The Environmental Crisis and Global Violence: A Matter of Misplaced Values

Abstract

The most pervasive and dangerous form of global violence today is violence against the Earth’s life-support systems. Environmental degradation is directly linked to other forms of violence such as war, poverty, and oppression. In the environmentally-fragile and overpopulated Middle East, these linkages are all the more pronounced, though they are often obscured by political and other factors.The environmental crisis has arisen due to a crisis in values. All over the world, traditional value systems which taught respect for natural resources have been overwhelmed by the values of the Religion of the Market, in which all things are reduced to mere commodities for sale. As the major source of values in the world today, the Religion of the Market is the primary agent of global violence against humans and against the Earth in general. In the Middle East, where most people identify as Muslims, Islam can serve as a counterbalance to the Religion of the Market, but for this to happen Islamic teachings on the environment need to be better articulated and more broadly disseminated than has been the case to date.