Trumped on Climate Change

It was bound to happen. We have experienced some intense cold weather and so a fair number of people, including the noted climate scientist, Donald Trump, have been taking it as "proof" that climate change and warming just aren't occurring. I am willing to concede that it sure doesn't feel warm out there, and like many clergy and church leaders we are fretting that this nasty weather has resulted in smaller congregations, or cancelled worship services.

I find this open letter by Nick Visser to The Donald to be very helpful in understanding how it can be so cold and still be an indication of Global Climate Change and even Global Warming:

Dear Mr. Trump:Winter is always cold. And sometimes that means unimaginably cold.
Despite wind chills nearing -60 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago and temperatures that left some parts of Canada colder than Mars, Arctic sea ice is still melting, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are still climbing and climate change is predicted to pose a far greater threat to the planet than many scientists thought.
Winters have become increasingly warmer over the past century, and despite the recent bout of subzero temps, global warming can make extreme weather events like the polar vortex even worse. In layman's terms, as the planet warms and Arctic sea ice melts, the northern polar region equalizes a bit with temperatures farther south, causing the jet stream that forms a circular band around the northern latitudes to slow down.
This jet stream usually holds the far colder Arctic air in place with winds in excess of 100 mph, but pockets of cold can escape at times when the stream slows down, according to Time. That's exactly what's happened this time around, except the amount of cold that's leaked past the seal is much larger than usual and has pushed farther south.
Plain and simple, climate change can't be proven or disproven by a single weather event.  Period. Long-term trends have shown that climate change is happening and the IPCC has said it's "extremely likely" humans are the dominant cause. So, although it's counterintuitive, the current frostbitten state of the country may be further proof that yes, the planet is warming -- and climate change is here with a vengeance.

Mr.Trump, you're fired as a climatologist! But he and the others who are naysayers aren't the real problem. We all need to ask what we can do to simplify our lives, pretty much the way Jesus taught. Isn't that a win-win situation? We are obedient Christians and we care for Creation, even if this is all an elaborate conspiracy /hoax/government plot.

I would ask your opinion, but your fingers may be too cold to tap out a response.

The Pope, the Poor, and Caring for Creation

I have expressed my appreciation for Pope Francis, as a humble, socially responsible Christian leader who is working to effect change in a rather ponderous institution. Recently he instructed cardinals and archbishops of the Roman Curia to take turns hearing daily confessions in a church near the Vatican because he wants them to be pastors, not just bureaucrats.

Now Francis has made an amateur video praising the world’s “cartoneros” — the poor people who pick through garbage to find recyclable and reusable goods. He says their work is dignified and good for the environment.
 

Francis recorded the video Dec. 5 while meeting with members of the Excluded Workers’ Movement of his native Argentina, which released the video this week at an annual meeting of trash recyclers. Francis, known for his simple habits, has denounced today’s “throw-away culture” and said in the video that food that is tossed aside each day could feed all the world’s hungry. Francis has a long relationship with Argentina’s “cartoneros” — literally “cardboard people.” He would celebrate Mass for them as archbishop and invited them on stage during World Youth Day in July.

We often make the connection between social responsibility and care for the environment. We are also becoming increasingly aware that environmental degradation affects the poor more seriously than the wealthy. The pope seems to be making an attempt to connect all of this. Impressive.

Thoughts?

Jesus Loves Reindeer

The whole Christmas situation is muddled these days, what with Santa in his sleigh putting the squeeze on  the baby Jesus in the manger. And Happy Holidays is becoming a more PC greeting than Merry Christmas. So should I take it a step further and claim that Jesus loves reindeer? As George Costanza in Seinfeld used to say, world's collide!

You're correct that there are no reindeer in the bible, unless two-by-two into the ark counts as a reference. There were no reindeer in the gospel infancy narratives, but there are no other animals there either, even though we like to insert them in the story.

But if God is the creator of all that lives and breathes, and Jesus is God Incarnate, then surely Jesus loves reindeer! It is not a big stretch to say that woodland caribou are our Canadian reindeer, or at least relatives. And these caribou are disappearing because of shrinking and changing habitat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXbRD92aQhk The northern caribou herds are very susceptible to climate change and are disappearing rapidly. All this was reported recently but it didn't get a lot of attention, what with Miley Cyrus changing her eyebrows and all. After all, species come and go, but celebrity eyebrows are eternal.

You may be thinking that there are bigger issues out there than the survival of a species you have likely never seen. I feel that we are all diminished by the disappearance of a species, even one which aren't on my radar, on Christmas Eve or any time . There are far too many "going down in history" and we humans can make a difference. Jesus would approve and our active awareness would be a nice Christmas gift to the planet, don't you think?

Mandela and Earth Justice

All earth is waiting to see the Promised One,
and open furrows await the seed of God.
All the world, bound and struggling, seeks true liberty;
it cries out for justice and searches for the truth.

I love the words of the Advent hymn All Earth is Waiting. Some Christians dismiss concern for the environment as being "off message" in terms of the gospel. Their focus is personal salvation, forgetting the broader themes of redemption for all of creation. If God made it, God will save it, but we are enlisted as co-creators. We have a unique role in creation care and creation justice. And we know that Jesus was aware of the "least and the lost" in his ministry not as conversion fodder but as human beings of worth.

Here is an interesting piece from Grist magazine by Brentin Mock which examines Nelson Mandela's commitment to climate justice. So often the poor of the planet are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change even as they are expected to provide the raw materials for our affluence. 

Six years ago, Mandela founded The Elders, a cross-cultural group of leaders from across the globe, including former President Jimmy Carter and former United Nations Chief Kofi Annan, to forge human rights-based solutions to worldwide problems.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/justice-giant-remembering-mandela-and-his-fight-for-climate-justice/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweet

I hope you will take the time to read it and let me know what you think.

Begins with "C" & Ends With "A"

The city of Shanghai in China, with the largest population of any city in the world at over 20 million, has ground to a virtual standstill because of choking pollution. Government cars have been ordered off the roads, factories told to curtail activity, school children told to stay home. The photo above shows the commute from hell. This is a big deal for the coastal city Shanghai which usually has mild to modest air pollution.
Increasingly the industrial engine of China's economic growth is overwhelming the environment, with air and water and earth saturated with toxins. The water supply of many cities has been rendered undrinkable by pollution, including in one case the carcasses of thousands of pigs. It is a nightmarish picture in this country of 1.3 billion people, almost a fifth of the world's human population.

The statistics are staggering but so are the individual stories. An eight-year-old girl has been diagnosed with lung cancer, the youngest patient ever recorded with this disease. Pollution is the suspected cause.

Several things come to mind when I see these grim reports. One is that our Western economies drive the Chinese industrial expansion. We buy and buy and buy what China produces, and we love our cheap consumer goods. But at what true cost?  The second is that we seem to forget that there is no such thing as the "non-smoking section" of our planet. What affects distant lands eventually affects us, whether we want to pay attention or not. The third is that we should wake up to the cautionary tale of China for ourselves. Canada has recently been ranked 58th of 61 nations in terms of mitigating the effects of climate change. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3022288/ranking-countries-for-climate-change-performance-and-why-the-us-is-just-43rd#10We are outrageous per capita polluters and we have a federal government that just doesn't care as long as our economy benefits. This is a matter of scale and timeline, but are we really any better?

The Christian community and all people of faith must keep yapping away about this, regardless of the naysayers. But surely we must also make personal choices about lifestyles which actually reflect Jesus' teaching to keep it simple. As the other country which begins with "C" and ends with "A" we better wake up (okay, there is also Columbia, but you get my drift!)

Thoughts?

CS Lewis and Nature

Ah yes, my sadly neglected Groundling blog, untended for seven weeks. My shame knows no bounds.

Still, I read today that there is a C.S. Lewis Nature Reserve in Great Britain, a fact which has previously escaped my attention. The website contains limited directions and background but little else other than to say that the wood and pond may have been a source of inspiration for the Narnia Series, the children's books with a magical land accessed through a wardrobe. It is adjacent to the lovely home called The Kilns and where "Jack" Lewis and his brother Warnie spent time as boys. http://www.bbowt.org.uk/reserves/cs-lewis-nature-reserve . The rather fuzzy photo of reserve legend shows a blue heron and a kingfisher and perhaps a coot or moorhen?

This certainly makes sense to me. There was a creek (the crick) behind our home where I ventured as a kid, along with my brother Eric. We played hockey there with absolutely no parental supervision, as was the case with the forays into the wooded area at the end of our street and other spots around town. In the late 50's, early 60's, children just disappeared after school until suppertime, and the less said the better.

It was much the same with our son Isaac, I am reluctant to admit in print. When he was growing up in Sudbury we lived atop "Pill Hill" a nicer neighbourhood once known to the choice of physicians and other professionals. Since Sudbury is built on rock many streets just come to an end and pockets of birch and poplar, along with hardy conifers, fight for survival. It was perfect for the tree-fort crowd, so Ike and his buddies spent countless hours messing around in the bush.

Danger! Danger! That is the current outlook about kids on their own. What terrible things lurk in the woods? Yes, our lad came back with scrapes and a few stings, but today he and his partner Rebekah enjoy the natural world, as do our two daughters. As I have written before, so many nature writers and eco-theologians attribute their love of the Earth and what we religious types call Creation to their childhood ramblings. It makes perfect sense to me that Lewis found inspiration for his books about an imaginary land of trees and rivers and lakes.

Any comments about developing an affinity for the natural world as children? Do you still venture out there?

God's Orchestra

I was grumpy and without energy Monday morning, which I would like to think is not my usual way of entering into a new day. Part of me wanted to remain in the foetal position for my day off, but I knew that was not the solution. Instead we agreed to put the roof racks on our vehicle, tie on the canoe, and head a few minutes north of Belleville to a section of the Moira River we have paddled several times in our kayaks.

Getting ready is fussy, which darkened my mood a bit more, but eventually we got to the boat launch. Within minutes of leaving the launch site at the bridge on highway 62 behind us I could feel the change. Part of it was the physical activity of paddling with a trusted partner of many years. As my lungs opened up, the tension lifted, then my ears became attuned to my surroundings. We could still hear the traffic but it diminished quickly, giving way to the sounds of wind in the leaves, which is different in Autumn as they dry. We decided to follow a tributary stream as far as we could, turning back when we came to the gurgle of a riffle. Along the way we heard the chatter of kingfishers and shrill cries of blue jays.

 

The north end of our paddle was at a substantial rapids with a much louder roar than the riffle on the stream. We held ourselves at the bottom to enjoy that unique sound of tumbling water. On the return trip we sent several blue herons into flight. We watched one move artfully through the woods and then back out over the water. Another leapt up from the shore stirring leaves with its wings before settling into the steady whoosh of flight.

For good parts of the paddle we made our way without speech, although would we call this silence? There wasn't any noise, if noise is defined as unwanted sound. What we heard were the non-human sounds, the geophany and the biophany acoustical engineer Bernie Krause writes about in The Great Animal Orchestra.

The sobering reality is that it is getting more and more difficult to listen to creation without human sounds and noise. Krause says that when he first began recording nature sounds he recorded about ten hours of material to get one hour which was usable. Now it is a thousand to one. While we too are part of the natural order we seem to be very good at making noise which is often less than joyful.

While I have finished up the Creation Time themes in worship, Creation Time continues and we could argue it always does, if we listen. As we paddled we listened to God's orchestra and as is so often the case, listening to a musical ensemble or group is healing. The rest of my day was so much better because of the sounds of the created order.

Do you have similar experiences? Do you make the God connection?