I spoke to a group of confirmation students at the Ascension School on W. 108th St on the subject of sustainability.

In the Bible, Jesus says he came so that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Since then the human population has flourished, growing from around 230 million in the time of Christ to over 6 billion people today. That means the human population is 26 million times larger than it was 2000 years ago. So, you might say we really took him up on that offer of abundance. But this gift of life was not strictly meant for humans. Jesus loved all of God’s creatures and often forsook the company of his fellow humans to be among them. It should not be taken for granted that Jesus was placed in a manger inside a barn with animals after he was born or that he retreated to the wilderness for forty days or that all of his sermons were conducted not within the confines of a building, but outside, in the cathedral of nature. So, if we are to truly examine the extent of life’s abundance, we mustn’t count just ourselves, but every living thing.

Unfortunately, when you do that, you find out that life is not growing in abundance, but rather diminishing. In fact, the rate of extinction is thought to be 10,000 times greater than it was a century ago. And scientists are predicting that half of all plants and animals will be extinct by 2100. Half! Already we are losing dozens of species every day. How is this happening? Well, namely, the natural world is being destroyed to produce the goods that we consume every day. Trees, for instance, once spread across virtually all of the land on Earth, now they cover just 30 percent of the land. Each year vast swaths the size of South Carolina are wiped clean of their trees and consequently the wildlife that depends on them.

The burning of fossil fuels is releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is trapping the sun’s heat and causing the planet to get warmer quicker than plants, animals, and their habitats can adapt. That’s the reason there’s 20 percent fewer polar bears than just a couple decades ago. Just look at these satellite pictures of the north pole. The first one was taken in 1979. You can see how much ice covered the top part of our planet. Now, here’s what it looks like almost 30 years later. See how much the ice has shrunk in that small amount of time? There’s about 40 percent less ice. Think about all the animals that spent hundreds of thousands of years adapting their bodies to live in this extreme condition, only to see it turn into something they’re not suited for virtually overnight.

But when habitable land isn’t being lost to meet our consumer demands it is often being poisoned by the chemicals in the products we make and then thrown away with hardly a second thought. For instance, polar bears are also being killed by chemicals that have found their way into the water and soil. These bears actually have more toxins in their bodies than all other living animals. Biologists who study polar bears discovered over 200 poisonous industrial chemicals accumulated in the fat that keeps them insulated from the cold. These chemicals come from everyday items, almost all of which are made of plastic. Think about it. Plastic is everywhere, from the packaging of the food we eat and the bags we carry that food home with to other things we don’t even think of, like the shiny coating on an orange juice carton and the stuffing in your couch. Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.

But the biggest problem with plastic isn’t that there’s a lot of it or that it’s filled with toxic chemicals, but that it doesn’t go anywhere. Nearly every piece of plastic EVER made still exists today. Where does it all go? Well, a lot of it has ended up in the oceans. In fact, there are huge islands of plastic–some the size of texas–floating in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans filled with things like furniture, fridges, plastic containers, cigarette lighters, plastic bottles, light globes, televisions and fishing nets. It practically goes without saying that this is killing the wildlife.

How can we solve this problem? Well, for starters, we could recycle more. Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2 % of it. In fact, the same goes for most recyclable items. Even something like paper, which as you can see gets recycled far more often than plastic, goes mostly to waste.

But recycling more won’t prevent the destruction of the environment and the loss of animal and plant species. It will onlyslow it down. The real solution is for us to consume less. If that sounds strange or somehow not possible, just realize that the way we consume now–by buying ipods, laptops, dvd’s, video games, wii’s, x-boxes–is a pretty new phenomenon. The reason it exists is because are surrounded by advertisements, everywhere, telling us our lives are incomplete without this or that object.

Did you know that if the whole world consumed as much as Americans, we would need five planet Earths to sustain it? Yet what has all this accumulation done for us? More Americans suffer from depression than any other western country. Meanwhile, a tiny country in Asia, called Bhutan, was recently named as one of the ten happiest countries in the world, despite being one of the poorest.

That may sound surprising, but historically, if you think about it, that’s the way most of the world has lived for century upon century. The way we’re living now in this country is severely out of step with that and is why we are seeing much of the natural world crumble before our eyes. Jesus warned against the accumulation of wealth and possession, calling on his disciples to live lightly on the earth - “take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money” and telling his followers “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor.”

This calling is not simply about sacrifice. It’s not that you will be a better person if you give up your wealth and possessions. It’s about realizing your own happiness doesn’t depend on these things. But in fact, all the happiness and nourishment you need has been provided for you, if you just look around. As Jesus said, “Think of the ravens. They do not sow or reap; they have no storehouses and no barns; yet God feeds them.”

This lesson might be the key to saving our planet. That’s why it’s so vitally important that young people understand it. Adults are the ones creating this mess. And you are the ones who will be living with it. But we can still save our future and work toward making life abundant for all if we start living like we aren’t the only ones on the planet.