Earth stewardship,economic justice,and world mission: The teachings of Laudato Si’

Stewards of creation

What does the Bible have to say about the climate crisis that today threatens the continued existence of the human race? What does it have to say about the way we should relate to the world we inhabit? As God’s stewards, what is our responsibility towards the Earth? How can Scriptures provide a new ray of hope towards the promise of shalom as the fullness of justice, peace and the integrity of creation? ¹

The biblical understanding of stewardship is an important theme that can help in dealing with the challenges that missionary churches are facing today as the world is confronted by global emergencies: massive poverty, unending wars and conflict, and global environmental destruction. “Steward” in the biblical context refers to an overseer who is responsible for the goods and property of another. A steward is therefore not the owner, but one who has a responsibility to an owner to treat goods and property with care and respect. Stewardship refers to the responsibility of a supervisor to manage wisely what is entrusted to him. The unjust steward was one who took advantage of his position for his own selfish ends (Luke 16:1–13). ²

In Christian teaching, stewardship has come to refer to our responsibility to manage wisely the goods and property that are in our possession. In reality, we do not really possess or own anything. Rather, the whole world, including us, belongs to God, and it is the height of arrogance for human beings to think otherwise. Therefore, we are only stewards of all that comes into our area of responsibility—wealth, property, goods, time, talents, and our very own selves. Faithful stewardship is management of these things as a sacred trust. This biblical understanding of stewardship is the principle that should guide our care for God’s creation. ³

Today the idea of steward has been applied in its most original and fundamental meaning to refer to our human responsibility to care for the Earth itself (Gen. 1–2). We have failed to be responsible stewards of the Earth and this has led to the current ecological crises threatening global climate stability and the biodiversity of plant and animal species, and endangering even the human species. Ecological problems also include the pollution of the air, the poisoning of the land, the pollution of fresh water, and billions of tons of plastic that pose a hazard to the health of the oceans. The loss of forest and arable land in alarming proportions has tremendous implications for food security. Human population, now approaching 8 billion, is placing unbearable stress on every ecosystem on the planet. ⁴

As we believe in Christ as Lord and Savior, we also believe that God created the universe, including our own planet. This planet is now under threat. Scientists estimate that in the next 100 years, between one- to two-thirds of all species of plants and animals might become extinct. The atmosphere and oceans are heating up due to the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This global ecological crisis is the effect of a distorted view people have of the world, themselves, and each other, and of Christians’ wrong understanding of stewardship. ⁵

Stewardship relates to the care for creation. While Gen. 1:26, 28 can be interpreted to mean “to subdue and have dominion” over creation, Gen. 2:15 also tells us to serve and guard it. This world does not belong to us to use for our own selfish ends, but as Scripture says in Ps. 24:1–2, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.” It also means the preservation of what has been entrusted to us (1 Cor. 11:2); the prudent use of what we have been given (Matt. 25:14–27); and the teaching and giving example to others to do the same (2 Tim. 2:2).

The encyclical of Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, is a call to action for every inhabitant of the earth to become good stewards of creation. In the face of the environmental crisis, Laudato Si’ strongly affirms the findings of scientists and the gravity of the environmental challenge they portray and states clearly that recent global warming is due to greenhouse gas emissions, caused mainly by human activity. Pope Francis calls the climate crisis the gravest moral crisis humanity is facing today.

The call of Laudato Si’ can be summarized thus: Hear the cry of Mother Earth, hear the cry of the poor! The challenge for stewards of creation is the Herculean task of lessening ocean acidification, the rehabilitation of tropical forests, preventing the release of methane from melting icebergs, and uplifting the living standards of millions upon millions of poor people, so that they can feed themselves with nutritious food, care for their health, educate their children, and be able to afford to live in decent housing.

Laudato Si’ is the first papal encyclical that views the climate crisis and massive poverty in the light of biblical faith and Catholic Social Doctrine. It can become the most influential encyclical and have a lasting impact on our understanding of our place in the cosmos, human development, and our relationship to the biosphere and all things in the world.

The encyclical situates human life in the intertwined relationship with God, with our neighbor, and with the Earth itself. It insists that we have to remember and promote our interconnectedness to every being in the universe. When this connection is forgotten, Mother Earth is ravaged and the poor suffer the most from the consequences of this forgetfulness.

In the words of Pope Francis, “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change” (# 13). The encyclical declares that human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its control a moral imperative for humanity, otherwise human evolution cannot continue—human beings will become extinct and the universe will continue to evolve without them. It is our destiny to determine the destiny of the universe and so we have to connect with the intricate web of life on the planet. And we also have to ask what our place is in the 14 billion-year history of the cosmos and what role we have play in Mother Earth’s history.

Laudato Si’ is also a beautiful meditation on the interconnectedness of the whole universe. It affirms that the beauty of God’s creation is beyond compare. We are part of the cosmos, and all living things have a value of their own in God’s eyes—all creatures, great and small, have their own purpose. The Earth is not an external reality that we may simply exploit and dominate for our own use. What is good for the earth is also good for humanity.

The encyclical calls attention to the unrestrained individualism and the culture of hedonism and instant gratification that leads to collective self-centeredness. It calls for “ecological conversion”—the turning back to values that stress ecological harmony and becoming more faithful stewards of creation. Ecological conversion means cultivating a profound interior metanoia and undergoing lifestyle change, based on gratitude and solidarity, towards the realization that we are joined to creation in cosmic communion. It also means perceiving God in new ways and arriving at a profound experience of God through the integrity of creation.

We have to repent and humbly accept the sin we have committed against God’s creation due to our materialism, greed, and our forgetfulness of our duty to coming generations. We have to assure that they will have a sustainable future. The encyclical also calls for a community conversion in loving awareness that we are joined to creation in a “splendid universal communion.” Inculcating new ways of thinking and doing requires ecological education in families, schools, churches, the media, and elsewhere. This requires a truly ecological pedagogy that would create, especially in the young, a renewed consciousness and ultimately a transformed ecological conscience.

Caring for Mother Earth is a common responsibility because it is our common home. We all belong to the same biosphere, the web of life. The promotion of the common good means we have to foster a sense of responsibility to be stewards of Mother Earth’s resources. This is central to what it means to be a Christian. As the encyclical says, “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”

We have become bad stewards. Laudato Si’ issues a stinging rebuke against the human greed and indifference at the heart of the ecological crisis, especially the individualistic attitude and the ideology of power and profit, and the theology of domination and subjugation. It also warns about the abuses of technology, which can let people dominate human beings and the entire world, allowing conquest and confrontation to triumph over solidarity and mutual responsibility.

The encyclical notes that the “modern anthropocentrism” at the root of the crisis itself flows from a distorted Christian theology that stresses not stewardship and communion, but mastery and dominion. When humans put themselves at the center of the universe, all that would be important to them would be their own immediate gratification: “Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction” (# 204). And again, “Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending” (# 203). Our excessive consumption has become an addiction—it is at the core of the global political economy. And so, freedom today has been reduced to the “freedom to consume.”

Laudato Si’ condemns the unrestrained individualism prevailing in the modern world today, the “self-centered culture of instant gratification,” and the temptation toward “collective selfishness.” It rephrases the critique of the throwaway culture and the tendency to treat human beings as mere objects, leading to the scourge of modern slavery and the trafficking of women and children. It denounces the “utilitarian mindset” that leads to individualism, competition, consumerism, and free market ideology. And it also draws a connection between claims to absolute power over our own bodies and our claims to absolute power over the Earth.

In the face of the climate crisis and resource degradation, the encyclical lambasts those who fail to act. Noting the failure to find solutions to the environmental crisis, Pope Francis pins the blame on obstruction by vested interests, general indifference, and blind confidence in technical solutions. He is especially critical of those who have more resources or wield more political and economic power, who join together in “masking the problems or concealing their symptoms” and who manipulate information so that their profits will not be lessened. He notes that vested interests overwhelm the common good and criticizes a habit of indifference or evasiveness in order to feed “self-destructive vices.”

We have to rethink the excesses of dominant technocratic paradigms and modern anthropocentricism that have caused the exploitation of nature and God’s creation—we have to move from an ego-centric to an eco-centric spirituality. While science and technology have brought about some genuine development, we must continually review its impact on the biosphere and on human beings. Since the authority of nation-states has been weakened, the creation of a genuine world political leadership seems the only way forward to govern effectively the “global commons” (# 174–175).

There have been good initiatives and programs to mitigate the impact of environmental catastrophes, but much more needs to be done in promoting global, national, and local relations, and fostering family and individual interactions, to make a significant difference. In the end, we need to pursue global citizenship which promotes a culture of caring for Mother Earth and the poor. Collaboration, solidarity, and the pursuit of the common good are crucial in addressing today’s ecological and environmental challenges. A new lifestyle and spirituality must be promoted through ecological education done in various settings. The family appears to be a privileged sector for ecological education.

Pope Francis called not only on Catholics but on all people of goodwill, no matter what the race, creed, or nationality to take up the sustainability challenge: “I urgently appeal . . . for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (# 14). He goes on to say that, “Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone” (# 93). In his speech to the US Joint House of Congress on September 24, 2015, Pope Francis declared, “Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a culture of care and an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”

This collaboration is needed, according to Pope Francis, because, “Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society” (# 91). He continues:

A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, which cannot be resolved by unilateral actions on the part of individual countries. Such a consensus could lead, for example, to planning a sustainable and diversified agriculture, developing renewable and less polluting forms of energy, encouraging a more efficient use of energy, promoting a better management of marine and forest resources, and ensuring universal access to drinking water. (# 164)

In light of the global nature of environmental degradation, Pope Francis addresses the encyclical to “every living person on the planet.” The encyclical notes that other religions express similar environmental concerns, and calls for “religions to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity.” And the encyclical ends with two prayers—one for Christians, and one for all who believe in a Creator.

Earth stewardship: hearing the cry of Mother Earth

Just as the different aspects of the planet—physical, chemical and biological—are interrelated, so too living species are part of a network which we will never fully explore and understand. A good part of our genetic code is shared by many living beings. (# 138)

A deeper understanding of our common origin and interrelatedness with everything in the universe—the galaxies, stars, planets, dolphins, lemurs, and peacocks—could help us realize our close affinity to, and continuity with, the whole of creation. Everything is connected to everything else in this dynamic universe. The universe began with a cosmic explosion which brought forth everything that exists. This universe is one (made up of the same stuff), connected and entangled, and is moving towards a future as it becomes more complex and more conscious. Simple things evolve to become newer, complex entities. ⁶

Laudato Si’ offers a lyrical meditation on the deep interconnectedness of all things in the universe. Inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, the encyclical reminds us that everything is interrelated, including the time-space continuum, and even the leptons and the gluons in subatomic particles. We are part of the biosphere, and every living thing has an intrinsic value in God’s eyes; every creature has its own telos: “Each of the various creatures, will in its own being, reflect in its own way a ray of God’s infinite wisdom and goodness” (# 69). Since every being in the universe is the self-expression and mode of presence of the Creative Designer, they must be valuable and possess inherent value and dignity.

The encyclical affirms a strong sacramental view of creation: “soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.” It calls attention to the “mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.” In a particularly majestic passage, the encyclical reminds us that we are “united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures, and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river, and Mother Earth.” To be connected is to be in communion.

“God’s love is the fundamental moving force in all created things” (#77). A spirituality of creation can be a driving force and motivation to protect our common home. Denial of God as the Creative Designer who created the universe often leads to the notion of the absolute autonomy and supremacy of humanity with a license to exploit the resources of the planet at will: “God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement” (# 89).

To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God (# 8), a quote from the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew in his address in Santa Barbara, CA in 1997. ⁷ When human beings “destroy the diversity of God’s creation,” when they “degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying wetlands,” when human beings “contaminate the earth’s waters, its lands, its air and its life,” these are sins (# 8).

The discussion of the environmental threats in Laudato Si’ is deep and wide-ranging, with discussions of water, ecosystems, and biodiversity. In places, the diagnosis is characteristically blunt: “the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” The throwaway mentality needs to be transformed by a culture of caring for the environment. We need to pass on to future generations a livable and sustainable world. From a sense of “ownership,” we are invited to adopt an attitude of “stewardship” in the way we relate with creation. We do this because “we are part of nature, included in it and in constant interaction with it.” And so in searching for ways to mitigate the dire effects of the climate crisis, “it is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems” (# 139).

Laudato Si’ calls for a dramatic reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. Developed countries must help developing countries so that the burning of fossil fuels can be “progressively and quickly replaced” with renewable energy. The encyclical also calls for developed countries, who have enjoyed prosperity at the cost of the destruction of ecosystems, to help developing countries mitigate the dire effects of climate change and move to lower-carbon energy systems. This requires concerted action at the global, national, and local levels.

There have been many international, national, and local conferences on the climate crisis and environmental protection, but so far the mechanism and political will to translate beautiful ideas into concrete programs have been sorely lacking. The Rio Earth summit was convened in 1992 but there has been no agreement arrived at, therefore “we believers cannot fail to ask God for a positive outcome to the present discussions.”

Economic justice: hearing the cry of the poor

Everything is interrelated, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth. (LS # 92)

Drawing on the interconnectedness of everything that is, the encyclical affirms an integral solidarity of human beings and all of creation. It grounds human life in three convergent and intertwined relationships—with God, with other human beings, and with Mother Earth. If one of these relationships is ruptured, then the others are ruptured too. The social and economic crises are interrelated, and therefore we need to hear “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” simultaneously. Safeguarding Mother Earth, on the one hand, and the life of every human being, on the other, are intimately connected and inseparable. In a convergent ecological approach, human beings have to accept that their rights are not absolute—they must acknowledge that other members of the cosmic community have rights also: “Every ecological approach needs to incorporate a social perspective which takes into account the fundamental rights of the poor and the underprivileged” (# 93).

The cries of the poor and of Mother Earth converge. The convergence of social justice and eco-justice is of paramount importance in the way we care for the poor and the Earth. When the environment is ravaged, it is the poor who suffer most. And when we fail to respect the worth of a poor person, a disabled person, or an embryo, it also becomes difficult to hear the cry of Mother Earth: “A deep sense of communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings” (#91).

Laudato Si’ emphasizes the traditional teachings on the common good, solidarity, distributive justice, and the preferential option for the poor. Private property always comes with a social responsibility. The environment is a common good, the heritage of all humanity. Laudato Si’ also gives a strong emphasis on justice between generations, and calls for both intergenerational and intragenerational solidarity. The demand of justice not only applies between those who have more and those who have less access to natural resources. It also retains its application between present and future generations.

Pope Francis devotes a whole section of Laudato Si’ to the “ecology of daily life,” where he describes a vivid portrait of city life in the developing world—grinding poverty, widespread crime, massive slum areas, dilapidated structures, homelessness, a feeling of rootlessness, constant gridlock in public transportation, the sense of asphyxiation from pollution and congestion. The poor, however, practice “a commendable human ecology” despite grinding poverty by living in solidarity and close relationships and by taking care to maintain cleanliness in their homes, even if outside it is full of garbage. In this way, “any place can turn from being a hell on earth into the setting for a dignified life.”

Laudato Si’ calls on the global political economy to prioritize people and the planet over profits. The market alone cannot protect the environment and ensure social inclusion and integral human development. It also condemns in no uncertain terms the “absolute power of the financial system” that “overwhelms the real economy” since it is a system that sorely needs an ethical foundation. The corporate world is denounced for short-term thinking and for an obsession with maximizing profit.

The encyclical proposes that business must be seen as a noble vocation that serves the common good, especially by prioritizing employment over short-term profit. Work is “part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development, and personal fulfillment.” Multinational corporations should factor in their ledgers not only the economic costs associated with their activities but also the environmental costs, and realize that investments in sustainability can actually be profitable. Sustainability should not be reduced to “a series of marketing and image-enhancing measures.” Otherwise, millions of people cannot escape from poverty.

World mission: the Laudato Si’ Covenant

The Laudato Si’ Covenant (LSC) is a sustainable development community of people and organizations which connect, converge, share, learn, and collaborate in projects as the concrete response to the call of Pope Francis. They also share resources, strategies, and innovative approaches to meet the challenges of sustainable development in the Philippines and on the entire planet by the year 2030. The LSC is in response to Pope Francis’s plea for every person on Earth to help achieve sustainability: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (# 160).

The concrete response to the call of Pope Francis will be implemented by the LSC in the concrete through the attainment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It should be the government that is the primary implementor, in collaboration with corporations, civil society, and religious institutions:

Public pressure has to be exerted in order to bring about decisive political action. Society, through non-governmental organizations and intermediate groups, must put pressure on governments to develop more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls. Unless citizens control political power—national, regional and municipal—it will not be possible to control damage to the environment. Local legislation can be more effective, too, if agreements exist between neighboring communities to support the same environmental policies. (# 179)

Intending to confront these challenges head-on, the LSC’s objectives by 2030 are the following: Sustainable Ecosystems (one billion bamboo propagules planted and the bamboo industry developed to provide jobs for the poor); Education for Sustainability (one million out-of-school youth participating in digital education programs); and Sustainable Economics projects (one million organic farmers networked through an e-commerce platform). The attainment of these goals using the latest science and technology breakthroughs are designed to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations in the Philippines by 2030.

We are at the cusp of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. The World Economic Forum has termed the current period of accelerating innovation in science and technology—the transformative change in data and technology capabilities combined with a merging of digital, physical, and biological realms and its consequences on society—as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIRe). ⁸ It is not only transforming social networks, scientific research, and whole industries, it is also radically reshaping biological and material science innovations. Developments in biochemistry, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another. This will lay the foundation for a tectonic shift in society more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen.

While the impending transformation holds great promise, the patterns of consumption, production, and employment created by the Fourth Revolution also pose major challenges requiring creative adaptation by companies, governments, and individuals. Synchronous with the technological revolution is a set of entangled socioeconomic, geopolitical, and demographic drivers of change, each converging in multiple directions and intensifying one another. Smart systems in our homes, in factories, farms, and cities, will help solve problems ranging from supply-chain management to the climate crisis. The rise of the gig economy will allow people to monetize everything from their house to their car.

FIRe is even now changing the way we understand our humanity. When billions of people are connected by mobile devices, each device with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to the Web, in order to concretize the networking of sustainable development communities, the possibilities are virtually unlimited. These possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, blockchain technology, self-driving vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, massive energy storage, data analytics, and quantum supremacy.

FIRe is already transforming the opportunity for sustainable development communities to address environmental issues related to climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, and habitat loss. The LSC will harness the power of FIRe to achieve this global consensus, starting with a national consensus in the Philippines about how to confront the problems brought about by climate change and resource degradation. The LSC aims to use the tools of FIRe to implement and monitor projects especially along the lines of ecology, education, and economics. The LSC aims to explore how to harness the tools of FIRe as a positive force for managing and conserving life on the planet better, while taking care to help mitigate the risks that developments in science and technology might create, especially in the Philippine context.

These are the questions the LSC would like to ask in the context of FIRe:

The breakthroughs opened up by FIRe will be harnessed in the implementation of the LSC’s goals by 2030: plant one billion bamboo seedlings and build up bamboo-based industries coordinated by the Billion Bamboohay app using geo-tagging equipment; organize organic farmers through an e-commerce platform and enhance organic farming to cover at least one million hectares utilizing regenerative agritechnology; and, enroll one million out-of-school youth in online education programs using an AI-powered learning experience platform with interactive lessons that are personalized and adaptive.

The use of FIRe tools will require proactive, collaborative processes involving policymakers, regulators, the academe, scientists, IT specialists, religious groups, civil society, indigenous peoples, entrepreneurs, business people, and investors. Representatives from various sectors of Philippine society have joined the LSC to work together to search for new models of cooperation and co-design strategies for large-scale systems change and to attain these objectives with the tools of FIRe. ⁹

The LSC aims to create an ecosystem that is primed for collective impact using the tools of FIRe, an ecosystem where interdependent stakeholders can perform their individual roles optimally and collaborate with each other effectively as they are networked through specialized education, ecological, and economic units with their own revenue streams. It advocates a highly structured approach to collaboration and highlights the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches in solving large-scale social problems using the tools of FIRe.

The collaboration in achieving the SDGs is done through the sustainable development communities belonging to the LSC. Successful collective action follows only when we tackle all parts of a problem together. We have to synchronize our efforts or we will all be swallowed up in the deluge—one world or none at all. The ambitious targets of the SDGs would not be achieved in the Philippines without collaboration that is structured and effective. A weak ecosystem counters efforts for collective impact.

In ecology, the lead social enterprise is Mga Anak ni Inang Daigdig (MAID—Children of Mother Earth), a group of young performing artists from Smokey Mountain, who aim to lead the project to plant one billion bamboo seedlings in degraded areas of the country by 2030 and build up the bamboo industry. In education, the Sandiwaan Center for Learning is the lead social enterprise in providing online education that is personalized and adaptive to thousands of out-of-school youth, young Muslim refugees, and young drug dependents. The pedagogy is centered on Education for Sustainable Development. In the economic dimension, the lead social enterprise is the Veritas e-Trading Network, which aims to organize organic farmers who cultivate a total of one million hectares and network them through the Veritas e-commerce platform and put up a chain of organic restaurants. In Central Luzon, Veritas is already helping organic farmers bring their products to 500 Catholic parishes in Metromanila to assure food security for those living in cities in the light of climate change and declining resources. ¹⁰

As part of the LSC, MAID were designated Ambassadors for Peace and Environment by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). They use the performing arts to foster ecological conversion through indigenous dances and rituals. The dancers of MAID have been given by the DENR through a stewardship agreement more than 500 hectares in the Marikina Watershed to reforest with bamboo, including the reforestation of riverbanks in Rizal province. They are negotiating for 5,000 hectares for bamboo planting in the island of Palawan with the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development and local government units there. The objective of the bamboo reforestation project is to plant one billion bamboo propagules around the country by 2030.

The Episcopal Commission for the Youth of the CBCP has designated these dancers from Smokey Mountain as Lead Convenors of the Bamboohay Challenge for the Year of the Youth 2019. Bishops and priests from 500 parishes have pledged to organize 400 young people from each parish to plant bamboo in the Bamboo Sanctuary of MAID—200,000 bamboo seedlings to be planted to prevent erosion and flooding, provide livelihood for the poor people living in endangered areas near the Bamboo Sanctuary, and mitigate the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis. The dancers are especially concerned with the implications of farming and cooking for the health of children and young people. Through the funds they raise from their environmental concerts, they contribute to the capital needed to put up the WOW Organic Restaurant.

Another organization belonging to the LSC, the Sandiwaan Center for Learning (SCL), utilizes digital devices and cloud technologies to prepare out-of-school youth to take the DepEd’s Accreditation and Equivalency Program so that they can obtain a high school diploma and proceed to college, take up vocational courses, or start their own small businesses. In all its computer-aided education programs, the primary concern of Sandiwaan is Education for a Sustainable Future, including assuring a healthy future for all children and young people. Sandiwaan makes use of Minecraft Education Edition to teach out-of-school through the Philippine National Minecraft Competition to build climate-resilient cities. “Green” architects and engineers are at present designing the Sandiwaan Learning Innovation Hub to be constructed in Smokey Mountain. It will use bamboo construction materials, and feature solar panels and rain collectors. The objective of the SCL is for one million out-of-school youth to be participants in the mobile education program, guide them to obtain their high school diploma and proceed to college, obtain digital jobs, or engage in online entrepreneurial activities by 2030.

In the light of ecological conscience, the mission of the Veritas e-Trading Network is to facilitate the direct trading of organic products, through its e-commerce platform, between organic farmers and fishermen in the provinces and marketing technopreneurs from more than 500 parishes in Metromanila who contribute ideas, resources, and effort toward mutually agreed-upon goals. This partnership is intended to include the whole archipelago very soon—a total of one million organic farmers networked by 2030. In the values-based supply chain distribution system of Veritas, the customers are assured of the quality of the product, encouraged by the food story of how their partners produce the food and catch the fish, and enjoy a trusting relationship created by the direct link to those who produce their food.

Veritas is a network with shared values, norms, and understanding that facilitates collaboration among its stakeholders. It promotes a high quality of life and community well-being through the use of ecological design principles and technology in food production in the face of unprecedented production challenges due to the climate crisis and resource degradation. The sustainable agriculture principles fostered by Veritas include stress on soil health, planned biodiversity, sustainable management of water resources, restoring crucial species and habitat through ecological design, and marketing networks with high social capital. The members of Veritas will evolve these concepts into an implementation framework/value chain; establish the implementing units as social enterprises or cooperatives; and network the implementing units as a keiretsu/oikos-system.

More than 800 million people go hungry every night in a time of overproduction. We can feed all these people with half of what others in rich countries throw away—the problem is social, economic, and political. Hence, Veritas would like to inquire into the three crucial aspects of food production: Where is the food being produced? Who produces the food? Who controls and profits most from its distribution?

In the past, the global extractive economy paid scant attention to the ecological and social costs of the way food was produced. This has led to rural communities in continual economic depression, impoverished farmers and fishermen, social destabilization, and ecological ruin. To counter this, Veritas aims to look at farming and fishing from a sustainability perspective by helping fit agriculture into the evolutionary cycles of nature and using nature’s own diversity to solve the problems of food production, leaving much room for flexibility, diversity, and creativity. Its values-based supply chain distribution system is designed to allow customers to engage with farmers and fishermen who produce the food in solidarity, fairness, and mutual respect, while maintaining good communication and mutual trust among stakeholders.

The triple bottom-line of Veritas, espousing that of the LSC, as a farmers’ marketing network linked directly with customers through the internet are: People, Planet, Prosperity. This concretely means fostering the integral human development of every inhabitant of Earth, promoting sustainability for the ecosystems of the planet, and considering social justice in wealth-creation so that everyone is given what is their due. In other words, to be sustainable, farming and cooking have to be socially just, ecologically sound, and economically viable. In this way, farming and fishing can sustain the people indefinitely in the land they inhabit and cultivate.

Veritas partners with the WOW Organic Restaurant. WOW means Well-Being Opportunities for Wholeness. The mission of WOW Organic Restaurant is to provide healthy, delicious and earth-friendly cuisine in partnerships with associations and cooperatives of organic farmers who are stakeholders in the Veritas e-Trading Network. WOW is now building its mobile ordering app with the hope of franchises being put up in different parts of Manila. The WOW mobile app also has the added feature of customers being able to order menu items beneficial to the kind of illness they have. Profits go towards feeding children with cancer organic food. The chefs and waiters at WOW Organic Restaurant believe in what Hippocrates declared: “Let your food be your medicine and let your medicine be your food.” WOW is also partnering with local government units and environmental groups to look for a system where food waste can be turned to fertilizer and used cooking oil turned to biodiesel. WOW also joins the call to ban single-use plastic and already uses bamboo straws.

By 2050, developing countries will consume more food overall and higher quantities of meat as their economies grow. If 50% of the world’s population restricts their diet to a healthy 2,500 calories per day and reduces meat consumption overall, at least 26.7 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided from dietary change alone. If the large-scale cutting of trees from land use change is included, an additional 39.3 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided, making healthy, plant-rich diets one of the most impactful solutions to the climate crisis at a total of 66 gigatons reduced.

Plant-based diets reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also tend to be healthier, leading to lower rates of chronic disease. According to a 2016 study, emissions could be reduced by as much as 70% through adopting a vegan diet and 63% for a vegetarian diet, which includes cheese, milk, and eggs. One trillion US dollars in annual health-care costs and lost productivity would be saved. Bringing about dietary change is not simple because eating is a profoundly personal and cultural act. Plant-based food choices must therefore be made available, visible, and enticing, which is what WOW Organic Restaurant is trying to do. The change to a plant-based diet may be the most effective way we can mitigate the dire effects of the climate crisis. However, changing to a plant-based diet runs counter to the Western diet that is based on meat. That diet comes with a heavy price: one-fifth of global emissions. Cattle alone accounts for up to 17% of greenhouse gas emissions.

In the light of an evolving universe, it has to be stressed that farming and cooking are ethical acts. Only when this is acknowledged can humanity build a sustainable food movement concerned with the future of coming generations through a creative consciousness that cares for the interconnectedness of all things in a dynamic universe. Belief in endless economic growth and the exclusive focus on production and efficiency alone will not make for a sustainable food system, and will destroy the beauty and diversity of the biosphere. The LSC calls for new economic models which respect and support the ecosystem of which human beings are a part, and without which they cannot survive. A vibrant local economy is essential to an agriculture and fishing industry designed to maintain the health of local ecosystems that contribute to the life-support systems in which we move and live and have our being.

Through ethical farming, fishing, and eating, we understand better the universe in which we find ourselves. Higher yields and culinary excellence should also be evaluated for their environmental impact. Farmers and cooks have to focus on life and life-like processes and the network of living things to accommodate the vagaries of nature, and the rising frequency of complex secondary effects and novel situations brought about by the climate crisis as mentioned before. They should all collaborate as partners with other earthlings to foster sustainability and innovation in the LSC in order to innovate farming and cooking methods that are more climate- and community-friendly towards the building of a resilient and sustainable food system. ¹¹

The LSC aims to implement the suggestions of the World Economic Forum regarding the transformation of food systems so that it will become:

On the one hand, according to Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International,

Food today generates a heavy environmental footprint. A shift to sustainable food systems is essential and includes: sustainable production and harvest on land and at sea, integrated land-use planning, land and marine restoration, reducing food loss and waste, and shifting to low footprint diets. To achieve this we need progressive regulation, smart land-use governance, technology innovation, behavioral change and multi-stakeholder collaboration. ¹²

On the other hand, Bernard Meyerson, CIO of IBM Corporation says that

Technology has the potential to answer some of our biggest questions and help us better understand the world around us. In almost every industry, massive efforts are underway to connect our physical and digital worlds, unleashing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We must work together to ensure that the food and agriculture sector is not left behind—and that these efforts contribute towards global food systems that benefit farmers, consumers and the planet. ¹³

Mindful of the reminders above, the LSC has started to promote among its stakeholders value-chain linkages and create more effective production systems through the tools of FIRe. It has also started to push for innovations in agriculture as suggested by the World Economic Forum by doing experiments in:

Every inhabitant of this threatened planet has to understand that human beings are just a small part of an unbelievably complicated and fragile ecosystem within an entangled and dynamic universe. Everyone should accept the responsibility to promote the health of the Earth. This kind of convergence thinking that cares for resilience and sustainability is a goal, a vision, a journey that leads towards the integrity, solidarity, and creativity of every human being on the planet. It also leads towards an ecologically grounded food production system that can ensure food security for all inhabitants of the planet. The LSC believes that with the right enabling actions, we can harness the power of technology innovation to help transform global food systems.

We need innovative leaders and compelling advocates to discover and implement models of locally adapted food production, and processing and distribution that promote ecological, social, and economic well-being. In the words of David W. MacLennan,

Innovations in technology—as well as policy, financing and business models—are essential to nourish the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way. To improve global food security and nutrition, different players and stakeholders must come together to acknowledge gaps and share approaches for addressing them. We have an incredible opportunity to work together to use technology and innovation to create more inclusive and sustainable food systems. ¹⁴

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned that we only have until 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe and irreversible global environmental collapse. The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared that going from a 1.5° to 2.0°C rise in temperature above preindustrial levels would have disastrous consequences for the planet, with unprecedented flooding, drought, ocean devastation, and famine. Achieving the SDGs by 2030 will require food systems that are inclusive, sustainable, efficient, nutritious, and healthy in the light of the climate crisis and resource degradation.

We must keep down the heating up of the planet to 1.5°C to keep the climate from changing too much. Otherwise, without substantial reductions in global emissions of heat-trapping gases (carbon dioxide by the burning of fossil fuels, methane released by industrial agriculture, mining and open dumpsites, and nitrous oxide released by agricultural fertilizers and burning of fossil fuels), our food supply will be in peril—there is nothing the best farmer can do to cope with an overheated world. As climate change wreaks havoc on the weather, resiliency should become the watchword for every resident of the planet in order to build hope for a more sustainable food system before the dire effects of the climate crisis become irreversible.

Either we go on doing business as usual and move closer to the global collapse of ecosystems or undergo a metamorphosis to a new foundation for sustainable flourishing. The LSC embraces planetary survival and sustainable flourishing as its primary concern. It encourages the healthy integration of farm and kitchen into the biotic community for the sake of our planet. The key value of the global digital economy is efficiency. Laudato Si’ insists that the key value of the social economy should be humanness.

Lest human beings forget, this is the only planet where their humanness can thrive. They have to care for it. It is their common home.