Al Gore has a short but interesting essay in The Huffington Post. He is, of course, the former Vice-President of the United States, a long-time environmental advocate, and author of the best selling climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth (2006).

Entitled Reflections on Earth Day, Gore credits Rachael Carsons investigations of environmental pollution for sparking the modern American environmental movement. Citing her tireless efforts to awaken our ecological consciousness, he urges us to work together for environmental protection. He is particularly focused on the power of ordinary people to improve the lives of themselves and others by taking political action. And he closes by reminding us of our responsibilities for future generations.

Gores mentioning our moral responsibility to future generations is a common enough, but I wish he had shared more on its implications for public policy. Caring about the future of our children and their children after them is a profoundly ethical concern. It demands that we see the ethical implications for tomorrow of our environmental policies today. At the same time, even more difficult questions arise when we consider our responsibilities to other animals and the environment itself.

If you have read Gores other work, such as Earth in the Balance (1992), you will discover his answer to such questions lays in eco-theology. Gore believes we are custodians of Gods earth, a complex and delicate creation that is not only instrumentally valuable as a resource for human ends, but as the direct handiwork of God, intrinsically valuable in and of itself. Gore can sound ambivalent about this at times, talking about dominion and the meaning of life being to glorify the creator. But what that means in practice, as evidenced through his lifes work, is a caring stewardship and reverence for our planet.

I do not share Gores religious beliefs. Even so, I respect the insight that emerges from them, and honour the moral sensibilities from which that insight springs. In the words of a Hebrew prophet, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge (Ezekiel 18:2). Our actions today will have consequences for many generations to come.

Cheers

Image: Unknown.