Odd Word – Oikos – Good Word

February 19, 2010

Complex issues need bridge builders, persons who can take the esoteric and often complicated ideas and simplify them, so that the common folk, like most of us, can understand the issues more easily. Two people along my path, Dr. John Cobb and Mary Nichols, helped me begin to crystallize my ideas about the collapsing of creation. Today, with all the phony trumped up charges against legitimate science, we certainly need bridge scientists and bridge ecologists who can clarify the complex crisis you and I have helped create.

Dr. John Cobb wrote several important books, but the one he wrote in 1970 with the prophetic title Is it Too Late? got my attention immediately. I discovered Cobb in the early 80’s, but after his 1989 lectures at my parish of St. Matthew’s in Pacific Palisades California I was forever in his debt. His profound yet simple approach captivated the early adopters in our parish community. I have tried to emulate this man of the cloth who saw that the preservation of creation was the most important theological issue of our, or for that matter, any generation.

He began (and I paraphrase): Economics and Ecology come from the same Greek word oikos; meaning household. Economics is the management of the business side of the household as ecology is the understanding of the biological side of the household. Our only house is mother earth and sound management practices are essential. The practice of business must always take into account the impact on the biological if we are to maintain planetary balance. Respected scientists point to the increasing disequilibrium, that is the un-balancing of the natural in our world, in part because we have favored economics over ecology to the detriment of the whole. Balance is beauty, and as we pollute the skies, sully the waters, and destroy the forests the balance disappears with the beauty. We see it, we smell it, and we taste it and all because the management of the household has not taken into account the link between ecology and economics.

As awareness grows, and as we become more in tune with our complicity in the loss of the beauty of creation we will recognize and accept that all business practices will of necessity be measured against the environmental consequences of our actions. All endeavors can not be separated from the earth’s story and one day soon all decisions will be made based upon this awareness. Currently we are beginning to hear concepts like thru-put cost, closed loop manufacturing or farming, sustainable business practices, and resource management; each indicating that ecology management is working alongside sound business models.

This was all reinforced at lunch one day with leading environmental policy maker and nationally prominent leader Mary Nichols. In her charming direct way she looked at me and intoned: “Peter if your focus is going to be on the environment, eventually you will have to deal with our economic systems.”

All of us have scales that cover our eyes, and occasionally as we age some fall to help us see more clearly. Thankfully, over 20 years ago Cobb and Nichols helped me realize that corporations, companies and the capitalists who run them must not put profit ahead of protection of our fragile island home; - this message should be preached and promoted passionately. The greening of business is starting to take hold, yet the paradigm shift that will place preservation and protection ahead of profit is only beginning to be acknowledged. This, the only business model that is truly sustainable, does not deny profit, but places an emphasis on the balance between ecology and economics – this can be the guiding light for the 21st century and beyond.

Oikos, a strange word indeed, but one that brings into focus how all aspects of life on our fragile island home are interrelated; especially economics and ecology; or as the jingle goes: “You can’t have one without the other.”