When I was coaching CSAA football, after one of our first practices I would tell the players the same thing my high school coach told us after our first day of two-a-days in the July heat: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.”
It is a saying that I have always carried with me because it applies to so many aspects of everyday life, and is also one of the first things I thought of when I read Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” because it provides a game plan for taking our first steps in addressing the environmental challenges we face today and becoming better stewards of the Earth, which God created and gifted to us.
Today, humanity faces serious environmental challenges that, if not addressed, will only magnify and get worse. Climate change, severe and extreme weather-related events, biodiversity and habitat loss and growing resource inequality often impact the most economically disadvantaged.
These systemic global crises cannot be tackled in isolation because they are all interconnected. Environmental protection, conservation and the economy are not mutually exclusive and can support each other.
During my career as general counsel for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, I saw that this can be done through construction programs, such as stream and wetland mitigation, conservation easements, stormwater management and abandoned-mine reclamation that create economic opportunities, incentives for businesses and new jobs.
The expanding solar industry is another example of how businesses and the environment can co-exist, allowing a green economy to flourish.
The “Laudato Si’ Action Platform” website explains, “The economy is an integral component of human society, embedded within the biosphere, our common home. This principle encourages us to look at the ways businesses produce and distribute goods, instilling us with hope in successfully changing ecologically damaging modes of operation by ‘forcing them (businesses) to consider their environmental footprint and their patterns of production.”
Paragraph 206 of “Laudato Si’ ” “challenges us to examine our own levels of consumption and waste, serving as a reminder of ‘the great need for a sense of social responsibility on the part of consumers,’ ” the platform points out.
“Laudato Si’ ” enriches the discourse of environmental economics and calls for consideration of how economic systems can be made more sustainable and just. Pope Francis was very clear in paragraph 206:
“Purchasing is always a moral and not simply economic act … the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our lifestyle.”
There are actions that can be taken by individuals, families, businesses, organizations and parishes as we are all stakeholders in our shared future:
- Promoting energy-saving technologies for lighting, heating and transportation;
- Supporting sustainable production and consumption by buying recycled products and agricultural produce from local farms, organic produce and free-range meat and eggs;
- Being intentional about ecologically sensitive construction when working with architects and engineering firms;
- Protecting biodiversity by planting native trees and gardens, minimizing the use of pesticides — which can harm pollinators — removing invasive species and practicing regenerative agriculture;
- Protecting waterways and land by using sensible fertilizer, planting waterway buffers and not installing impermeable surfaces around buildings.
The axiom that “nothing changes until it changes” is appropriate and requires us to take those first steps on an extremely long journey.
Since we vote with our finances, these are a few practical actions we can perform as individuals to help start the butterfly effect of change and achieve the goal of leaving our children and future generations the same gifts that the Lord God, our father, gave us.
Scott Porter is the associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky and a member of St. Bernadette Church.
