In one of many fascinating statistics which he presents in his recently published book on our ecological crisis, author David Wallace-Wells observes that the world could cut its polluting emissions by fully one third if the richest ten percent of its inhabitants reduced its use of energy to that of the average affluent European.
     This is a startling statistic.  Ten percent of the global population is roughly 760 million people.  Subtracting the approximately 340 million in the United States leaves 420 million.  Most of these millions are in other parts of the West and the wealthiest parts of the Global South.  Although 760 million people seems like a lot of people, and it is, it is a very tiny number compared with the many more billions of people in the rest of the planet.
     In response, some call for efforts to be made to elevate the lifestyles of the other ninety percent to those of the wealthiest ten percent.  Fair enough.  We should all want everyone to be able to enjoy the fundamental comforts and conveniences that we in the West enjoy as a matter of courses.  Yet if we imagine that doing this will solve our problem, we miss then point.  The issue is far more profound.
     Our world is a gift, a gift of God to us.  That said, we then ask, can we, in ourselves, manage a gift of transcendence?  As another book, Spiritual Ecology, suggests, spiritual problems require spiritual solutions.  And spiritual solutions demand acknowledgement of who we are, that is, moral and spiritual beings.
     Otherwise, we are accidental blips managing an accidental universe.