Michael Zielinski
Michael Zielinski is a 3L at William & Mary Law School.[1] This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate (ELRS).
I. Introduction
In 1971, the Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez published his seminal work, A Theology of Liberation, in which he advocated an activist approach to Christianity based on the belief that it is only through living in solidarity with exploited and impoverished populations that all people can ultimately become free from all forms of injustice, oppression, and suffering.[2] Recognizing that “the signs of the times,” demanded a theology that synthesized spiritual contemplation and direct action,[3] Gutiérrez identified Christ’s description of the Last Judgment as the foundation of this call to solidarity with the poor[4]:
I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came unto me…insofar as you did this to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me.[5]
More than three decades later, Pope Francis used similar language of liberation when he declared climate change to be the imperative moral issue of our time, asserting “the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.”[6] Moreover, both Gutiérrez and Pope Francis identified rampant consumerism and a self-centered notion of economic progress as the greatest contributors to deplorable conditions in the developing world. Just as Gutiérrez descried social and economic poverty as “the fruit of injustice and coercion” sown by wealthy nations and force-fed to poorer ones,[7] so too Pope Francis lamented that human beings frequently seem “to see no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for immediate use and consumption.”[8]
Liberation theology, although most strongly associated with the Catholic Church in Latin America,[9] is not uniquely Catholic, or even uniquely Christian. Rather, the concept of liberation is a facet of all religions that challenge the injustice and poverty that are the byproducts of neoliberal economics.[10] Moreover, though the term “liberation” often carries a religious connotation,[11] liberationist principles can exist even within secular ethical theories, notably environmental justice,[12] that do not expressly use the term “liberation.” Similar to how liberation extends beyond the bounds of religion, steadily growing concerns over climate change and other environmental problems are also not confined to religion,[13] let alone any particular religion.[14] The twenty-first century is witnessing the emergence of a new ecological conscience, and as the world’s largest economic power, the United States has the opportunity to place itself in the vanguard of a global environmental movement toward greener and more sustainable practices.[15]
Rising sea levels, unpredictable weather, and dwindling natural resources make it increasingly difficult to maintain the notion that nature is beyond our ability to hurt and its bounty beyond our ability to deplete.[16] Americans’ changing attitudes and behaviors regarding sustainability in this Anthropocene era[17] indicate a sobering realization that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions have created a tragedy of the atmospheric commons.[18] Increasing awareness of the magnitude of climate change and other pressing environmental concerns has begun shifting our collective environmental values toward an ethical posture that acknowledges the continuity and interdependence of all life,[19] thus laying bare the logical conclusion that our mistreatment of the natural world translates into mistreatment of the poor, who are especially vulnerable to environmental harms.[20] The mutability of environmental ethics, however, strains against the intractability of environmental law, whose overreliance on economic principles and stilted doctrine has locked it into a narrow and anthropocentric outlook that perceives environmentally responsible practices solely as instrumental, rather than intrinsic, goods.[21]
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