EARTHKEEPING
NEWS
A NEWSLETTER
OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY
Volume Fourteen, Number Five
September / October 2005
On Biocide and Geocide
What is happening now is of a geological and biological order of magnitude. We are upsetting the entire earth system that, over some billions of years and through an endless sequence of groping, of trials and errors, has produced such a magnificent array of living forms, forms capable of seasonal self-renewal over vast periods of time.
We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself.
Perhaps a new revelatory experience is taking place, an experience wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of the earth process. Humanity has not participated in such a vision since shamantic times, but in such a renewal lies our hope for the future for ourselves and for the entire planet.
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