Representatives of 192 nations face something irreversible in Copenhagen: the Earth has already warmed excessively, due to our manner of production, of consumption and of treating nature. We can only adapt ourselves to the changes and mitigate their perverse effects.

It would be normal if, like a physician asks a patient, humanity were to ask: why are we in this situation?  It is important to consider the symptoms and identify the cause. It would be a mistake to treat the symptoms without treating the cause. That would just continue the threat to the health of the patient. That is exactly what seems to be happening in Copenhagen. Means of treating the symptoms are sought, but no one goes to the fundamental causes.  Climatic change with extreme events is a symptom, produced by global warming gasses with human fingerprints. The suggested solutions are to diminish the percentages of gasses, much higher for the industrialized countries and more lower for those in development, and to create financial funds to help poorer countries and transfer technologies to the less advanced ones.  All this is framed in never ending discussions that make even a minimal consensus difficult.  

These measures only attack the symptoms. They must go deeper, to the causes that produce the gasses that harm the health of the living and of the Earth herself. Copenhagen could be the opportunity to take heart and balance our practices in relation to nature, to recognize with humility our responsibility, and with wisdom prescribe proper remedies. But this is not what is foreseen. The dominant strategy is like prescribing aspirin to one with a bad cardiac condition, instead of performing a heart transplant.

The Earth Charter is correct when it says: «As never before in history, our common destiny calls upon us to seek a new beginning... This requires a change of mind and heart.»  That translates to this: these remedies are not enough, we need to re-start, this is to say, to find a different way of inhabiting the Earth, of producing and of consuming, with a cooperative mind and a compassionate heart.

For starters, it is urgent that we recognize that the problem is not the Earth herself, but our relationship with the Earth. She has lived more than four thousand million years without us, and can continue with tranquility without us. We cannot live without the Earth, without her resources and services. We have to change. The alternative to change is to accept the risk of our own destruction and of a terrible biodiversity extinction.

What is the cause? The dream of finding happiness through material accumulation and of progress without end, using a science and technology which enables us to exploit in an unlimited fashion all the resources of the Earth. That type of happiness is sought individually, entering into competition with one another, thus favoring egoism, ambition and lack of solidarity.

In this competition, the weak are the victims of what Darwin calls natural selection. Only those who adapt better deserve to survive, all the others are, naturally, selected out and condemned to disappear. For centuries this illusory dream has prevailed, putting the few wealthy ones on one side, and the many poor on the other, at the expense of a dreadful devastation of nature.

Rarely is the question posed: can a finite Earth endure an infinite project? The answer is being given by the Earth herself. The Earth alone cannot restore that which has been extracted from her. She lost her internal equilibrium due to the chaos we have created in her physic-chemical base, and the atmospheric pollution that has wrought a change in her status. If we continue down this path we will compromise our future.

What could we hope from Copenhagen? Just this simple confession: we can not continue the way we are going. And a simple proposal: We will change direction. Instead of competition, cooperation. Instead of endless progress, harmony with the rhythms of the Earth. Instead of individuality, generational solidarity. Utopia? Yes, but a utopia that is needed to guarantee the future.

-  Leonardo Boff,   Theologian, Earthcharter Commission

(Free translation from the Spanish, Melina Alfaro, Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas, EE.UU.)