Venustransit: Hope in spite of global turbulence

The Club of Rome predicts a dismal future for the earth in its latest report 2042. This
organisation was co-founded by Aurelio Pecci in 1968 and has been based in
Switzerland since 2008. The Club alarmed the world as early as 1972 with a study by
Denis and Donella Meadows called “Limits of Growth”. Today we are at a crucial
juncture in world history. Humanity needs to decide to stop the abuse of our earth’s
natural resources. Mother earth takes eighteen months to compensate for what
people consume in one year. Humans emit double the amount of green house gases
as the oceans and forests can absorb. Containing global warming at 2° Celsius is
improbable based on current trends as this limit looks to be surpassed by 2080. In
2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release a global
survey of the extend of deglaciation and the resulting rise in sea levels. Humanity is
running out of time. This month Rio+20, the world climate conference about
sustainable development, is taking place in Rio de Janero, 20 years after the original
Rio summit. Denis Meadows said in 2008 at the University of Zurich that the phrase
“sustainable development” is a contradiction in terms. Let us return to caring for
nature in the spirit of J.J. Rousseaus anniversary year. Today, June 6 th 2012 is the
last time in this century that we can witness the transit of Venus, the goddess of love,
passing in front of the sun, our live-giver. I hope that this event can function as a sort
o tracer, guiding the nations back to the UNO resolution of July 2011s assembly in
Bhutan. That resolution recognises the right for the pursuit of happiness. I wish for
optimal gross domestic luck instead of maximal gross domestic product, because
today only an ecological mind-set and an ecological spirituality may create a space to
have a hopeful and sincere experience of the creation and its creator.
Helmuth Werner, Theologe