From Medieval Corruption to Contemporary Environmentalism: Paying Others for Your Sins

A recycling technician checks pressed plastic bottles at a recycling plant in Santiago, on Aug. 21, 2019. (Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

Prior to the Protestant Reformation, many European Christians believed that they could buy their way out of punishment in the afterlife. It was reputed that some sellers of indulgences used the jingle, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

As much as that was a caricature of Christian faith, there were worse practices.

One of them was “proxy penance,” a process in medieval times by which “a powerful man, rich in friends” could avoid his own punishment by paying other people to take on his penance.

For example, a murderer subject to a punishment of seven-years fasting could have it all over in three days by paying a number of other people to fast on his behalf.

The idea that we can absolve ourselves of our wrongdoing by paying others to suffer for us seems corrupt, ineffective, and somewhat comical.

Indeed, in medieval times, instead of being a way of rectifying wrongdoing and dissuading people from sinning again, “proxy penance” seemed to simply be a licence for wealthy people to keep up their wrongdoing.

We may laugh at such medieval practices until we realise that, in our supposedly enlightened society, we are doing the same thing.

Delegating Environmental Responsibilities to Others

We are told that we can cover up our “environmental sins” by purchasing carbon credits, by paying special taxes and levies, and by sending our waste off for recycling.

The futility of it all came into sharp focus recently. The recycling business REDcycle was meant to have been collecting soft plastics from Australia supermarkets for the purpose of recycling them. But shoppers can now see signs in supermarkets saying that collections of plastics have stopped.

That is because of claims that REDcycle has been “dumping more than 260 tonnes of plastics into landfill” and storing another 3,000 tonnes in warehouses. Supermarkets voiced their disappointment, the federal environment minister said an investigation was warranted, and charges have been laid against the operator.

The deeper issue, though, is consumer behaviour.

The promise of recycling lured people into a false sense of environmental responsibility because they thought that other people were taking on their burdens.

That mindset was highlighted by a study that showed that, after Germany initiated a deposit-return scheme for single-use plastic bottles, the use of those bottles actually increased in comparison to reusable (and more environmentally friendly) glass bottles.

Researcher Jenny van Doorn suggested that when people pay for the recycling, they are actually encouraged to use more of the plastic containers.

That is, “these initiatives potentially increase waste rather than preventing it.”

This issue affects plastics, but it is also a factor in carbon credits. Passengers on a jet may pay for credits to make their flight “carbon neutral.”

But what is really happening? The jet still spews huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. But, by the miracle of carbon credits, the airline pays a broker, who sub-contracts a carbon credit manager, who then pays a farmer in a remote area to pay for some workers to plant some trees that will ideally absorb our flight’s carbon emissions.

A plane comes into land at Heathrow Airport in London, England, on March 16, 2007. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

It would be reasonable to be sceptical of carbon credits. The trees purchased with those credits are located thousands of miles away, and hardly available to effective scrutiny.

Perhaps the story that best sums up the danger of putting faith in credits was when the Catholic Church fell victim to a carbon scam. The Vatican Climate Forest was meant to offset the Vatican’s carbon emissions.

But no trees were planted and no emissions were offset.

Environmental protection is a worthy cause. But the way money is spent and resources are used nowadays is cause for concern.

The medieval Christian church was corrupted by people who thought they could convince others to spend their way into righteousness. So too, many of today’s environmental initiatives do not encourage people to do the right thing, but instead encourage people to pay for others to take on their “guilt.”

In some cases, these initiatives actually make things worse.

If we don’t change our own conduct but instead pay others to bear our burdens, it seems that we have learned nothing from history and instead are making the same mistakes again.

Are environmental initiatives really a way of protecting our environment? Or are they just licences to keep polluting.

It seems that we will find the answer if we “follow the money.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.