Debating climate change

"Through Vohu Manah (the good mind), Armaiti (love and devotion) and by following the path of Asha (truth and righteousness) one strives to bring about Kshathra Vairya (the ideal dominion), where ultimately at the time of Frashokereti (the final resurrection), all evil will perish; only Haurvatat (perfection) and Ameretat (immortality) will prevail. In this cosmic drama, man is not a bystander. He is rather the prime agent through whose actions the promise of Ahura Mazda will be fulfilled.”

Homi Gandhi, president of the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York (ZAGNY) who serves as chair of the FEZANA UN-NGO committee, and is a member of the executive council committee of the Religions for Peace, was speaking at the United Nations 60th Annual DPI/NGO Conference in New York, September 5-7, 2007. The conference addressed the topic "Climate change: How it impacts us all.” Gandhi was one of six plenary speakers representing a variety of faiths. The five member FEZANA team led by Gandhi included Houtoxy Contractor, co-chair of the FEZANA Critical Assistance Committee, Cyrus Cama of Pittsburg, Niloufer Randeria of New York and Meher Amersey, president of the Bombay based Association of Inter-Married Zoroastrians.

"Zoroastrian theology and rituals celebrate and nurture all life. Reverence, care and compassion for the earth and all its creations are inculcated through the theology of the Amesha Spentas. At the basis of many ancient Zoroastrian purity laws, many of which can now be viewed as sensible and practical hygiene rules, is an intense passion for taking care of all of God’s material creations, and ensuring that they are not defiled or polluted,” Gandhi told the distinguished audience.

Noting that developments since the first well researched document on the ecological crisis was published in 1967 have been largely regressive, Gandhi said, "We have to think outside the box. As global citizens and for the sake of generations to come, we all have a responsibility to find concrete solutions and to implement effective, meaningful measures…To work towards producing alternatives which are going to reverse the process and which will be available at 50 percent of the present cost of the resources — energy, water, natural products — we consume… (Governments may) need to intervene in the interest of generations yet to be born…to (nudge) the corporate sector by legislation offering carrots and sticks…to understand that conservation and regeneration are essential to their bottom line…We should be a good influence by role-modeling our communities in this process…”

FEZANA at the UN: Hutoxy Contractor, Cyrus Cama, Homi Gandhi, Meher Amersey and Niloufer Randeria

Relating her experience at the UN, Amersey noted that this was her first opportunity to visit the UN General Assembly hall though she has been to the Security Council on a prior occasion. After the lackluster Bombay attitude to community events she was taken aback to find Zoroastrians driving for two hours each way to enable their children to attend the ZAGNY religious classes once a month at their darbe mehr in Pomona. The fact that this has been going on over a generation — one time students are now teaching their children — was an even larger surprise. Amersey told Parsiana in the course of conversation that she has requested Lovji Cama — one of the pillars of Zoroastrian education in North America — to work on a program that would enable her to start such a course for the children of interfaith marriages in Bombay.