Article 1

The Human Footprint and Friends Testimonies

by Ed Dreby, with Keith Helmuth and Margaret Mansfield

In 1968, the Apollo 8 Astronauts took the first photographs of the earth from space and spoke of what it was like to see our planet from afar for the first time, “…a tiny, lovely, and fragile blue marble hanging in the blackness of space….” These photographs may come to be a symbolic if not pivotal event in modern society’s evolving perception of the human-earth relationship.

Quaker Kenneth Boulding is best known to Friends as author of the Naylor Sonnets and a proponent of peace studies. In the wider society Boulding was a prominent economist. He was among the first in his field to call attention to the limitations of existing economic concepts, for the earth that had suddenly become, under human dominance, much smaller and more fragile. As early as 1965, he wrote:

“In the imagination of those who are sensitive to the realities of our era, the earth has become a spaceship, and this, perhaps, is the most important single fact of our day. For millennia, the earth in men's minds was flat and illimitable. Today, as a result of exploration, speed, and the explosion of scientific knowledge, earth has become a tiny sphere, closed, limited, crowded, and hurtling through space to unknown destinations….

It is not only that man's image of the earth has changed; the reality of the world social system has changed. Earth has become a spaceship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed. In what we might call the "old days," when man was small in numbers and earth was large, he could pollute it with impunity, though even then he frequently destroyed his immediate environment and had to move on to a new spot, which he then proceeded to destroy.

Now man can no longer do this; he must live in the whole system, in which he must recycle his wastes and really face up to the problem of the increase in material entropy which his activities create…. Man is finally going to have to face the fact that he is a biological system living in an ecological system, and that his survival power is going to depend on his developing symbiotic relationships of a closed-cycle character with all the other elements and populations of the world of ecological systems.

Two centuries earlier, the spiritual and ethical insights of another Friend, John Woolman, reached a level that we would call ecological understanding. He observed the physical and spiritual harm that came from economic exploitation: to the exploiter as well as to the exploited people, animals, and land. He saw “the seeds of great calamity” embedded in the pursuit of wealth and power, and in the economic institutions through which these ends were pursued.

“Wealth desired for its own sake obstructs the increase of virtue, and large possessions in the hands of selfish men have a bad tendency, for by their means too small a number of people are employed in things useful; and therefore they, or some of them, are necessitated to labour too hard, while others would want business to earn their bread were not employments invented which, having no real use, serve only to please the vain mind….”

Woolman’s views were dramatically opposite to those of moral philosopher Adam Smith, who published The Wealth of Nations a few years after Woolman’s death. In his analysis of the free market system, Smith maintained that the collective actions of individuals acting in their self-interest serve the best interests of society as a whole. In so doing, he launched the study of economics as an emerging discipline.

The evolution of economics as a discipline has in many respects paralleled the evolution of the economic institutions it studies - of markets, private property, money, banking, corporations, and government. These institutions developed in tandem with new technologies based on the advances of science, which led to the evolution of industrial civilization.

The benefits of industrial culture have been truly stunning. Over the past two centuries, industrialization has provided many people with better food and health, a much higher standard of living, and opportunities for the cultivation of individual and societal talent, creativity, and fulfillment. But these benefits have come at great cost to many other people. They have also brought about a more rapid conversion of the earth from an “empty illimitable space” to a “full small sphere” in which human activities tend to be disruptive of earth process.

It is almost 40 years since Boulding identified the need to adapt our society and economy to a smaller and more crowded earth. Many people are now aware that human economies are interfering with earth process. Policies have been developed to “protect” the environment. But only a few economists have begun to consider what must be done to fit the now global economy into a limited biosphere. Unlike Boulding, most economists and public officials assume that what worked in the past will solve the problems we face today.

There are now two clear and related trends in the human-human and human-earth relationship:

• Activities that damage the earth's ecological integrity continue to expand and environmental disruption, social breakdown, and threats to the health of humans and other species increase;
• Financial wealth and claims to the earth’s resources are concentrating in the possession of the already wealthy, while the conditions of life steadily worsen for many impoverished people.

The conventional wisdom that now guides much of economic policy lacks a coherent approach for dealing with either of these related realities.

What is it that makes economics a matter of spiritual concern? Economic activity has become an all-encompassing web of relationships. As such, it is a place of continuous spiritual as well as material exchange. Our spiritual traditions teach us, above all else, that God is present in relationships. The quality of all our relationships and serving the spirit of compassion and justice in economic life is vital to the deepest meaning of religion. The economy of human service work is explicitly based on relationships of meaningful or impoverished spiritual exchange If we take right relationship as the ethical compass of our spiritual tradition, then economic behavior, policies, and institutions are squarely within the circle of legitimate concern.

If it is difficult to see the connection to the life of the spirit in a concern for economics, it may help to ask a simple question about the human-earth relationship: "What does the Creator really have in mind?" The question may seem a bit odd, but doesn’t it simply ask “what kind of economics would nurture the integrity and resilience of the whole of life as God creates it?” Scientifically oriented economists would not pursue it as phrased, which illustrates the difference between science and religion. It tells us exactly what religion is for, and why we need to bring the religious and ethical perspective into the study and practice of economics.

In 1996, the Earthcare Working Group (EWG) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting came to clearness and unity of purpose that has guided our work to the present: advancing a Friends’ witness on ecology and public policy to help transform our society’s human-earth relationship. From the beginning we knew that “…simplicity is not enough.” Current economic policy is at odds with ecological sustainability. But we were also clear about the need to first ground our broader concern within the Yearly Meeting.

As we became involved with Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), we discovered that FCNL’s witness for peace and justice often tends to stop at the swamp’s edge of economic policy. One of us who asked a question was once admonished by a seasoned member of the FCNL General Committee, “Friends do not agree on economics.” Yet, if economics is a hinge issue for peace, justice, and transforming the human-earth relationship, Friends need to enable FCNL to deal with economic policies.

Then, at EWG’s first meeting after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, it came to us, almost as an epiphany, that whether or not we were well enough grounded within the Yearly Meeting, advancing a specific concern for economics could wait no longer. We are now doing this in collaboration with Quaker Eco-Witness for National Legislation. A six-to-eight session curriculum, Quaker Eco-101: Exploring Economics and Friends Testimonies in an Ecological Context, is in preparation to serve as a tool for churches, meetings, and others. We hope you will use it as the “next step” beyond this chapter in considering what Friends should be doing about economic policies in light of our testimonies.

Illustrative Activity

Our Ecological Footprint

by Ed Dreby and Hollister Knowlton

(Based on Our Ecological Footprint by Wackernagel and Rees. 1996. New Catalyst Bioregional Series New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C.)

Purpose

To illustrate the trends of increasing pressures on ecosystems, and extremes of wealth and poverty, by comparing differing lifestyles in terms of the amount of land that is used to support them.

Definition

Ecological Footprint (see chapter 8 for the Ecological Footprint quiz) is a rough estimate of the amount of land per person that would be needed in order for renewable resources to provide all the food and water, shelter, possessions, energy, and other physical requirements, including the recycling of wastes, of a particular lifestyle.

Explanation

This idea, first used by William Rees and more fully developed by his student Mathis Wackernagel, is to determine how much biologically productive land area is needed to supply all the resources and absorb all the wastes generated on a continuing basis by a particular population or lifestyle. Although a population occupies a territory, it uses resources from all over the world. The ecological footprint is the combined size of these areas, wherever they may be on the planet. The idea was first applied to a region. For example, the region that includes Vancouver, B.C., where the concept was initially developed, uses resources requiring 19 times as much land as the region itself. London, which is more densely populated, would need a land area 200 times the size of the city. The per capita footprint is calculated by dividing the size of the population into the total land area required to supply it.

Wackernagel, Rees, and their colleagues, have now calculated “ecological footprints,” expressed as land required per person, for numerous cities and countries, based on the total number of people and total consumption of goods and services. “Ecological footprint” can also be used as a way to illustrate the relationship between the total human use of the earth’s resources and the earth’s carrying capacity, and also what an equitable distribution of the earth’s resources would be.

How much useable land is there? What is the “fair share”?

The total Earth surface area is a known quantity—approximately 126 billion acres. The exposed land surface area is roughly 36 billion acres. Subtracting for land that is desert, built over, paved, or covered by ice or fresh water, there remains about 28.5 billion acres available to share.

With 6-1/2 billion humans, if we were to share equally (on a sustainable basis, with no space for wildlife) there is enough land for each human to use the goods and services provided by 4.5 acres. How much are we humans actually using?  Who is using how much?

How do Friends testimonies relate to these questions?

In addition to the calculations that have been done for various cities, regions, and nations, you can calculate your own footprint at two different web sites: www.earthday.net/footprint/info and www.lead.org/leadnet/footprint. Remember that ecological footprint is a rough approximation, not a rigorous measure, and that the size of a particular person’s footprint is determined by a combination of personal decisions made by individuals, and societal decisions over which individuals have little control.

Ecological Footprint Exercise

Preparing for the Exercise and Discussion

• Using the chart below, prepare enough index cards for the size of the group (unless it is too large).
• Prepare one card for “World Average” (5.7 acres) and for “Fair Share” (4.75 acres)
• On the other cards, write the name of a country, and the average per capita footprint size. Paperclip one piece of scrap paper for each acre to the card (8-1/2 x 11 is a good size). With a small group, be sure to include at least the cards for World Average, Fair Share, U.S., Germany, China, and Mozambique. (Persons given cards with small footprints can receive multiple cards).
• Read with participants the definition of ecological footprint, and review the concept and where the total of 28.5 billion acres comes from. Show them the paper and explain that 1 sheet = 1 acre. Sheets can be folded to approximate partial acres.
• Give each participant a card, ask them to lay out the paper —edge to edge— to represent the “footprint” of the country card they are given, and then to stand by it.
• When they are ready, point to various participants and ask them to introduce themselves (by country) and tell their footprint size. Save Average and Fair Share for the end.
• Ask participants for observations and thoughts. If they need prompting, ask:

Questions

1. What do you notice about the Fair Share versus the World Average?
2. Which countries are using less than the fair share?
3. Why is the US average so high?
4. Are there ways we can reduce our footprint?
5. What do our Quaker testimonies tell us about this situation?

Some Key Points

• It would take about 1¼ Earths to sustain the existing human footprint.
• It would take more that 2 Earths to sustain all 6 million humans if the per person footprint becomes the average of the people in industrialized nations.
• It would take more than 3 Earths to sustain all 6 million humans if the per person footprint becomes the average of the people in the U.S.
• The difference between the U.S. average and the industrialized nation average is primarily because of the greater per person use of energy in the U.S.
• Differences in the size of the footprint within nations are comparable to the differences between nations.
• As the human population grows, the Fair Share becomes smaller.
• As the size of the human economy grows, the world average becomes larger.