Ecology and Compassion

Conservation of nature is a necessity for the existence of human beings and must be a priority in our duties. Indian culture and philosophy, including Buddhism, always promote nurturing all living and non-living beings as an extension of human lives. The compassionate approach in Buddhism seems to be not attaining the goal of conserving nature. Meanwhile, the approach proposed by Laudato Si' is considerably a better solution for the problem of environmental imbalances. It promotes social justice, develops new social and economic structure, and emphasises the uniqueness of Christian compassion in conserving nature. Finally, to form a compassionate heart a new model of creation is proposed v.i.z., Existential dependency model which emphasises the necessity of nature for the existence of human beings and not vice- versa.