André Trigueiro (photo) is a well-known Brazilian journalist, a reporter and newsreader at the GloboNews channel. He is also the editor and presenter of the programme “Cities and Solutions”, broadcast on the same channel. André Trigueiro is passionate about the environment. He talks about the issue in programmes on the CBN radio network, the Rio de Janeiro Spiritist radio station and in speeches and lectures to mostly Spiritist audiences across the country. He is the author a book on the environment – Espiritismo e Ecologia – and a professor of Environmental Journalism at the presitious PUC university in Rio.

Ecology means studying your home. And we must understand it as a synergic science, which has strong links with the vision of the universe brought to us by Spiritism in the last 154 years. There is a synergy between Spiritism and Ecology in passages from the Genesis and in chapters of The Spirits’ Book concerning the Law of Destruction and the Law of Conservation. 

Has the Spiritual World sent messages on that particular issue? 

Let’s stick with some of the best-known Spiritist authors, such as André Luiz, Emmanuel and Joanna de Ângelis, who became household names in Brazil thanks to the mediumship of Chico Xavier and Divaldo Franco. Those authors highlight in many of their works the risk humankind is exposed to when it neglects its own planetary home. They talk about a new ethic that must inspire the way we approach and use our natural resources. This home doesn’t belong to us. It houses us, it gives us shelter in the different journeys and seasons needed for our evolution. We are the ones in charge of keeping it working properly and in a good stated. God delegates, God outsources. 

What is the reaction in the Spiritist Movement to that approach? 

I am delighted to see that many Spiritist groups were already carrying that message on and discussing the issue even before the publication of the book. Sustainable development has been in the agenda of many Spiritist groups for many years. 

Would you like to mention any group in particular? 

To avoid being unfair, I would like to mention only one out of so many that are doing that work, as it’s the one that seems to be doing for longer. It’s the Bezerra de Menezes group, in the southern city of Porto Alegre, that carries out a very thorough programme of environmental education and has become a reference to Spiritists and non-Spiritists. Just to give you an idea, some people even phone them to know where to go to have their rubbish recycled. 

We understand your book – Espiritismo e Ecologia – has played an important role in the debate on the environment in the Spiritist Movement. How did you come up with the idea of writing the book?

One interesting aspect about the book is that it’s published on recycled paper – the first such venture by the FEB (Brazilian Spiritist Federation) publishing house. More than that, it’s a fully environmentally certified book. It sums up the basic ideas I have been putting forward in seminars and lectures hosted in Spiritist groups, following a rise in demand on environmental debates. Both Spiritism and Ecoloby offer valuable tools to understand the reality around us.

How many books have you sold? Has the book been well received? 

We are on the third edition of the book, which has sold more than 30,000 copies so far. I notice wherever I go increasing interest in the subject of the environment. Some schools in Brazil are even planning to take their students on visits to recycling centres and sewage plants, in a great act of citizenship. The children will learn about something that needs to be taught to everyone in society. 

Has environmental issues featured prominently in the main Spiritist events? 

There was huge interest for the subject “Ecology in the Work of Chico Xavier” in the III Brazilian Spiritism Conference, in Brasília, last year. The subject was also discussed later in the year, in Valencia, Spain, during the World Spirist Conference. It’s clear that there is growing interest in the subject and also growing effort by those who are engaged in efforts to speed up the exchange of information between Ecology and Spiritism. 

Is the young Spiritist engaged in that process? 

The young Spiritist could, I believe, dedicate some of their enthusiasm and energy towards achieving something different, by helping to build a better and fairer world, a sustainable world. There is a strong link between environmental issues and the youth. There is a very clear synergy, in my view. The environmental movement is born from that youth, almost teenage indignation towards the way our world is. 

How do you, environmentalists, think young people see the world today? 

Young people find a world and its order, and realises it is based on a model of development ecologically predatory, socially perverse and politically unfair. They also find out that this world not only fails to deal properly with extreme poverty and deprivation, but also poisons the water, pollutes the air and dries up the soil. We have, thus, an “appealing” scenario for the young person to come, have his say and help build a different world. 

And how can it be done? 

I’m not young anymore. I am 45-years-old and was a member of the Spiritist Movement in my time. I still have quite an explosive personality, let alone in those days, when my hormones were in full swing. When we are young we feel that we are in height of our energy levels needed to change the world around us. There you are, the invitation has been made. There’s a clear need to rethink the current world order, rebuild it, see things from a different perspective. 

Many say we are living the apocalypse. All the recent natural phenomena get people worried, concerned. What is your view on that? 

Well, first of all, it was Kardec who said it, not me. He said there would be no need to go through the catastrophic level of destruction many associate with the revelations of John, the Evangelist. We are going through a period of transition, with all its troubles. The planet changes indeed. And some of those changes come as a result of choices we’ve made. 

What is your view on the fact that last year we had big earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China, as well as the eruption of volcanoes that cause so much disruption? 

We must be careful before drawing conclusions. We should follow Kardec’s very sensible recommendations and rely first and foremost on science. And what does science have to say about the recent earthquakes and the Icelandic volcano? It all happened within a period of five months only, and many prophets of doom used those events at the time to say the world was ending, that we were living the apocalypse.  

And then there was the tsunami in Japan… 

Yes, Japan is an archipelago where three tectonic plates clash against each other. There are earthquakes every day, many of them can’t even be felt. Quakes in that part of the world are almost to be expected. Tsunami, incidentally, is a Japanese word. Of course people get scared and worried with the news, especially as events are these days widely reported and travel very fast. 

What do earthquake experts say? 

If you ask seismologists, they will tell you that there isn’t a higher than normal number of earthquakes in the world at the moment. There is no change in the pattern of quakes. 

How about volcano experts? 

They will tell us that any dormant volcano will wake up one day. It may take less or more time. If it doesn’t become active, it means it has become an extinct volcano. So what happened in Iceland was expected. If there was an unprecedented collapse in international airplane traffic at the time, that’s nothing to do with the planet. The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and there have always been earthquakes, tidal waves, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions. 

What do we need to do to avoid the dissemination of so much misleading information? 

We need to attempt to understand how our world works. First of all, we must declare our environmental illiteracy. Once we admit our ignorance, we should make an effort to acquire knowledge, so we won’t be making the same mistake of predicting the end of the world as easily as we’ve been doing. We need to be more accountable for the things we say. 

Changing subject, you say in your lectures that we are all made of stardust. What do you mean, exactly? 

The Spiritist Doctrine has revealed the existence of the universal cosmic fluid, which is the raw material of the whole universe. We are made of that fluid, and so is everything else. We also learn in the Doctrine – and we could mention here the evangelical quote – that those who live in each of our Father’s homes are made of the elements found in their planet. So, yes, we are made of the same material of which the Earth is built.  

In the Bible, we find the quote “From dust to dust.” Is that the encrypted meaning of that quote? 

That quote is not Bible rhetoric. It is a fact that we are made of the same elements that our world is made of. That fact establishes a link, a bigger connection with our home, our planet. I think it very important also that we realise there is no gap between “us” from the environment or nature. We are the environment, we are the nature. The environment begins inside us. 

Within that theme, what issues do you think should be discussed in lectures at Spiritist Groups? 

“Spiritism and Ecology” is a good theme, which offers a number of possibilities. It has many connecting points, many common areas between two closely related schools of thought. There is another interesting theme, “Conscious Consumption.” That is something we need to discuss, I believe it’s an evangelical subject. We will realise not only that we can be happier living with less, but also that this is almost mandatory in order to avoid getting lost in the labyrinths of the material world. Those who proudly say they are into consumption are stating their links with the lifestyle of primitive worlds. After all, the inhabitants of primitive worlds are immensely attached to material objects. So we need to open room for debating the issue of consumption in Spiritist Centres. 

And what is your view on consumerism? 

I would say without hesitation that, based on what I think is right and based on the principles of the Spiritist Doctrine, excessive consumption damages our attempts of spiritual evolution. Consumerism provides an existential trap. You are dazzled by shopping, shopping centres, sales, credit, by paying in 15 instalments with no interest… In sum, whatever is very appealing and seductive can become traps, with individuals getting fascinated by material objects and diving into a tricky world of senses. Of course each situation can be different, and we can’t generalise. But many people lose focus and compromise their main goals on Earth. What are we doing in the material world? Why did we dive in a world of flesh, what was the aim? We need, therefore, to find out that conscious consumption has everything to do with spiritual evolution.