A Comparison of Laudato Si and Sustainable Development Goal 1: Addressing Environmental Conservation and Poverty Reduction
Question
Task: How do Laudato Si and Sustainable Development Goal 1 (No poverty) compare in their approaches to environmental conservation and poverty reduction?
Answer
Introduction
Human beings are one of the primary living beings on the earth among all living organisms and are very important to educate people for their healthy living.For human beings and for their healthy living it is essential to conserve and preserve the environment by implementing various effective strategies and approaches. Laudato Si is written by Pope Francis and talks about environment conservation and its impact on human beings. According to Laudato Si environment in current is getting destructed by human actions and is important to conserve and preserve it for future generations. On the other hand Sustainable development Goal 1 (SDG1) or no poverty talks about the reduction of poverty in human beings fromevery area ad region. The increase in poverty has brought various issues in human life like reduction in education, healthy lifestyle and lack of food which has to be provided for their healthy living and become a part of the current society. The essay discusses the comparison between Laudato Si and SDG 1(no poverty).
Comparison of Laudato Si with sustainable development Goal (No poverty)
Laudato Si is one of the relevant words that are given by Pope Francis considering mother earth and the responsibilities human being share to keep nature alive for future generations. The Laudato Si significantly focuses on preserving nature and environment and people for future generations.Pope Francis from the sentence or meaning Laudato Si is trying to reveal the relationship of human beings with nature which is suffering. The increasing destruction of nature by human activities is some of the issues that are adversely affecting human beings. Furthermore, the pope tries to explain the destruction or exploitation of human bodies by themselves in the same way they are destroying nature(Mirus, 2015). SDG 1 no poverty explains removing the poverty as possible from human beings including lack of food, clean drinking water and proper sanitation which are important for human healthy living.Human dignity is a concept and a belief which defines that all people hold a special value that leads a person to humanity and has nothing to do with gender, race, class or any other factor. The sustainable development goals also referred to as Global Goals are the relative objectives to end poverty and bring peace and humanity to a society(Morton et al., 2017). According to Pope, nature is getting destructed by human actions which have increased pollution and thruway of the culture which are beneficial for human living. For instance, breathing a high amount of smoke from the fuels that are used in vehicles and in cooking affects the health of everyone and impacts human lives massively.Climate change is defined as a significant problem globally which has to be maintained by human beings by taking various effective measures. Due to increased change in climate animal cannot live in those where they use to live and has to migrate from one place to another. Unsafe water is also one of the significant issues where human beings are facing challenges in their life for healthy living.Unsafe or polluted water leads to bringing various challenges and issues for human beings which results in the death of people in premature time. Global inequality, biodiversity loss and reduction in quality of human life and breakdown of society are some of the issues which are being represented by Pope Francis (Freund, 2015). There are certain differences between Laudato Si and SDG 1 or no poverty. Laudato Si mainly discusses the environment which has to be nurtured by human beings for healthy living for future generations. SDG 1 discusses the only poverty which has to be reduced by human beings and has especially focused on developing nations where poverty is high.In Laudato Si, it talks about the environment which is getting destructed gradually by human activities. This includes the use of technological equipment that has manipulated human beings and separated their views of the environment(Rice, 2022).
Module topic: Human dignity
Becker, (2021) has highlighted that human rights and social work are significantly associated with each other and both focus on human beings and dignity. Human dignity as a whole denotes human right regarding values and respects that encourages equal opportunity for every individual. The above comparisonbetween two different aspects however deals with a similar cause i.e., well fare of people and surroundings. For example, SDG 1 demonstrates the connection between human rights and their initiatives to consider inequality and discrimination. Therefore, every duty holder is expected to maintain and protect these rights so that no single individual is left in poverty. Every human has a right to have and their dignity can't be compared with any particular price (Kant, 1998). Based on the concept of Laudato Si human dignity is considered a part of an extensive petition to each individual. It is because dignity refers to something that gets identified without faith in any God (Burke, 2015). It is all about providing care to fellow humans as per the theory of Laudato Si.Thus, the comparison between SDG1 and Laudato Si provides an understanding of protecting human dignity
A course of study: Nursing
Through the biblical view, it has been stated that the earth is a gift and the story of the earth's creation demonstrates an association between humans and other living creatures (Fischer-Kowalski, 2020). Therefore, it becomes the duty of every living creature to take care of one another to maintain the integrity of God's creation. Nursing as evident to everyone is a profession that deals with providing care and nurturing people in need. Thus, a comparison between SDG 1 and Laudato Si assists nurses to encourage improvements and progress in their existing actions and behaviours. Considering the nursing course of study the comparison adds more value because different biblical histories have been discussed and social actions that have been initiated by people in nurturing existing environmental associates. Porro, (2021) has highlighted that two human dignity can be found that is personal and social and each needs to be maintained by humans to develop a safe and sound place for people to live. The comparison has highlighted aspects in terms of both physical and spiritual that strengthen nurses to become more competent when it comes to tackling different societal and environmental challenges. Overall it can be said that the relationship between humans and God needs to be maintained to encourage better living.
Local community organization
The local community organization that has been chosen for the analysis of the relevance of the above comparison is the "Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF). ALNF is a national charity which helps individuals that come from marginalized communities in order to gain critical communication skills and language literacy. The organization mainly focused on organizing programs addressing the needs of a diverse range of communities and individuals, mainly targeting the First Nations, refugees, and other vulnerable communities in Australia (ALNF, 2023). Concerning to aim of SDG 1 and Laudato Si, ALNF believes that every individual has the right to get education and literacy because being able to read and write is crucial to access both education and employment, which eventually helps towards eradicating poverty from society. The poor education and lack of literacy and knowledge about language among the marginalised Australians have not only led towards poverty, but it has also significantly affected the health-related outcomes of many Australians. The study has found that marginalised individuals and groups with little exploration are likely to experience various disadvantages, such as low income, homelessness, and health issues (Robards et al., 2019). Since Laudato Si has always focused on the preaching of human beings helping another human being, which indicates the true dignity of human nature, the nature of ALNF is particularly focused on helping those Australians who do not have access to education and literacy. Through these actions, ALNF also promotes SGD 1, because the significance of providing education and literacy, in such a competitive era, towards the eradication of poverty cannot be neglected. The skills that are provided by these programs significantly help towards providing opportunity and hope to those marginalised individuals, along with the benefits through various local communities. This will further encourage and motivate those individuals to support society by contributing towards the betterment of society, sustaining human dignity and having the aim to intuition to do something better for the community.
Conclusion
For healthy living, it is essential to conserve nature by doing various effective approaches and strategies.The conservation of the environment by human beings allows themto live a healthy life which is beneficial for them.Laudato Si is one of the terms used by Pope Francis for safeguarding the environment by taking sustainable approaches by human beings. Human beings are destructing nature with their own activities which have brought changes in climate, and pollution in water and air. The activities done by human beings impact nature massively which adversely affects them. Sustainable development goal 1 or no poverty discusses the reduction of poverty from human beings and improving the lifestyle and living standard of people in a society. It focuses on taking several strategies for bringing improvement in human life where they can earn some capital and remove poverty from their life. There are certain differences between Laudato Si and SDG1 which makes them different in some areas.
References
ALNF. (2023). Literacy is the road to human progress. ALNF.https://alnf.org/about/
Becker, A. (2021). Human Dignity Through Action: Transformative Human Rights Education and Social Work. ResearchGate.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350356936_Human_Dignity_Through_Action_Transformative_Human_Rights_Education_and_Social_Work
Burke, S. (2015, October 23). Laudato Si’: Human Dignity. The Dominican Friars in Britain.https://www.english.op.org/godzdogz/laudato-si-human-dignity/#:~:text=In%20Laudato%20Si
Fischer-Kowalski, M. (2020).LAUDATO SI’.ResearchGate.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340307976_LAUDATO_SI’
Freund, J. (2015, June 27). What does Laudato Si really say about the poor? - FAMVIN NewsEN. FAMVIN NewsEN.https://famvin.org/en/2015/06/26/what-does-laudato-si-really-say-about-the-poor/.
Kant, I. (1998). Cambridge Texts In The History Of Philosophy Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/c/1868/files/2012/12/Kant-Groundwork-ng0pby.pdf.
Mirus, J. (2015). What Laudato Si’ is really about. Www.catholicculture.org. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/what-laudato-si-is-really-about/
Morton, S., Pencheon, D., & Squires, N. (2017, October 24). Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their implementation: A national global framework for health,...ResearchGate; Oxford University Press (OUP). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320685121_Sustainable_Development_Goals_SDGs_and_their_implementation_A_national_global_framework_for_health_development_and_equity_needs_a_systems_approach_at_every_level.
Porro, C. (2021). The Many Faces of Dignity.Res Publica, 28(2), 407–412. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11158-021-09531-2.
Rice, C. (2022, May 5). Best Laudato Si’ summary. Laudato Si Movement. https://laudatosimovement.org/news/whats-the-best-2-page-summary-youve-seen-of-laudato-si/.
Robards, F., Kang, M., Steinbeck, K., Hawke, C., Jan, S., Sanci, L., Liew, Y. Y., Kong, M., &Usherwood, T. (2019). Health care equity and access for marginalised young people: a longitudinal qualitative study exploring health system navigation in Australia. International Journal for Equity in Health, 18(1).https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-019-0941-2.
