Growing a Healthy Family Ecology Principles to Consider

To shed light on the big picture, explorer and sustainability campaigner Jason Lewis has drawn parallels to other, more tangible closed systems. A major driver of human impact on Earth systems is the destruction of biophysical resources , and especially, the Earth's ecosystems. The environmental impact of a community or of humankind as a whole depends both on population and impact per person, which in turn depends in complex ways on what resources are being used, whether or not those resources are renewable, and the scale of the human activity relative to the carrying capacity of the ecosystems involved.

Careful resource management can be applied at many scales, from economic sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and industry, to work organizations, the consumption patterns of households and individuals and to the resource demands of individual goods and services. One of the initial attempts to express human impact mathematically was developed in the s and is called the I PAT formula. This formulation attempts to explain human consumption in terms of three components: The equation is expressed:. In recent years, concepts based on re- cycling resources are increasingly gaining importance.

The most prominent among these concepts might be the Circular Economy , with its comprehensive support by the Chinese and the European Union. There is also a broad range of similar concepts or schools of thought, including cradle-to-cradle laws of ecology, looped and performance economy, regenerative design, industrial ecology, biomimicry, and the blue economy. These concepts seem intuitively to be more sustainable than the current linear economic system.

The reduction of resource inputs into and waste and emission leakage out of the system reduces resource depletion and environmental pollution. However, these simple assumptions are not sufficient to deal with the involved systemic complexity and disregards potential trade-offs. For example, the social dimension of sustainability seems to be only marginally addressed in many publications on the Circular Economy, and there are cases that require different or additional strategies, like purchasing new, more energy efficient equipment.

Sustainability measurement is the quantitative basis for the informed management of sustainability. They are applied over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Some of the best known and most widely used sustainability measures include corporate sustainability reporting , Triple Bottom Line accounting , World Sustainability Society, Circles of Sustainability , and estimates of the quality of sustainability governance for individual countries using the Environmental Sustainability Index and Environmental Performance Index.

Companies such as Lieef www. According to the most recent July revision of the official United Nations World Population Prospects, the world population is projected to reach 8. This increase will be distributed among the population aged 15—59 1. In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to undergo only slight increase from 1. Emerging economies like those of China and India aspire to the living standards of the Western world as does the non-industrialized world in general. At the global scale, scientific data now indicates that humans are living beyond the carrying capacity of planet Earth and that this cannot continue indefinitely.

This scientific evidence comes from many sources but is presented in detail in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the planetary boundaries framework. The Ecological footprint measures human consumption in terms of the biologically productive land needed to provide the resources, and absorb the wastes of the average global citizen. In it required 2. The figure right examines sustainability at the scale of individual countries by contrasting their Ecological Footprint with their UN Human Development Index a measure of standard of living.

The graph shows what is necessary for countries to maintain an acceptable standard of living for their citizens while, at the same time, maintaining sustainable resource use. The general trend is for higher standards of living to become less sustainable. As always, population growth has a marked influence on levels of consumption and the efficiency of resource use. Information generated by reports at the national, regional and city scales confirm the global trend towards societies that are becoming less sustainable over time. Romanian American economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen , a progenitor in economics and a paradigm founder of ecological economics , has argued that the carrying capacity of Earth — that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels — is bound to decrease sometime in the future as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently being extracted and put to use.

At the enterprise scale, carrying capacity now also plays a critical role in making it possible to measure and report the sustainability performance of individual organizations. This is most clearly demonstrated through use of Context-Based Sustainability CBS tools, methods and metrics, including the MultiCapital Scorecard, which have been in development since Thus, rather than simply measure and report changes in relative terms from one period to another, CBS makes it possible to compare the impacts of organizations to organization-specific norms, standards or thresholds for what they the impacts would have to be in order to be empirically sustainable i.

At a fundamental level, energy flow and biogeochemical cycling set an upper limit on the number and mass of organisms in any ecosystem. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is an international synthesis by over of the world's leading biological scientists that analyzes the state of the Earth's ecosystems and provides summaries and guidelines for decision-makers.

It concludes that human activity is having a significant and escalating impact on the biodiversity of world ecosystems , reducing both their resilience and biocapacity. The report refers to natural systems as humanity's "life-support system", providing essential " ecosystem services ". The assessment measures 24 ecosystem services concluding that only four have shown improvement over the last 50 years, 15 are in serious decline, and five are in a precarious condition.

The Sustainable Development Goals SDGs are the current harmonized set of seventeen future international development targets. The Official Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted on 25 September has 92 paragraphs, with the main paragraph 51 outlining the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its associated targets. This included the following seventeen goals: As of August , there were proposed targets for these goals and proposed indicators to show compliance. Adopted by the United Nations member states at the time and more than twenty international organizations , these goals were advanced to help achieve the following sustainable development standards by According to the data that member countries represented to the United Nations , Cuba was the only country in the world in that met the World Wide Fund for Nature 's definition of sustainable development , with an ecological footprint of less than 1.

Healthy ecosystems provide vital goods and services to humans and other organisms. There are two major ways of reducing negative human impact and enhancing ecosystem services and the first of these is environmental management. This direct approach is based largely on information gained from earth science , environmental science and conservation biology. However, this is management at the end of a long series of indirect causal factors that are initiated by human consumption , so a second approach is through demand management of human resource use. Management of human consumption of resources is an indirect approach based largely on information gained from economics.

Herman Daly has suggested three broad criteria for ecological sustainability: At the global scale and in the broadest sense environmental management involves the oceans , freshwater systems, land and atmosphere , but following the sustainability principle of scale it can be equally applied to any ecosystem from a tropical rainforest to a home garden.

At a March meeting of the Copenhagen Climate Council , 2, climate experts from 80 countries issued a keynote statement that there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming and that without strong carbon reduction "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate may occur that "will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with". Other human impacts on the atmosphere include the air pollution in cities, the pollutants including toxic chemicals like nitrogen oxides , sulfur oxides , volatile organic compounds and airborne particulate matter that produce photochemical smog and acid rain , and the chlorofluorocarbons that degrade the ozone layer.

Anthropogenic particulates such as sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere reduce the direct irradiance and reflectance albedo of the Earth 's surface. Global dimming may have disturbed the global water cycle by reducing evaporation and rainfall in some areas. It also creates a cooling effect and this may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming. The remaining freshwater is found in glaciers, lakes, rivers, wetlands, the soil, aquifers and atmosphere.

Due to the water cycle, fresh water supply is continually replenished by precipitation, however there is still a limited amount necessitating management of this resource. Awareness of the global importance of preserving water for ecosystem services has only recently emerged as, during the 20th century, more than half the world's wetlands have been lost along with their valuable environmental services. Increasing urbanization pollutes clean water supplies and much of the world still does not have access to clean, safe water.

Ocean circulation patterns have a strong influence on climate and weather and, in turn, the food supply of both humans and other organisms. Scientists have warned of the possibility, under the influence of climate change, of a sudden alteration in circulation patterns of ocean currents that could drastically alter the climate in some regions of the globe. Loss of biodiversity stems largely from the habitat loss and fragmentation produced by the human appropriation of land for development, forestry and agriculture as natural capital is progressively converted to man-made capital.

Land use change is fundamental to the operations of the biosphere because alterations in the relative proportions of land dedicated to urbanisation , agriculture , forest , woodland , grassland and pasture have a marked effect on the global water, carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles and this can impact negatively on both natural and human systems.

Present-day forests occupy about a quarter of the world's ice-free land with about half of these occurring in the tropics. Food is essential to life. Feeding more than seven billion human bodies takes a heavy toll on the Earth's resources. Environmental problems associated with industrial agriculture and agribusiness are now being addressed through such movements as sustainable agriculture, organic farming and more sustainable business practices.

The underlying driver of direct human impacts on the environment is human consumption. Consumption of goods and services can be analysed and managed at all scales through the chain of consumption, starting with the effects of individual lifestyle choices and spending patterns, through to the resource demands of specific goods and services, the impacts of economic sectors, through national economies to the global economy.

The ideas of embodied resource use the total resources needed to produce a product or service , resource intensity , and resource productivity are important tools for understanding the impacts of consumption. Key resource categories relating to human needs are food , energy , materials and water. In , the International Resource Panel , hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP , published the first global scientific assessment on the impacts of consumption and production [] and identified priority actions for developed and developing countries.

The study found that the most critical impacts are related to ecosystem health, human health and resource depletion. From a production perspective, it found that fossil-fuel combustion processes, agriculture and fisheries have the most important impacts. Meanwhile, from a final consumption perspective, it found that household consumption related to mobility, shelter, food and energy-using products cause the majority of life-cycle impacts of consumption. The Sun's energy, stored by plants primary producers during photosynthesis , passes through the food chain to other organisms to ultimately power all living processes.

Since the industrial revolution the concentrated energy of the Sun stored in fossilized plants as fossil fuels has been a major driver of technology which, in turn, has been the source of both economic and political power. Reducing greenhouse emissions, is being tackled at all scales, ranging from tracking the passage of carbon through the carbon cycle [] to the commercialization of renewable energy , developing less carbon-hungry technology and transport systems and attempts by individuals to lead carbon neutral lifestyles by monitoring the fossil fuel use embodied in all the goods and services they use.

Water security and food security are inextricably linked. In the decade —60 human water withdrawals were four times greater than the previous decade. This rapid increase resulted from scientific and technological developments impacting through the economy —especially the increase in irrigated land, growth in industrial and power sectors, and intensive dam construction on all continents. This altered the water cycle of rivers and lakes , affected their water quality and had a significant impact on the global water cycle. Water efficiency is being improved on a global scale by increased demand management , improved infrastructure, improved water productivity of agriculture, minimising the water intensity embodied water of goods and services, addressing shortages in the non-industrialized world, concentrating food production in areas of high productivity, and planning for climate change , such as through flexible system design.

A promising direction towards sustainable development is to design systems that are flexible and reversible. The American Public Health Association APHA defines a "sustainable food system" [] [] as "one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment. A sustainable food system also encourages local production and distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all.

Further, it is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities. It recommends the Mediterranean diet which is associated with health and longevity and is low in meat , rich in fruits and vegetables , low in added sugar and limited salt, and low in saturated fatty acids; the traditional source of fat in the Mediterranean is olive oil , rich in monounsaturated fat.

The healthy rice-based Japanese diet is also high in carbohydrates and low in fat. Both diets are low in meat and saturated fats and high in legumes and other vegetables; they are associated with a low incidence of ailments and low environmental impact. At the global level the environmental impact of agribusiness is being addressed through sustainable agriculture and organic farming.

At the local level there are various movements working towards local food production, more productive use of urban wastelands and domestic gardens including permaculture , urban horticulture , local food , slow food , sustainable gardening , and organic gardening. Sustainable seafood is seafood from either fished or farmed sources that can maintain or increase production in the future without jeopardizing the ecosystems from which it was acquired.

The sustainable seafood movement has gained momentum as more people become aware about both overfishing and environmentally destructive fishing methods. As global population and affluence has increased, so has the use of various materials increased in volume, diversity and distance transported. Included here are raw materials, minerals, synthetic chemicals including hazardous substances , manufactured products, food, living organisms and waste.

Developed countries' citizens consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita, ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries with resource consumption levels far beyond what is likely sustainable. Sustainable use of materials has targeted the idea of dematerialization , converting the linear path of materials extraction, use, disposal in landfill to a circular material flow that reuses materials as much as possible, much like the cycling and reuse of waste in nature.

Synthetic chemical production has escalated following the stimulus it received during the second World War. Chemical production includes everything from herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers to domestic chemicals and hazardous substances. Although most synthetic chemicals are harmless there needs to be rigorous testing of new chemicals, in all countries, for adverse environmental and health effects.

International legislation has been established to deal with the global distribution and management of dangerous goods. The classification of the toxic carcinogenic agents is handle by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Every economic activity produces material that can be classified as waste. To reduce waste, industry, business and government are now mimicking nature by turning the waste produced by industrial metabolism into resource.

Dematerialization is being encouraged through the ideas of industrial ecology , ecodesign [] and ecolabelling. In addition to the well-established "reduce, reuse and recycle", shoppers are using their purchasing power for ethical consumerism. The European Union is expected to table by the end of an ambitious Circular Economy package which is expected to include concrete legislative proposals on waste management, ecodesign and limits on land fills.

On one account, sustainability "concerns the specification of a set of actions to be taken by present persons that will not diminish the prospects of future persons to enjoy levels of consumption, wealth, utility, or welfare comparable to those enjoyed by present persons". The developed world population is only increasing slightly but consumption levels are unsustainable.

The challenge for sustainability is to curb and manage Western consumption while raising the standard of living of the developing world without increasing its resource use and environmental impact. This must be done by using strategies and technology that break the link between, on the one hand, economic growth and on the other, environmental damage and resource depletion. A recent UNEP report proposes a green economy defined as one that "improves human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities": The report makes three key findings: However, there is a period of job losses in transition, which requires investment in re-skilling and re-educating the workforce".

Several key areas have been targeted for economic analysis and reform: Historically there has been a close correlation between economic growth and environmental degradation: This trend is clearly demonstrated on graphs of human population numbers, economic growth, and environmental indicators. There is concern that, unless resource use is checked, modern global civilization will follow the path of ancient civilizations that collapsed through overexploitation of their resource base. In economic and environmental fields, the term decoupling is becoming increasingly used in the context of economic production and environmental quality.

When used in this way, it refers to the ability of an economy to grow without incurring corresponding increases in environmental pressure. Ecological economics includes the study of societal metabolism, the throughput of resources that enter and exit the economic system in relation to environmental quality. Exactly how, if, or to what extent this can be achieved is a subject of much debate.

In the International Resource Panel , hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP , warned that by the human race could be devouring billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year—three times its current rate of consumption—unless nations can make serious attempts at decoupling. By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year. Sustainability studies analyse ways to reduce resource intensity the amount of resource e.

There are conflicting views whether improvements in technological efficiency and innovation will enable a complete decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. On the one hand, it has been claimed repeatedly by efficiency experts that resource use intensity i.

For example, there are certain minimum unavoidable material requirements for growing food, and there are limits to making automobiles, houses, furniture, and other products lighter and thinner without the risk of losing their necessary functions. Consequently, long-term sustainability requires the transition to a steady state economy in which total GDP remains more or less constant, as has been advocated for decades by Herman Daly and others in the ecological economics community.

A different proposed solution to partially decouple economic growth from environmental degradation is the restore approach. Participants in such efforts are encouraged to voluntarily donate towards nature conservation a small fraction of the financial savings they experience through a more frugal use of resources. These financial savings would normally lead to rebound effects, but a theoretical analysis suggests that donating even a small fraction of the experienced savings can potentially more than eliminate rebound effects.

The economic importance of nature is indicated by the use of the expression ecosystem services to highlight the market relevance of an increasingly scarce natural world that can no longer be regarded as both unlimited and free. However, this only applies when the product or service falls within the market system. One approach to this dilemma has been the attempt to "internalize" these "externalities" by using market strategies like ecotaxes and incentives, tradeable permits for carbon, and the encouragement of payment for ecosystem services.

Community currencies associated with Local Exchange Trading Systems LETS , a gift economy and Time Banking have also been promoted as a way of supporting local economies and the environment. Treating the environment as an externality may generate short-term profit at the expense of sustainability.

For example, industrial waste can be treated as an "economic resource in the wrong place". The benefits of waste reduction include savings from disposal costs, fewer environmental penalties, and reduced liability insurance. This may lead to increased market share due to an improved public image. The idea of sustainability as a business opportunity has led to the formation of organizations such as the Sustainability Consortium of the Society for Organizational Learning , the Sustainable Business Institute, and the World Council for Sustainable Development.

One school of thought, often labeled ecosocialism or ecological Marxism, asserts that the capitalist economic system is fundamentally incompatible with the ecological and social requirements of sustainability. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.

Thus God rejects every claim to absolute ownership: The laws found in the Bible dwell on relationships, not only among individuals but also with other living beings. Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures. In our time, the Church does not simply state that other creatures are completely subordinated to the good of human beings, as if they have no worth in themselves and can be treated as we wish. In the story of Cain and Abel, we see how envy led Cain to commit the ultimate injustice against his brother, which in turn ruptured the relationship between Cain and God, and between Cain and the earth from which he was banished.

This is seen clearly in the dramatic exchange between God and Cain. Disregard for the duty to cultivate and maintain a proper relationship with my neighbour, for whose care and custody I am responsible, ruins my relationship with my own self, with others, with God and with the earth. When all these relationships are neglected, when justice no longer dwells in the land, the Bible tells us that life itself is endangered. We see this in the story of Noah, where God threatens to do away with humanity because of its constant failure to fulfil the requirements of justice and peace: These ancient stories, full of symbolism, bear witness to a conviction which we today share, that everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others.

In this way he gave humanity the chance of a new beginning. All it takes is one good person to restore hope! The biblical tradition clearly shows that this renewal entails recovering and respecting the rhythms inscribed in nature by the hand of the Creator. We see this, for example, in the law of the Sabbath. On the seventh day, God rested from all his work. He commanded Israel to set aside each seventh day as a day of rest, a Sabbath , cf.

Similarly, every seven years, a sabbatical year was set aside for Israel, a complete rest for the land cf. This law came about as an attempt to ensure balance and fairness in their relationships with others and with the land on which they lived and worked. At the same time, it was an acknowledgment that the gift of the earth with its fruits belongs to everyone.

Those who tilled and kept the land were obliged to share its fruits, especially with the poor, with widows, orphans and foreigners in their midst: They also invite other creatures to join us in this praise: Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! This is why we adore him.

The writings of the prophets invite us to find renewed strength in times of trial by contemplating the all-powerful God who created the universe. Indeed, all sound spirituality entails both welcoming divine love and adoration, confident in the Lord because of his infinite power. In the Bible, the God who liberates and saves is the same God who created the universe, and these two divine ways of acting are intimately and inseparably connected: It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm!

He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. The experience of the Babylonian captivity provoked a spiritual crisis which led to deeper faith in God. Now his creative omnipotence was given pride of place in order to exhort the people to regain their hope in the midst of their wretched predicament. Centuries later, in another age of trial and persecution, when the Roman Empire was seeking to impose absolute dominion, the faithful would once again find consolation and hope in a growing trust in the all-powerful God: Just and true are your ways!

The God who created the universe out of nothing can also intervene in this world and overcome every form of evil. Injustice is not invincible. A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and Creator is not acceptable. That is how we end up worshipping earthly powers, or ourselves usurping the place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot.

The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world. Otherwise, human beings will always try to impose their own laws and interests on reality. Nature is usually seen as a system which can be studied, understood and controlled, whereas creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together into universal communion.

This tells us that the world came about as the result of a decision, not from chaos or chance, and this exalts it all the more. The creating word expresses a free choice. The universe did not emerge as the result of arbitrary omnipotence, a show of force or a desire for self-assertion. Creation is of the order of love. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of his love, and in its few seconds of existence, God enfolds it with his affection.

At the same time, Judaeo-Christian thought demythologized nature. While continuing to admire its grandeur and immensity, it no longer saw nature as divine. In doing so, it emphasizes all the more our human responsibility for nature. This rediscovery of nature can never be at the cost of the freedom and responsibility of human beings who, as part of the world, have the duty to cultivate their abilities in order to protect it and develop its potential.

If we acknowledge the value and the fragility of nature and, at the same time, our God-given abilities, we can finally leave behind the modern myth of unlimited material progress. A fragile world, entrusted by God to human care, challenges us to devise intelligent ways of directing, developing and limiting our power. In this universe, shaped by open and intercommunicating systems, we can discern countless forms of relationship and participation.

Faith allows us to interpret the meaning and the mysterious beauty of what is unfolding. We are free to apply our intelligence towards things evolving positively, or towards adding new ills, new causes of suffering and real setbacks. This is what makes for the excitement and drama of human history, in which freedom, growth, salvation and love can blossom, or lead towards decadence and mutual destruction.

Yet God, who wishes to work with us and who counts on our cooperation, can also bring good out of the evil we have done. Human beings, even if we postulate a process of evolution, also possess a uniqueness which cannot be fully explained by the evolution of other open systems. Each of us has his or her own personal identity and is capable of entering into dialogue with others and with God himself. Our capacity to reason, to develop arguments, to be inventive, to interpret reality and to create art, along with other not yet discovered capacities, are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology.

The biblical accounts of creation invite us to see each human being as a subject who can never be reduced to the status of an object. Yet it would also be mistaken to view other living beings as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination. When nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society. Completely at odds with this model are the ideals of harmony, justice, fraternity and peace as proposed by Jesus.

As he said of the powers of his own age: The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things. The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things.

Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator. Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. The history of our friendship with God is always linked to particular places which take on an intensely personal meaning; we all remember places, and revisiting those memories does us much good. Anyone who has grown up in the hills or used to sit by the spring to drink, or played outdoors in the neighbourhood square; going back to these places is a chance to recover something of their true selves.

The universe as a whole, in all its manifold relationships, shows forth the inexhaustible riches of God. As the Catechism teaches: The sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow: When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures and to worship him in union with them.

This sentiment finds magnificent expression in the hymn of Saint Francis of Assisi:. Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour; and bears a likeness of you, Most High. Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Principles of Organic Agriculture

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather through whom you give sustenance to your creatures. Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence.

The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into relationship with him.

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Otherwise, we would not be doing the creatures themselves any good either, for we would be failing to acknowledge their right and proper place. We would end up unduly demanding of them something which they, in their smallness, cannot give us. The created things of this world are not free of ownership: This is the basis of our conviction that, as part of the universe, called into being by one Father, all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.

This is not to put all living beings on the same level nor to deprive human beings of their unique worth and the tremendous responsibility it entails. Nor does it imply a divinization of the earth which would prevent us from working on it and protecting it in its fragility. Such notions would end up creating new imbalances which would deflect us from the reality which challenges us. Certainly, we should be concerned lest other living beings be treated irresponsibly. But we should be particularly indignant at the enormous inequalities in our midst, whereby we continue to tolerate some considering themselves more worthy than others.

We fail to see that some are mired in desperate and degrading poverty, with no way out, while others have not the faintest idea of what to do with their possessions, vainly showing off their supposed superiority and leaving behind them so much waste which, if it were the case everywhere, would destroy the planet. In practice, we continue to tolerate that some consider themselves more human than others, as if they had been born with greater rights.

A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted. This compromises the very meaning of our struggle for the sake of the environment. It is no coincidence that, in the canticle in which Saint Francis praises God for his creatures, he goes on to say: 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.

Moreover, when our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one. It follows that our indifference or cruelty towards fellow creatures of this world sooner or later affects the treatment we mete out to other human beings. We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people.

Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone. For believers, this becomes a question of fidelity to the Creator, since God created the world for everyone. Hence every ecological approach needs to incorporate a social perspective which takes into account the fundamental rights of the poor and the underprivileged.

This has practical consequences, such as those pointed out by the bishops of Paraguay: This right must be guaranteed so that its exercise is not illusory but real. The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all.

If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others. Jesus took up the biblical faith in God the Creator, emphasizing a fundamental truth: God is Father cf. In talking with his disciples, Jesus would invite them to recognize the paternal relationship God has with all his creatures. The Lord was able to invite others to be attentive to the beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in constant touch with nature, lending it an attention full of fondness and wonder. As he made his way throughout the land, he often stopped to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father, and invited his disciples to perceive a divine message in things: Jesus lived in full harmony with creation, and others were amazed: His appearance was not that of an ascetic set apart from the world, nor of an enemy to the pleasant things of life.

Of himself he said: He was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel. Jesus worked with his hands, in daily contact with the matter created by God, to which he gave form by his craftsmanship. It is striking that most of his life was dedicated to this task in a simple life which awakened no admiration at all: In this way he sanctified human labour and endowed it with a special significance for our development.

In the Christian understanding of the world, the destiny of all creation is bound up with the mystery of Christ, present from the beginning: One Person of the Trinity entered into the created cosmos, throwing in his lot with it, even to the cross. From the beginning of the world, but particularly through the incarnation, the mystery of Christ is at work in a hidden manner in the natural world as a whole, without thereby impinging on its autonomy.

The New Testament does not only tell us of the earthly Jesus and his tangible and loving relationship with the world. It also shows him risen and glorious, present throughout creation by his universal Lordship: Thus, the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence.

It would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis. A certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us. Should we not pause and consider this? At this stage, I propose that we focus on the dominant technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world. Humanity has entered a new era in which our technical prowess has brought us to a crossroads.

We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous waves of change: How can we not feel gratitude and appreciation for this progress, especially in the fields of medicine, engineering and communications? How could we not acknowledge the work of many scientists and engineers who have provided alternatives to make development sustainable?

Technoscience, when well directed, can produce important means of improving the quality of human life, from useful domestic appliances to great transportation systems, bridges, buildings and public spaces. Who can deny the beauty of an aircraft or a skyscraper? Valuable works of art and music now make use of new technologies. So, in the beauty intended by the one who uses new technical instruments and in the contemplation of such beauty, a quantum leap occurs, resulting in a fulfilment which is uniquely human.

Yet it must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our DNA, and many other abilities which we have acquired, have given us tremendous power. More precisely, they have given those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used.

We need but think of the nuclear bombs dropped in the middle of the twentieth century, or the array of technology which Nazism, Communism and other totalitarian regimes have employed to kill millions of people, to say nothing of the increasingly deadly arsenal of weapons available for modern warfare. In whose hands does all this power lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it. Each age tends to have only a meagre awareness of its own limitations. It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the challenges now before us.

Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.

The basic problem goes even deeper: This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation.

Men and women have constantly intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us. Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology.

The effects of imposing this model on reality as a whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but this is just one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life. We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups.

Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build. The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere instrument is nowadays inconceivable. The technological paradigm has become so dominant that it would be difficult to do without its resources and even more difficult to utilize them without being dominated by their internal logic.

It has become countercultural to choose a lifestyle whose goals are even partly independent of technology, of its costs and its power to globalize and make us all the same. The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth.

They are less concerned with certain economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual operation in the functioning of the economy. They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their deeds by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations. Their behaviour shows that for them maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion.

We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth. The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant.

A science which would offer solutions to the great issues would necessarily have to take into account the data generated by other fields of knowledge, including philosophy and social ethics; but this is a difficult habit to acquire today. Nor are there genuine ethical horizons to which one can appeal. Life gradually becomes a surrender to situations conditioned by technology, itself viewed as the principal key to the meaning of existence.

In the concrete situation confronting us, there are a number of symptoms which point to what is wrong, such as environmental degradation, anxiety, a loss of the purpose of life and of community living. Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm.

Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find themselves caught up in the same globalized logic. To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community.

Or indeed when the desire to create and contemplate beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who behold it. An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed, like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising up in stubborn resistance?

There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities.

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There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere. This is not to reject the possibilities which technology continues to offer us. But humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction.

It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything.

Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness. All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes.

Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur. When human beings fail to find their true place in this world, they misunderstand themselves and end up acting against themselves: Modernity has been marked by an excessive anthropocentrism which today, under another guise, continues to stand in the way of shared understanding and of any effort to strengthen social bonds.

The time has come to pay renewed attention to reality and the limits it imposes; this in turn is the condition for a more sound and fruitful development of individuals and society. An inadequate presentation of Christian anthropology gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world.

Often, what was handed on was a Promethean vision of mastery over the world, which gave the impression that the protection of nature was something that only the faint-hearted cared about. Neglecting to monitor the harm done to nature and the environmental impact of our decisions is only the most striking sign of a disregard for the message contained in the structures of nature itself.

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities — to offer just a few examples — it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself.

There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology. Human beings cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world unless, at the same time, their unique capacities of knowledge, will, freedom and responsibility are recognized and valued. Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations.

If the present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. Christian thought sees human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures; it thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for others.

Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism dressed up in ecological garb, locking us into a stifling immanence. Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?

We need to develop a new synthesis capable of overcoming the false arguments of recent centuries. Christianity, in fidelity to its own identity and the rich deposit of truth which it has received from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in fruitful dialogue with changing historical situations.

In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.

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The committee held two open public information-gathering sessions to hear from researchers, practitioners, parents, and other stakeholders on topics germane to this study and to supplement the expertise of the committee members see Appendix A for the agendas of these open sessions. Material from these open sessions is referenced in this report where relevant.

Cost is an important consideration for the implementation of parenting programs at scale. Therefore, the committee commissioned a paper reviewing the available economic evidence for investing in parenting programs at scale to inform its deliberations on this portion of its charge. Findings and excerpts from this paper are integrated throughout Chapters 3 through 6. The committee also commissioned a second paper summarizing evidence-based strategies used by health care systems and providers to help parents acquire and sustain knowledge, attitudes, and practices that promote healthy child development.

Lastly, a commissioned paper on evidence-based strategies to support parents of children with mental illness formed the basis for a report section on this population. In addition, the committee conducted two sets of group and individual semistructured interviews with parents participating in family support programs at community-based organizations in Omaha, Nebraska, and Washington, D.

Parents provided feedback on the strengths they bring to parenting, challenges they face, how services for parents can be improved, and ways they prefer to receive parenting information, among other topics. The committee recognized that to a certain degree, ideas about what is considered effective parenting vary across cultures and ecological conditions, including economies, social structures, religious beliefs, and moral values Cushman, To address this variation, and in accordance with its charge, the committee examined research on how core parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices differ by specific characteristics of children, parents, and contexts.

However, because the research on parenting has traditionally underrepresented several populations e. Also, recognizing that nearly every facet of society has a role to play in supporting parents and ensuring that children realize their full potential, the committee reviewed not only strategies designed expressly for parents e. As noted earlier in this chapter, this report was informed by a life-course perspective on parenting, given evidence from neuroscience and a range of related research that the early years are a critical period in shaping how individuals fare throughout their lives.

A number of principles guided this study. Relational practices are those focused primarily on intervening with families using compassion, active and reflective listening, empathy, and other techniques. In addition, family-centered practices focused on the context of successful parenting are a key third form of support for parenting.

A premise of the committee is that many interventions with the most troubled families and children will require all these types of services—often delivered concurrently over a lengthy period of time. Second, many programs are designed to serve families at particular risk for problems related to cognitive and social-emotional development, health, and well-being. Early Head Start and Head Start, for example, are means tested and designed for low-income families most of whom are known to face not just one risk factor low income but also others that often cluster together e.

Special populations addressed in this report typically are at very high risk because of this exposure to multiple risk factors. Research has shown that children in such families have the poorest outcomes, in some instances reaching a level of toxic stress that seriously impairs their developmental functioning Shonkoff and Garner, Of course, in addition to characterizing developmental risk, it is essential to understand the corresponding adaptive processes and protective factors, as it is the balance of risk and protective factors that determines outcomes. In many ways, supporting parents is one way to attempt to change that balance.

From an intervention point of view, several principles are central. First, intervention strategies need to be designed to have measurable effects over time and to be sustainable. Second, it is necessary to focus on the needs of individual families and to tailor interventions to achieve desired outcomes. The importance of personalized approaches is widely acknowledged in medicine, education, and other areas.

An observation perhaps best illustrated in the section on parents of children with developmental disabilities in Chapter 5 , although the committee believes this approach applies to many of the programs described in this report. A corresponding core principle of intervention is viewing parents as equal partners, experts in what both they and their children need. It is important as well that multiple kinds of services for families be integrated and coordinated.

Prevention interventions encompass mental health promotion: Treatment interventions include case identification, standard treatment for known disorders, accordance of long-term treatment with the goal of reduction in relapse or occurrence, and aftercare and rehabilitation National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, The committee recognizes that engaging and retaining children and families in parenting interventions are critical challenges. A key to promoting such engagement may be cultural relevance.

Finally, the question of widespread implementation and dissemination of parenting interventions is critically important. Given the cost of testing evidence-based parenting programs, the development of additional programs needs to be built on the work that has been done before. Collectively, interventions also are more likely to achieve a significant level of impact if they incorporate some of the elements of prior interventions. In any case, a focus on the principles of implementation and dissemination clearly is needed.

As is discussed in this report, the committee calls for more study and experience with respect to taking programs to scale. This report is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 2 examines desired outcomes for children and reviews the existing research on parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices that support positive parent-child interactions and child outcomes. Based on the available research, this chapter identifies a set of core knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Chapter 3 provides a brief overview of some of the major federally funded programs and policies that support parents in the United States.

Chapters 4 and 5 describe evidence-based and evidence-informed strategies for supporting parents and enabling the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices, including universal and widely used interventions Chapter 4 and interventions targeted to parents of children with special needs and parents who themselves face adversities. Chapter 7 describes a national framework for supporting parents of young children. Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation.

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