The peak of oil discovery was passed in the 1960s, and the world started using more than was found in new fields in 1981. The gap between discovery and production has widened since. According to Colin Campbell (40 years experience in oil business), “[t]he term Peak Oil refers to the maximum rate of the production of oil in any area under consideration, recognising that it is a finite natural resource, subject to depletion.” For the gas industry, peak gas output could come sooner than expected, “maybe not too different from peak oil,” Shell executive vice president John Mills told delegates at a conference in Abu Dhabi in November 2008.
And what I find incomprehensible, is that we seem collectively suicidal (which is against Islam: “…Nor kill [or destroy] yourselves: for verily God has been to you Most Merciful!”, Al-Nisa/ The Women [4] 29) as current subsidies on oil products in non-OECD countries are estimated at over USD 90 billion annually. Some of these subsidies are presented as development aid, but as End OilAid, a diverse coalition of organisations working together to end oil aid and address the issues at the intersection of oil dependence, climate change, and international debt, states: “For more than 25 years, wealthy countries have been using aid and other foreign assistance to subsidize the expansion of the international oil industry, a practice known as “Oil Aid” […] Our international development dollars should be spent on climate change adaptation, alleviating poverty, or clean renewable resources, not on subsidizing a profitable and polluting industry.”
As first expressed in Hubbert peak theory (after M. King Hubbert, 1903- 1989 CE), peak oil is the point or timeframe at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached. After this timeframe, the rate of production will by definition enter terminal decline. According to the Hubbert model, oil production will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve. Though of course the only reliable way to identify the timing of peak oil will be in retrospect, most peak-oil experts state this will be between 2007 and 2020. Numerous observers believe that because of the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural and industrial systems on inexpensive oil, the post-peak production decline and possible resulting severe price increases will have negative implications for the global economy. After ‘cheap oil’ there are ‘unconventional sources’. Experts say that this extra oil supply is likely to come from expensive and environmentally damaging unconventional sources within 15 years, according to a detailed study published in February 2007 by Wood Mackenzie, respected adviser to the energy industry for over 30 years. Unconventional sources, such as heavy crude oil, tar sands, and oil shale are not counted as part of oil reserves until oil companies can book them as proven reserves after they finish a strip mine or thermal facility to extract them. Worse, according to Matthew Simmons, an industry banker: “it takes vast quantities of scarce and valuable potable water and natural gas to turn unusable oil into heavy low-quality oil. In a sense this exercise is like turning gold into lead”. He said this in February 2007, at the International Petroleum Week in London.
Sadad al-Huseini (former head of exploration and production, Saudi Aramco) in October 2007 stated that global production had hit its maximum sustainable plateau and that output would start to fall within 15 years, by which time the world’s oil resources would be “very severely depleted”. Even Jeroen van der Veer (Chief Executive, Royal Dutch Shell) in January 2008 acknowledged that the end of the oil era is almost upon us, and sooner than you might think: “Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand.” This was just over a week before Shell announced annual profits (not turnover) of £13.9 billion, a record for a British company.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its World Energy Outlook 2008 (published in November 2008) estimates that world energy demand will increase by some 45 per cent between 2006 and 2030 if policies remain unchanged. Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA, stated at the launch: “[c]urrent trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically and socially — they can and must be altered. […] the growing concentration of production in a small number of countries, would increase our susceptibility to supply disruptions and sharp price hikes. At the same time, greenhouse-gas emissions would be driven up inexorably, putting the world on track for an eventual global temperature increase of up to 6°C.” But with more than 50 of the 100 largest economic entities in the world being companies (whose aim is profit), not countries; and of the 10 largest companies, 5 selling cars and 3 selling oil, you can imagine that Upton Sinclair’s “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” comes to mind.
I am interested in the link drawn between slavery and cheap fossil fuels/ tackling climate change: J.F. Mouhot (research fellow, Birmingham University, UK) amongst others has studied the double parallelism between a) the convenience brought to us by fossil fuel powered machines and the convenient life slaves brought to slave owners and b) the moral assessment of the harm of burning fossil fuels on a large scale and of slavery: it was recognised it was bad, but reasoned away by stating that tackling slavery/ climate change would be too disruptive, thus worse than using slaves or exploiting natural resources. We survived the official abolishment of slavery (though I believe there is still too much bonded labour around to not make Islamic encouragement to free slaves outdated); I am sure we can survive our addiction to fossil fuels, if we decide to ‘detox’ quickly.
Natural Resource Exploitation
“When it is said to them: “Make not mischief on the earth,” they say: “Why, we only want to make peace!”” (Al-Baqarah/ The Cow [2] 11)
The Quran reminds us that each species of animal is a “community” like the human community. It then stands to reason that each and every creature on earth has, as its birth-right, a share in all the natural resources. In other words, each animal is a tenant-in-common on this planet with human species. As human species we are the guardians of Creation, but within the limits of submitting to God. Instead, as always, God knows us very well, as we are using the blessings in an unsustainable way, slowly killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. This leaves us, and the rest of Creation, exposed and vulnerable to natural disasters.
According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), if everyone in the world consumed natural resources and produced CO2 at the rate we do in the UK, we would need three planets to support us. Obviously we only have the one. The first step in reducing our impact on the planet is to understand how our everyday lives affect the environment; our ‘ecological footprint’, a tool that measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes under prevailing technology. Every action impacts the planet’s ecosystems. This is of little concern as long as human use of resources does not exceed what the Earth can renew. But are we taking more? Today, humanity’s Ecological Footprint is over 23 per cent larger than what the planet can regenerate. In other words, it now takes more than one year and two months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year. Turning resources into waste faster than waste can be turned back into resources puts us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.
The concept of ecological debt is the basis for Ecological Debt Day (Earth Overshoot Day), the date upon which the sum of global annually renewable resources has been consumed for the year. This is calculated using the global ecological footprint: the total area required to sustainably feed consumption, divided by the global bio-capacity (the amount of area available to feed that consumption) and multiplied by 365 (the number of days in a year). The first Ecological Debt Day occurred in 1987, and has steadily been moving earlier into the year, being 9 October in 2006 and 23 September in 2008. Ecological Debt has also been applied to highlight the disparity between industrialised nations, which consume a greater share of the global resource pool, and developing nations, who despite their greater share of the global population, consume less. For more on ecological debt, check www.ecologicaldebt.org.
Some ecosystem changes such as increased food production have helped hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but also have negative effects. Degradation of ecosystem services is harming many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, and is sometimes the main factor causing poverty. Poverty in turn tends to increase dependence on ecosystem services. This, plus population growth, can lead to additional pressure on ecosystems and a downward spiral of poverty and ecosystem degradation. For example, the Yemen National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan presented in January 2005 mentions in its summary that “[t]he medium and long-term economic development of Yemen is very much dependent upon the appropriate management and sustainability of the limited resources in the country.”
From the Rapid Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment of Tsunami-damage in terrestrial and marine coastal ecosystems of Ampara and Batticaloa Districts of Eastern Sri Lanka done by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “Extensive stands of mangrove appear to have played a positive role in buffering the inland landscapes from the tsunami by reducing the energy of the incoming waves and absorbing the tsunami waters into a network of mangrove creeks and channels. Agricultural lands such as rice fields, roads, human settlements and buildings were observed to be relatively undamaged in those sections of the coastline which had continuous thick stretches of mangroves” In January 2008 the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a report) stating the world has lost around 3.6 million hectares (ha) of mangroves since 1980, equivalent to an alarming 20 percent loss of total mangrove area.
United Nations University (UNU) experts in June 2007 stated the loss of soil productivity and the degradation of life-support services provided by nature pose imminent threats to international stability. One-third of all people on Earth — about 2 billion in number in 2006 — are potential victims of desertification’s creeping effect. And, left unchecked, the number of people at risk of displacement due to severe desertification is an estimated 50 million over the next 10 years — a sweep of migrants worldwide equal in number to the entire population of South Africa or South Korea. According to the UNU “land use policy reform is urgently needed to halt overgrazing, over-exploitation, trampling and unsustainable irrigation practices, as are policies to create livelihood alternatives for dryland populations”. The research was based on input of 200 experts from 25 countries who met in Algiers (Algeria) at the end of 2006. I heard an interesting metaphor which really brings the message home: in certain areas of Sudan, the desert is advancing at some 12 kilometres a year. If this were some enemy invading our country by even 500 metres, we would call for UN Resolutions and an immediate cessation of hostilities. But when it is difficult to show it on TV and it does not affect us directly, we often shrug and say ‘well, stuff happens’.
Some countries, especially the poorest, are forced to overexploit their natural resources, kill their livelihoods, due to the need to raise funds in ‘hard currency’ to pay off international (sometimes odious) debts. So it would be hupocritical for us to tell countries like Brazil and Indonesia to just stop felling their forests; we should first see the link with international debt (the world’s poorest countries pay almost 100 million USD every day to the rich world) and look at the bigger picture. For more information on this, check www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk and www.publishwhatyoupay.org
Exponential Population Growth
“There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end.” (Al-Anam/ Livestock [6] 38)
We are monopolising the space of the earth. The human population has remained about stable at around one million for thousands and thousands of generations. Since the Industrial Revolution it has started to rise markedly: though in 1800 CE the world population had not yet reached one billion, and by 1960 the world population was still under three billion, by 2007 the world population has risen to 6.6 billion. By 2050 (within most of our lifetimes!) this is estimated to reach more than 9 billion, though with 27.4 per cent of the world’s population being below 15 years of age (as according to the 2006 CIA World Factbook), some say this could be 11 billion. This means that the generation born immediately after WWII will experience the global population grow from 3 to 9 billion. I fear this will be devastating for life on earth, for the future of the survival of the rest of Creation, but do not just take my word for it. As the UK Royal Society states that while the human population has increased fourfold, in the last 50 years the global economy has quintupled in size, placing considerable pressure on the world’s natural resources.
According to the United Nations World Population Fund’s ‘State of the World Population 2007’, in 2008 the world reached an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people (more than the total world population just over 40 years ago), are living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to swell to almost 5 billion. While the world’s urban population grew very rapidly (from 220 million to 2.8 billion) over the 20th century in western countries, the next few decades are expected to see an unprecedented scale of urban growth in the majority world. Unfortunately cities also embody the environmental damage done by modern civilization (environmental refugees due to desertification often flee to cities). So far, world attention has centred mostly on immediate concerns, problems such as how to improve living conditions; how to generate employment; how to reduce cities’ ecological footprint; and how to administer increasingly complex urban systems. These are all of course important questions, but according to the UN they shrink in comparison with the problems raised by the impending future growth of the urban population. Poor people will make up a large part of future urban growth. This simple fact has generally been overlooked, at great cost. Most urban growth now stems from natural increase (more births than deaths) rather than migration. On the issue of population, big numbers can seem just that, bit numbers. However, I realised how fast our world population is increasing when I was listening to an anniversary programme on the radio at the occasion of 60-years after partition. Just 60 years ago the population of what now is India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was 400 million. In just 60 years this has grown to 1,449 million or a multiplication of more than 3.6 times. All this on a planet which has not grown nor cannot grow. Or as the Environment Society of Oman states “The rapid population growth in many countries has resulted in too great a demand on natural resources. This is especially true of desert countries such as Oman, where fertile soil and water are severely limited.”
Such continued growth is unsustainable (according to www.islamicpopulation.com there were 1.6 billion Muslims in 2007 so we are part of this) and an increasing interest is now being given to the topic. For example, the ‘Islamic Declaration on Sustainable Development’, presented at the first Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers held in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) in June 2002, and issued in due time for the Earth Summit (the unofficial name of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED) which was held later that year in Johannesburg (South-Africa), mentions that one of the major constraints to sustainable development (article 5) is “[o]verpopulation, particularly in cities of developing countries and the deterioration of living conditions in shanty towns and an increase in the demand for resources, health and social services.”
A last, but important, note on this topic is to note that a child born in the US has an eco-footprint ten times that of a child born in for example Yemen or Indonesia and a child born in the UK will put ten times more pressure on world resources than an Afghan or Bangladeshi child, so though countries can have local reasons to alleviate the burden on the environment, there are also global ones.
Conclusion
“When the Earth is shaken with a violent shaking, and the Earth throws out her burdens, and man says: ‘What has befallen her?’ — on that Day she shall tell her story!” (Al-Zilzalah/ The Earthquake [99] 1–4)
As observed by the Global Ethics and Religion Forum (http://gerforum.org), a closer look at the current environmental crisis reveals an underlying problem: the broken relationship of the majority of human beings (including Muslims), with the natural world. Technological solutions to protect the environment are part of the answer to the problems facing us, but cannot in themselves be sufficient. The deeper problem it seems is that the majority of humans have lost their sense of the sacredness of nature and their understanding of the interdependence of natural and human flourishing. The bad news is thus that we have lost the connection. Thus A. Karim Ahmed (Director of International Programmes and Secretary-Treasurer, National Council for Science and the Environment, USA) titled his contribution to the Forum ‘Nature out of balance: ecosystem degradation, poverty and human health’. A film on this, called Sacred Planet was due to come out in 2009 (not to be confused with a film of same name from 2004, though also worth watching)
The good news is that it is something that lies within our power to change, which this book hopes to convey and contribute to by sharing teachings, reminders and practical ideas on how to achieve a more sustainable future and, God willing, please God. Because we need to remember that ultimately, none of the five major aims (maqasid) of the Shariah (protection of religion, life, mind/ intellect, offspring and property) can be sustained if the world’s environment — God’s Creation — does not allow for survival. But though no-one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new end.
So, as Parvez Manzoor, a Swedish-based Muslim writer and thinker, in a review of Touch of Midas asks: “[c]an we…check this threat to our planet simply by introducing stricter legislation against pollution, industrial waste and nuclear spill? Can we reverse the degradation of our environment by adopting conservationist policies on both national and international levels? Or could it be that the whole ecological imbalance betokens the spiritual and teleological crisis of modern civilization itself? Does it require fundamental revision of our own way of life, our cherished goals, indeed our very conception of ourselves and the world?”
*Where I am copying the introduction/ text verbatim, some references may no longer work.
