Belief in Climate Change in 2019

 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,
and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.
For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 
 Be alert at all times,
praying that you may have the strength
 to escape all these things that will take place,
and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Luke 21:34-36

Many of us have lived through the decades with the annual images of an old codger representing the end of a calendar year and a diaper clad baby ushering in the new year. Sometimes the child is alongside an hourglass which represents the passage of time.

The cartoon above includes the rather chilling image of the Grim Reaper with a scythe stating "Climate Change." The child toddles toward the hourglass which has the inscription "12 Years." This refers to the IPCC report of the Fall of 2018 which warns humanity that we have about a dozen years to get our collective shit together on the global menace of climate change. This report and the recent American counterpart draw the same sobering scientific conclusions.

Of course Emperor Trump immediately dismissed these findings because he has a "scientific mind" and therefore...I really don't know how to finish this sentence...

Even those of us who "believe" in climate change are reluctant to alter our habits which contribute to it, especially those of us who live in affluent countries. We are addicted to fossil fuels, whether we want to admit it or not. We may express our exasperation about fundamentalist Christians who dismiss climate change yet we don't really want to "walk the walk" ourselves.

In the end this is not a matter of belief, as climate scientist and Christian Katharine Hayhoe reminds us. The scientific evidence is not a religion, she points out, and denying climate change isn't relevant any more than not believing in gravity will save us if we walk off a cliff.

I feel that I need to prayerfully ask in every day of 2019 what difference I can make as a grandparent, citizen, Christian in addressing what really is the biggest issue of our time.

Listen to Dr. Hayhoe here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it?language=en