“Integral Ecology and Sustainable Development”
Presentation of the two-day conference on “Integral Ecology and Sustainable Development” organized by the Centre for Catholic Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong on 21-22 June 2024.
Written by Professor Chen Xia (Daoist scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and Xie Ziying (YIMEI Think Tank)
This is one of the first conferences in religion and ecology in Hong Kong.
The two-day conference on “Integral Ecology and Sustainable Development” organized by the Centre for Catholic Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has come to a successful conclusion. The conference started with academic theories and mentioned four sections, namely: Theory, Practice, Ecology and Economy, and Ecology and Religion. Scholars from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, as well as scholars from five religions, participated in the research and discussion of the relevant topics. The conference mentioned several key points:
1. Extreme weather is becoming more and more severe, and the man-made ecological crisis can no longer be ignored. Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si', presents a vision of holistic ecology, pointing out the interdependence between human beings and nature, and that the cries of the poor are inseparable from the cries of the earth, and that changes must be made in the economic, political and cultural spheres as well. Society also needed a new model of development based on human dignity to promote the well-being of the population. The encyclical also states that religious and spiritual traditions should play an important role in humanity’s response to the ecological crisis.
2: “What is integral ecology: a vision consists of the environment, society and economy, culture and daily life. What is sustainable development: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
3: “The global ecological footprint deficit for 2019 is 1.1 global hectares per person, which means that in addition to the resources that the Earth’s current ecological carrying capacity can provide, the average person would need 1.1 hectares of land with the ‘average global ecological productivity of that year’ to provide the resources that he consumes: this is equivalent to 1.7 hectares of land. This is equivalent to 1.7 Earths in order to provide for the current living and consumption needs of all human beings. If the world were to live in the same way as the people of Hong Kong, it would take 4.4 earths to support them. Hong Kong’s per capita ecological footprint is now the third highest in the Asia-Pacific region and 14th in the world.”
4. “The basic view of the Catholic Church: All things have their goodness and beauty, and man should respect the goodness of every created thing so as not to abuse things; moderate contentment; advocating the spirit of fasting and the Sabbath; loving all things; and preserving the value of the family and marriage.”
5. “Living in the midst of the Anthropocene, a growing ecological crisis and the political, social, cultural, and economic problems associated with it are sweeping the globe. Various communities - or place-based, bottom-up socio-ecological experiments have sprung up to meet the current environmental challenges. ‘New villagers’ in eco-communities practicing sustainable and holistic living through ecological farming, food and agriculture education, natural architecture, and body and soul cultivation become a contemporary prophet today.”
In the discussion of religion and sustainable development, Catholicism’s ecological conversion, Christian spirituality, Taoism’s symbiosis, Islam’s balance between heaven and earth and both worlds and Buddhism’s reliance on the impermanence of suffering and emptiness of the earthly realm are all ideas of a holistic ecological outlook. So in this aspect of natural ecology, not only does it rely on the classical values that religions have always had, but it also synthesizes contemporary ecological thought, making the theoretical system of religions richer.
Catholicism, Christianity, Taoism, Islam, and Buddhism, in their own consistent ideological concepts, have not ignored the relationship between man and nature. These five religions, although in the understanding of the external environment and nature, have their own ideological characteristics, they believe that in the once or future development of religious thought and religious values, will pay more attention to the co-development of human and nature. Each of the major religions has an important role in protecting the environment and in the overall ecological and sustainable development of the world.