manuel olimón nolasco

  NOTA PREVIA.-

        El Mtro. Rodrigo Bustamante Riva Palacio, Asesor de la Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores del gobierno de México, se comunicó conmigo a fin de ver si estaría dispuesto a participar en un foro relativo a la “comunicación del cambio climático”, dentro de la “Conferencia de las partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático” (COP 16), que tendría lugar en Cancún durante la última semana de noviembre y la primera de diciembre. Me expuso con claridad que el interés de la Secretaría era que diera a conocer el punto de vista de la religión y, desde luego, de la Iglesia Católica.

  Acepté inicialmente y recibí la invitación formal firmada por la Embajadora Patricia Espinosa, Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores con fecha 19 de noviembre de 2010. En ella se exponía: “[…] En un esfuerzo por analizar y debatir este tema, México organizará el Foro sobre comunicación…, un encuentro internacional e interdisciplinario que reunirá a especialistas y responsables de la diplomacia pública y comunicación, expertos en cambio climático, medios, líderes de opinión, miembros prominentes de los medios sociales, consultorías internacionales y representantes de ONGs.

  “Es un honor para el Gobierno de México extenderle una cordial invitación para participar como ponente en este Foro…”

  El día que tuvo lugar el foro –3 de diciembre—el intercambio fue realmente importante el sostenido con altura y buenos intentos de acercamiento a la verdad, logrando un equilibrio –como lo hizo notar el comunicador Leonardo Curzio— “entre el alarmismo paralizante y el ambientalismo ingenuo”. Me parecieron de particular relevancia las intervenciones de las Doctoras Eileen Clausen, Presidenta del “Pew Center on Global Climate Change” y Jenniffer Scott, Directora de Relaciones Internacionales en el “Ogilvy Public Relations Strategy and Planning Group”, del Doctor Anthony Leiserowitz, del “Yale Project on Climate Change” de la Universidad de Yale, del citado Leonardo Curzio, del Doctor José Sarukhan, actualmente Presidente del Consejo Nacional de la Biodiversidad en México y del Maestro Carlos Zarco de la organización OXFAM, dedicado al análisis de la realidad social, de la sociedad civil, de la educación popular y de la ciudadanía.

  Considero que, de difundirse los contenidos y de orientarse hacia políticas públicas, podrá pensarse en un mejoramiento tanto en la comunicación de la problemática como en la reflexión y acción acerca del futuro.

  La orientación, en cierta manera diversa de mi intervención, fue bien aceptada y espero –como me lo hicieron saber el Mtro. Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, Fiona Harvey del “Finacial Times” de Londres y la propia Doctora Clausen—que haya ayudado a que el tema entre en la escala reflexiva, situada más allá de los datos y la presentación e incluso el análisis de las problemáticas.

  Pongo a continuación el texto que presenté, redactado en inglés, como me solicitaron:

 

RELIGION IN FRONT OF COMMUNICATION OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE.

COP 16. Cancún. The Climate Change Communication Forum.

 (Riviera Maya, December 3rd 2010).

 

  Last night I was outside my room watching to the sky. I was aware of three stars in line before my eyes. In my memory were the old words of my mother, and perhaps of my grand and my grand great mother: these stars are the three Kings in their way to Bethlehem. Emotion comes to me: my eyes are easily open to new and deeper visions and my mind to more deep thoughts and decisions.

  That is the effect of religious message on memory and action: the world (the sky with the sun, the moon, the stars), the sea, the mountains, the forests, are not only things (minerals, combination of energy) but creatures, effects of love and kindness, have a destiny and are a source of joy and antidote to depression and loneliness.

  The religious communication is ancestral in human history, it came from the shadow of the centuries. It is pre-scientific, pre-analytical, and came by tradition from the enchantement of the universe and the human experience on it. Around the perception on nature, the others and the self, there are times and places of fascination (mysterium fascinans) and times and places of fear (mysterium tremendum). Perhaps it is better to say: this kind of communication is poetic. Poetry (words and images) and stories telling are its roads from mouth to ear, from past to future, through generations.

  After those out of the time experiences, the monotheistic concentration and the fixation on a Book (“the luminous prison of the alphabet”) opens the possibility of universalization of the experience, but also favours the distance between God, mankind and nature. In some measure, the hebrew religious style does a secularization of the universe and made of the transcendence of God and absolute. Also the Christian thought, despite the central conviction of the Incarnation, the closeness of God in Christ, from the Last Middle Ages favours that distance.

  After the Renaissance, in the West, a very wide cultural movement (not only religious) with the help of the modern science, transformed into a more and more efficient technology, prepares the way to ideological changes recognized as rationalization (to order the universe from the mind’s logics), individualization (it is more important the individual than the community), institutionalization (of the law, the State, the professions, the churches) and secularization, (less place to philosophical reflections and explanations, wisdom and religious views on everyday life). The indiscriminate explotation of natural resources goes hand in hand with this evolution.

  In the twentieth century (“splendid and babelic” as Pope Paul VI named), begins an overturn on that paradigm from an ethical consciousness of the distance between mankind and nature and the damage of expoiliation of the last mainly by human hands. The communitarian vocation and the responsibility on the future are also found again.

  Unfortunately, as the survey presented this morning by Dr. Jennifer Scott shows, like in the case of the mass media, the religion at the present is not perceived as a good channel to the climate change and its human challenges communication, and there is a big difference between expectations from spiritual and religious leaders and the actual trust. I think, at least in the cases of catholic and protestant clergy, that the ultraspecialization of their professional training and the routine in daily life are in the background. It is fundamental to wake up to the challenges, which are also opportunities.

  From the religious point of view, and from the specific responsibility we perceive, is very important to communicate that the vocation of humans are not against but beyond the limits of rationality, individuality, institutions and secular views. Is this only a political conservative position? We think, no. Must we, so, in some way, to re-enchant the universe? We are convinced that yes. And this way should be in the line of the responsible rescue of human freedom and religion will be the natural place of hope. This challenge and opportunity is also a natural duty to historians, psychologists, philosophers and theologians, humanists by vocation.