![handle is hein.journals/rjlr6 and id is 1 raw text is: AN ESSAY ON THE MARKET AS GOD: LAW, SPIRITUALITY, AND THE ECO-
CRISIS
By: Daniel M. Warner*
I. INTRODUCTION
[1] This essay began when I became interested in the following questions: Why does our society
promote ruinous profligacy and celebrate boundless consumption, with concomitant environmental
destruction? Why is frugality, formerly virtuous, now laughable?
[2] Let us start with the principal manifestation of the problem -- the environmental crisis.
Various studies confirm the environmental crisis is bad and getting worse.' It is a familiar
* Professor, Department of Accounting (Business Legal Studies), M.S. 9071, Western
Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, (360) 650-3390, daniel.warner@wwu.edu. The
author thanks his friend and colleague Daniel A. Nye, Esq., for his critique and editing of early
drafts of this paper.
1 The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN/ESCAP)
reported on May 30, 2002, [w]hile there are some signs of improvement, the overall picture
shows us our environment is deteriorating rapidly. The pressure on natural resources, for
example, is overwhelming, at http://www.unescap.org/unis/press/n_11_01.htm, last visited Nov.
1 2004. The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NAFTA's
environmental watchdog group) reported on January 7, 2002 that North America is facing a
widespread crisis due to its shrinking biodiversity.
www.cec.org/news/details/index.cfm?varlan=english&Id.=2441, last visited Apr. 4, 2002. The
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the
World Bank, and the World Resources Institute (WRI) reported in a study entitled World
Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life reported that there is a
widespread decline in the condition of the world's ecosystems due to increasing resource
demands and the report warns that if the decline continues it could have devastating
implications for human development and the welfare of all specie, available at
http://www.wri.org/wri/wr2000/wr2000-nrOl.html, last visited Apr. 4, 2002. U.S. News and
World Report, in a cover story on empty oceans noted: In a series of recent reports, scientists
warn that fish stocks are dangerously overexploited and that many of the methods that provide the
[seafood] we so enjoy are destroying the very ocean habitats and ecosystems needed to rebuild
the stocks . . .. Yet the bad news also holds an encouraging message: Modest changes in fishing
practices and management could reverse decades of misuse . . . . Thomas Hayden, Fished Out,
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Jun. 9, 2003, at 38.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/rjlr6&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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