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O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour. You have given them domain over the works of your hands; you have put all tings under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
When we hear talk of creation care, this psalm reminds us that it is a mandate, a delegated gift that we are called to care for creation.
In light of that call, let me share 2 examples of areas of concern with regards to the mandate of caring for creation.
First, of course, is green house gas emissions. Data from 2011 shows that Canada was the leading carbon dioxide emitter per capita IN THE WORLD! Over a period of 20 years, Canada was responsible for 2% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. In the period between 2011 and 2015 Canada maintained its position as a 25 emitter. China was responsible for 28%, the United States for 15% and India for 6%. What impact will continued development have as China continues to build its modern industrial machine, and as India and other countries begin to significantly increase their capacities to emit carbon dioxide?
Second, is plastic. In 2016 China received 70% of the world's plastic 'recyclables': 7 millions tons of the stuff, 700 000 tons of which came from the United States. Why China? In large part because most of the plastic sent there is too expensive, too labour intensive, and just too hard to recycle by 'first world' countries. In 2017, China began to crack down on plastic imports. By January 2018 China was accepting less than 1% of 2016 levels. So where did all the plastic go? To Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. At the last count there were more than 40 000 shipping containers full of hard to recycle plastics sitting in ports in Malaysia and Thailand. While it was illegal in China to import all these plastics, Chinese businesses started up in Malaysia and Thailand where politics were less stable, labour regulations were lax, and almost no one was monitoring the health effects of dumping, poorly recycling, and mostly burning the world's waste plastic.
And there is the issue. We cannot, as Christians, have a theology of the environment, a way of understanding our mandate to care for creation, without including at its center human dignity.
Allow me to share two stories, Canadian stories, of environmental failure born out of a failure to honour human dignity.
Attawapiskat. The Attawapiskat First Nation resides in Northern Ontario near the mouth of the Attawapiskat River on James Bay. The water treatment on the reserve failed, and has been failing for some time. Reverse osmosis and chlorination have been attempted, but the chlorination level necessary to make the water safe to drink makes it unsafe for human consumption. The inevitable result, apart from sickness, has been anger, shame, hopelessness, and helplessness among the people of the Attawapiskat First Nation. Drinkable water procured in an environmentally sustainable manner is a creation care issue. People forced to live without it is a human dignity issue.
Grassy Narrows. The Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation live on the Grassy Narrows reserve. Due to industrial poisoning of the water with mercury in the 1960s and 1970s nearly 90% of the people of Grassy Narrows exhibit symptoms that include chronic preventable illness, psychological stress, and trauma. Azraya Ackabee-Kokopenace lost her brother, Calvin, to complications due to mercury poisoning in 2014. Chayna Loon, Azraya's cousin, said this in response to Calvin's death: "We could all be dying. We probably are, already, and we don't know what's going to happen because nobody is helping." In 2016, at the age of 14, Azraya walked out of a Kenora hospital where she had been taken by police and was never seen alive again. She is a part of the MMIW inquiries and a young, human casualty to a reality in which lack of environmental care collides with a lack of concern for human dignity.
Psalm 8 speaks of earth and of people. The psalmist speaks of a bulwark created by God to stand against enemies. This bulwark is drawn from the mouths of babes and children. Interesting that a call to care for creation begins with a declaration that God uses the voices of children to defend God's people against the enemy and the avenger.
One such voice has been and is Great Thunberg. Greta is the teenager who started school strikes for climate change in Sweden. Since then she has become a globally recognized voice in the fight against climate change. In Greta's TED Talk, she says this: "Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. And it has to start today." Greta has been met around the world by support and partnership and cheers, especially from children. She has also been met by ridicule and disparagement from many who are in power.
Greta is important in her own right as a person. She is remarkable as a youth and as a leader on the world stage. I mention her here because she is a Psalm 8 activist. Greta represents all of the people who have the most to lose because of a lack of environmental care. And Greta represents all of the people who have the least power to effect change in large scale action and in significant policy making. And Greta is a child, and so she represents all of the children from whose mouths God will establish "a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger."
Maybe it's time we started listening to these same voices. Maybe it's time we took to heart and took action for environmental care and for human dignity. Maybe it is time that we understood that creation care includes all of creation, and is inseparable from Jesus' statement, "whatever you do to the least of these, you did to me."