THE HERALD Monday, January 11, 2010 9

NewYear resolutionsneedall-yearactionsLive simply for a morepeaceful world, writesPhilip Wilson.

Cessnock-born Most Reverend PhilipWilson is the Archbishop of Adelaide.

AS we begin a new year it’s naturalfor us to take a few moments to makesome resolutions about what wemight do to make our world a betterplace this year. Perhaps yourresolution involves addressing anissue of importance to your own life– losing weight, quitting smoking,getting more exercise. Fabulous.

But what if someone told you thatby making a resolution to live moresimply, and then actually followingthrough on your resolution withconcrete action, you couldcontribute in a real way to worldpeace? World peace – now that’s aNew Year’s resolution.

New Year’s Eve celebrations, withtheir fireworks and exuberant

partying, are a great reminder of justwhat an affluent country we live in.They can also give us pause to recallthat human lifestyles, particularly inaffluent nations, more than everaffect the capacity of the poor to livein security and peace.

This year in his World Day ofPeace Message (celebrated onJanuary 1), Pope Benedict XVImade an impassioned plea to allpeople, particularly those living inaffluent nations, to care for theEarth, and to be good stewards ofcreation. In less religious terms, thePope is asking us, as human beingsof goodwill, to consider how ourlifestyles might affect those inpoorer nations.

Pope Benedict has earned hisreputation as the Green Pope byinstalling solar panels atop aVatican audience hall and signingan agreement to make the VaticanEurope’s first carbon-neutral state.

Interestingly, the Pope’s letter, Ifyou want to cultivate peace, protectcreation, was released early tocoincide with the Copenhagensummit. Sadly, as reflected in theoutcomes of Copenhagen,international consensus on caringfor the Earth remains elusive.

PopeBenedict’s letterusedforceful languagetoreasonthatintimesofinternationalconflict,war,terrorismandhunger,peacewillneverbeachievedaslongaspeoplegowithout.Peaceismadeimpossiblebyalackofjusticeforthoselivingincountriesthatmaybereducedtonothingifactionisnottaken.

Human relationships with thenatural environment have much todo with how we relate to oneanother. Indeed, Benedict is callingfor a change of lifestyle: a lifestyle ofsimplicity. Some have used thephrase ‘‘live simply, so that otherscan simply live’’. How we relate to

the environment more than everbefore affects those who have littlecontrol over their circumstances.

In his letter, Pope Benedictdescribes the Earth in terms of acovenant or a sacred agreementbetween humans and theenvironment, articulating that howwe treat the earth should reflecthow it was lovingly created by God.

TheimminentthreattoislandnationssuchasTuvaluandKiribatirequiresagenuineandseriouscommitment.LikePopeBenedict, Ihopeallpeoplemayhearandheedthedangerousanddevastatingimpactofexcessiveconsumptionandlackofregardforourenvironment.

What simple resolution can wemake in 2010 to cultivate peace andprotect creation?

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Topics today

Today’s fact

Screwdrivers were invented toscrew knights’ armour together.

Today’s word

Vicissitude: A change ofcircumstances, especiallyvariation of fortune.

It happened today

From our files – 1942:Newcastle’s water supply is assafe from interruption throughair raids as foresight can makeit, according to the HunterDistrict Water Board.

Today in history

49 BC: Roman dictator JuliusCaesar crosses the Rubiconriver and moves his troops intoan offensive position in the waragainst Pompeii.1569: First lottery in England isdrawn in St Paul’s Cathedralunder the patronage of QueenElizabeth I.1922: A 14-year-old-boy,Canadian Leonard Thompson,becomes the first person to havehis diabetes successfully treatedwith insulin.1965: Bodies of two 15-year-oldgirls found in sand at Sydney’sWanda Beach; deaths stillunsolved.1998: Two people drown andabout $50 million in damage iscaused as floodwaters swampthe Townsville area in far northQueensland following820 millimetres of rain in fourdays.2008: Eleven US soldiers areconvicted and five officersdisciplined in the Abu Ghraibprisoner abuse scandal.

Born today

William James, US philosopher(1842-1910); Rod Taylor,Australianactor (1930-);ClarenceClemons, USsaxophonistwith rock groupthe E StreetBand (1942-);Kim Coles, USactress (1962-);Mary J. Blige,US singer (1971-); Rahul Dravid(1973-), Indian cricketer; HollyBrisley, pictured, Australianactress (1987 -).

Odd spot

A Swiss court has fined aspeeding millionaire $315,285.Judges at the cantonal court inSt Gallen, in easternSwitzerland, based the record-breaking fine on the speeder’sestimated wealth of$21.74 million. The driver – arepeat offender – drove up to57 kmh faster than the 80 kmhlimit.

Today’s text

Come near to God, and he willcome near to you. James 4:8

DARK STORY: Philipp Meyer, and inset, American Rust.

Rustneversleeps inthe industrialhome

PhillipO’Neill

Professor Phillip O’Neill is director ofthe Urban Research Centre,University of Western Sydney.

WHEN Ronald Reagan becamepresident in 1981 he watched idly asAmerican factory workers took abattering.

For years US manufacturers hadfailed to invest in new plant andequipment. High-tech producersfrom Germany and Japan wereoffering better steel products andbetter cars. New industrialcompanies from South Korea,Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singaporeused cheap labour to outcompeteUS producers on price.

America’s powerhouse industrialstates were hit hard. Pennsylvanialost 350,000 manufacturing jobs inthe 1980s. Between 1980 and 1983,100,000 steel jobs disappeared fromthat state’s industrial heartland,Pittsburgh.

Unemployment rates inPennsylvania in the 1980sconsistently topped 15 per cent.

And a new phrase entered theEnglish language: rust belt.

Chains and locks closed the frontgates of steel works, coke ovens,mills and foundries acrossPennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio –the industrial Mid-West – all the wayto Chicago, Illinois. Proud industrialcommunities were decimated. Ableworkers and their families fled westand south to new industrial andservice jobs.

The less able, the tardy and theobstinate stayed on.

Last week I finished readingAmerican Rust by Philipp Meyer. Setin Pennsylvania, it’s a dark story ofthe lives of these stayers.

Like somewhere else you mightguess at, Pennsylvania’s valleys arelittered with rusty reminders ofproductive coalmines, railroads andonce mighty heat chambers thatturned the Earth’s ores into humantools and possessions.

InMeyer’snovel, though, industrialrustpromptsnoproductivememoriesfortwolocallads, forindustrialrust isall theyhaveknown,alongsidetheirdadsonunemploymentordisabilitysupport, theirmumsdeadfromsuicideorexhaustedfrompieceworkinaweddingdresssweatshop, theirlocalhighstreetamixofseedybars,

take-outsandboarded-upshops,andaWalmart.

In their old steel town, Buell, 70kilometres from Pittsburgh, idlenessand graffiti have become normal.Guns and cars are sport. With drugsand sex they control the local pulse.

Here, the best of the young leave.But the population of the old steeltown doesn’t diminish. The USDepartment of Housing and UrbanDevelopment buys up cheap housesand offers them to welfare-dependent families from elsewhere.These are known as HUD housesand, as you’d guess, HUD is said witha derogatory tone.

One of the lads, Billy Poe, was anexcellent high school footballer. Thebest. He was offered collegescholarships to play footy in topteams back east, or out west, but hestayed put, selling hardware.

The other guy, Isaac English, wassuper bright at school, like hissister who went east as soon asschool finished, to study law, and toget out. But Isaac stayed put, to lookafter his dad who had been severelyinjured in a steel mill accident.

The book shows how tough it is onyoung people who live incommunities that lack the full 52cards of a deck. A full deck meaningthree basic things. First, that acommunity should be structuredaround a mix of people across allages, and from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Second, thata community should be supportedby a diverse local economy capableof supplying enough quality jobs.And third, that the mood of a town asa whole, and the people in it, shouldbe one of optimism, where peoplereckon things are going to turn outall right for just about everyone.

At the start of the book IsaacEnglish kills a homeless guy. Isaacwas trying to protect Billy Poe froma knife attack. The violent deathexposes what happens in acommunity where there are toomany cards missing from the deck,valuable cards.

Asthestoryunfoldsweseetheoldsteel townresortingtoprejudiceratherthantrust. Itmakesjudgementsbasedonfearandignoranceratherthantruthand

wisdom.Buell’spoliceandjudicialresourcesareover-stretched,corrupted,and,likeall thecardsthecommunityholds, indesperateneedofrenewal.

American Rust is a good book toread on a cool veranda in a regionwhose shift out of undergroundmining and steelmaking lacked theviolence of Pennsylvania in the1980s and the despair that struckmany of its communitiessubsequently.

Rather than leaving you with asense of good fortune, though, Meyeralerts this Hunter Region reader tothe dangers of complacency aboutthe state of our towns and cities,especially to what can happen whenthere are insufficient quality jobs,when the best people have to leave,when social housing and publicresources are allowed to run down,and when welfare dependency isallowed to build.