Preach-In on Global Warming
Aiken Unitarian Universalist Church
February 10 2013
Are you ready to tell your children they were born a generation too
late? That there is nothing you can do to fight the destruction of the earth’s
climate?
This is the way
Javier Sierra begins his article “Were Your Children Born a Generation Too Late?”…and I must admit, it
is a startling thought. Only…it is something that has crossed my mind before,
and I have even said aloud to my oldest granddaughter, “When you get older,
maybe you and your sisters and your cousin should consider not having any
children.” She was shocked and asked me why I would say such a thing. And I
replied, “because the world is going to be in such bad shape, it would be
unfair to subject your children to that.”
And I do believe that, and how can I keep quiet when my grandchildren
- as parents - would be subjecting their children to living in a world where
global warming has destroyed much of the ecosystem that we happily enjoy now?
Yet, how can I not be aware that I am asking them
to forego reproducing, to make that kind of sacrifice? Having children is one
of the most beautiful, fulfilling things we as humans can do. It is something I
struggle with as I assess the century to come.
To recognize that children born ten or twenty years from now will as
adults have a much harder life – and maybe a very much poorer quality of life –
may lead some people to make exactly that choice.
And we do – in the West – have that choice, but many people in poorer
countries, whose high child mortality rates and whose need for enough willing
workers to contribute to a family’s basic living, may not be so lucky.
Tim Flannery,
author of The Weather Makers (New
York: Grove Press, 2005), says
“we are the
generation fated to live in the most interesting of times, for we are now the
weather makers, and the future of biodiversity and civilization hangs on our
actions.” (P306)
What a heavy
responsibility weighing on our shoulders! It may well be that we humans only
have a few years left in which to turn things around, so that our planet will
remain habitable for our grandchildren’s children.
Climate change
is a pressing matter that is also an ethical, moral, and spiritual issue for
each of us to consider today. Because today across this country, ministers are
holding a Preach-in for Global Warming, sponsored by Interfaith Power and
Light, an organization that provides environmental justice resources to
congregations in 40 states. I first became acquainted with this group’s Georgia
chapter when Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was released in
2007, and Interfaith Power and Light sponsored congregational film screenings
and discussions. You may recall that Al Gore won a Nobel Peace prize for his
work, although his book and subsequent film were criticized by the right-wing,
and his statistics and claims of a global warming crisis were condemned.
Diverting the
urgent need to act by attacking the messenger – the logical fallacy called ad
hominem – has no doubt had an effect on America’s failure to create a coherent
and effective environmental policy. And religious leaders – even Richard Cizik,
of the National Association of Evangelicals – have been urging the government
to act. This morning, I want to ask you to remain hopeful, even in the face of
denial and inaction by those who have the power to turn around the crisis that
awaits should we do nothing.
I. global warming facts
So, let me give
you four basic facts as offered by the Environmental Defense Fund’s website:
1. There is scientific consensus on the basic facts of global warming. The
most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming
is occurring, and that people are causing it.
2. Scientists are certain that the Earth is warming, and has been for 100
years.
3. Human activity is causing the Earth to get warmer. Only CO2 and other
greenhouse gas emissions from human activities can explain the observed warming
now taking place on Earth.
4. The effects of warming can be seen today, through disappearing habitat,
shrinking arctic sea ice, and extreme weather.
II. Storm Nemo
It’s ironic that
many ministers in the northeast US who were planning a Preach-In like this one
have had to cancel their services because of Storm Nemo this weekend! On Friday
night a message went out from Interfaith Power and Light, that their prayers go out to all of those along the
path of the storm, many of whom are still recovering from the effects of
Superstorm Sandy; this morning we join our prayers to theirs. But it also pointed out that this is a teaching moment for us all:
“Nemo was a massive, possibly historic
storm, or to use the Weather Channel’s language ‘epic.’ It dumped more three
feet of snow in New England, underscoring the amplification effect of climate
change. Forecasts warn of significant, widespread damage throughout the region,
parts of which are still coping with the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.” (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html)
The email mentioned the “somewhat
counter-intuitive nature of the public’s understanding of the relationship
between extreme winter weather and global warming”, and asked that we be
prepared to explain the links between this storm and global climate change.
So here goes:
“The past few years have been marked by unusually severe extreme
weather characteristic of climate change. Global warming puts more energy into
storms. Storm surge now rides on sea levels that have risen over the last
century due to global warming. This amplifies flooding losses if and when a
surge strikes. Storm surge now rides on sea levels that have risen over the
last century due to global warming.
Nemo is part of the larger trend. In the last century, we have witnessed a 20
percent increase in the amount of precipitation falling in the heaviest rain
and snow events, directly tied to climate disruption. The Northeast has been
particularly vulnerable, experiencing a dramatic increase in one-day
precipitation extremes during the October to March cold season.
Coastal flooding has also become more common as climate change
drives sea levels higher. Off-shore water temperatures are higher than normal
right now, adding to the potential for heavy precipitation by feeding Nemo with
additional moisture.” (IPL email 2/8/2013)
And that ends the weather segment of the sermon!
III. WCC
A statement from
a meeting in Doha of the World Council of Churches (www.oikoumene.org) two months ago starts with this exclamation: “The world cannot wait –
climate change is happening!”
It’s worth
reading a segment of this statement to get a sense of the urgency felt by this
worldwide fellowship of churches, because it brings up another potentially
life-threatening effect of climate change:
“As
people of faith concerned for our sisters and brothers, we come to Doha
extremely worried about food security as the severe shortages in crops face us
with the prospect of horrific humanitarian crises that should be avoided. The
present situation at world food markets, exemplified by sharp increases in
wheat, soybean and corn prices compels leaders to act urgently to be sure that
these outstanding high prices do not drive into an appalling scenario, harming
tens of millions.”
The
statement goes on to acknowledge that there is only a handful of nations who
are large producers of staple food commodities – and this past year’s severe
drought in two of them, the US and Russia, sent grain prices skyrocketing.
“Time
has arrived,” the WCC says, “to promote more sustainable and climate resilient
food production to urgently make more food available to sustain the human
family especially in the most vulnerable societies, ill prepared to deal with
food scarcity. Moreover, diversion of food stock for non-food purposes and
financial speculation are unethical and immoral.”
We’ve
seen how oil prices and the housing market have been manipulated for financial
gain in the recent past – none of us would be surprised to see market speculation
and other immoral tactics if food becomes another commodity of great value.
The
WCC calls attention in this document to the ‘Principle of Intergenerational
Equity’ that declares "the Parties should protect the climate system for
the benefit of present and future generations of humankind."
Back to the idea that we hold the future for our children and their
children, and “that our
generation is probably the very last generation having it in our hands to still
limit global warming to less than 2ºC while future generations won’t have this
freedom of choice but will have to adapt to climate patterns we have left to
them.”
“The World Council of Churches believes that the whole
Earth community deserves to benefit from the bounties of creation. Faith
communities are addressing climate change because it is a spiritual and ethical
issue of justice, equity, solidarity, sufficiency and sustainability.”
V. Rebecca Parker – loving our neighbor
And not only
that…it’s an issue of love. In this month associated with
love, and a month when we in the Aiken UU church stand on the side of love, we
emphasize the love we have for our congregation and our wider community through
our acts of justice and equality – Grace Kitchen, the Black History Parade, the
Welcoming Congregation service.
Rebecca Parker, in
her book Blessing the World: What Can
Save Us Now (Skinner House, 2006), says that what we are doing here in this
church is what the world needs to do – have a ”spiritual and practical revolution
that embodies love for neighbor and the world through sustaining structures of
care and responsibility” (145).
How can we
afford to wait until we face an emergency in dealing with climate change,
instead of beginning now to prevent the worst of it? As ‘weather makers,’ to
use the words of Tim Flannery, we can turn to each other for the solution.
The
Rev. Roger Bertschausen urges us to consider a ‘spiritual approach to global
warming’ and says that maybe “part of the answer to the profound challenge of
global warming is community. Maybe we need to figure out how in this world
crowded with six billion people we can truly connect with other people. Maybe
we need to turn to the people around us and get to know them. Maybe we need to
realize we’re in this together.
And not just the
people right around us we’ve turned to, but even the people way on the other
side of the world. Experiencing connectedness with those around us is only
significant if we also understand that the connectedness goes far beyond our
small circle. Maybe with a deeper sense of community we’ll realize that we have
enough.
We don’t need
more cars, more electronic gadgets, more this, more that to be happy—especially
when we realize that all too often our “more” is the direct result of other
people’s “less.” (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:TXwwxIX7xCwJ:www.fvuuf.org/index2.php?option%3Dcom_docman%26task%3Ddoc_view%26gid%3D26%26Itemid%3D208+global+warming+and+spirituality&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh5dRnXHYuMsDG8fAiXk393M4K_XqeNqBxINfWMkhWl_JR_Cj3zA27x6MQ0UMKoUitwQlKVMzPxjgkMy-V9D1V3aFf43Ci-8_z8KhRRYkAg9aauoxZr6GuVaNPNN1dTfrzH37mU&sig=AHIEtbTXeE-5yhcPz2TM9Xn412P8zz4bJw )
Rebecca Parker
reminds us that reverence is a form of love, and describes it as “a response to
life that falls on its knees before the rising sun and bows down before the
mountains” (146).
We can start to
be reverent by living our first and seventh principles, to affirm and promote
the worth and dignity of each person, and the interdependent web of all
existence, of which we are a part. We see those principles written around us in
this sanctuary, in our hymnals… and it is too easy to say ‘of course we believe
those things’. Living them is a much harder thing to do!
We can begin by
lessening our carbon footprints in the ways our children were looking at doing
in the Time for All Ages. We can begin by telling the leaders of this city,
this state, this country, that we want more, faster action to save our planet.
VI. Spiritual approach to GW
A spiritual
approach to global warming, then, takes on urgency, but also meaning, as an act
of reverence. This sanctuary for us is one place where we contemplate the
reverence that we pay to those things, beliefs, and values we hold dear. But
it’s out
there where we – with our children and grandchildren - need to make a
difference, because, as Mark Belletini’s “Communion Circle” meditation reading
makes clear, “everything, for good or ill, is part of the shared whole.”
May we be the ones
who make it so, Blessed Be, Amen.
Gaye Ortiz
2/10/2013
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