This is a speech I delivered on Earth Day, April 20, 2008, at the Unitarian-Universalist First Church in Jamaica Plain, Mass. A software glitch prevented its publication on that day, but I believe it's still worth sharing.
As Kurt Vonnegut once said, "I wish I could bring light ... but there is no light. Everything is going to become unimaginably worse. If I lied to you about that, you would sense that I'd lied to you, and that would be another cause for gloom, and we have enough causes already."
It is true that there are fewer bald-faced lies being told about the state of the earth -- even our president now admits that climate change is, well, shucks, kind of a problem -- but fewer lies does not mean that there is more truth.
Jim Hansen, the world's foremost climate scientist, is circulating a draft paper arguing that the climate "tipping point" must be reset at 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon, a point we passed two years ago.
If we do not immediately return below that level, Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves will collapse, with a catastrophic rise in sea levels. From the study of ancient ice cores and sea sediment, we now know that sea level change is episodic and quick ... measured in feet per decade, rather than inches per century.
Neither civilization nor global ecosystems can adapt to change this rapid.
Hansen sketches a solution of appropriate scale: immediate halt to burning coal; crash Marshall program to replace it with renewables; limit oil and gas use to known, economically viable reserves; full-scale reforestation and adoption of carbon-storing agricultural practices.
Nothing that we are doing, nor even seriously contemplating, comes anywhere near such massive a transformation, yet every actor on the political stage -- including major environmental organizations, "green" corporations, and presidential candidates of both major parties -- downplay the terrible realities and trumpet small-scale solutions wrapped in upbeat rhetoric.
We are racing toward the end of the world and have no plan of escape, but it is considered impolite to acknowledge that fact in public.
In private, though, we are more and more terrified -- especially those of us who are parents or grandparents.
I know from conversations with my own grandparents how heavily the burden of parenting during the Great Depression fell on their shoulders, but anxiety over earning a livelihood is dwarfed by feelings of parents today, who face the prospect of the very fabric of civilization fraying during the lifetime of our children.
To watch the evening news pass seamlessly from stories about an ice free arctic to nightly business reports enthusiastic about an upturn in oil sector stocks is to enter a rabbit hole where ordinary rules of logic, common sense, and cause and effect are overturned.
Though it pains me to say it, environmentalists bear a good deal of responsibility for the dreamy, Alice-in-Wonderland state we find ourselves in. Two decades ago, we adopted an approach to climate change that could be summed up with the slogan, "Stop global warming and have a nice day!" Even the most recent, most expensive, and most urgent climate education efforts -- like Al Gore's "We" -- warn that we have a problem, but are skittish when it comes to the bottom line.
We cannot count on environmentalists to come to terms with this terrible reality, nor are corporate leaders or politicians likely to step up to the plate, but there are good reasons why religious leaders and communities of faith can and must do so.
Three reasons are particularly important:
First, we can't leave apocalypse to those who find it seductive. As things begin to go haywire, the cockamamie "End of Days" eschatology will be buttressed and made more appealing. "End of Days" believers are the folks who are looking forward to global catastrophe, which they believe signals that the time is at hand when a handful of true believers will be whisked directly to heaven.
A 100-foot Jesus will then appear over the Temple Mount -- presumably reaching down with one huge, sandaled foot to brush off any Muslims still hanging around -- and all those "left behind" on earth will choose up sides for Armageddon.
Anyone sitting in Unitarian-Universalist pews can pretty much count on being "left behind," in the view of these folks, but I don't think this should be a great worry. The "End of Days" is so antithetical to Christian word and spirit that this splinter theology must be considered "blasphemous" in the old-fashioned meaning of the word. I think the Austin Lounge Lizards song "Jesus Loves Me, But He Doesn't Love You" sums it up best.
Apocalypse is not the last gift of a vengeful God, and we need to challenge the misguided and spiritually cramped who proclaim that it is.
Second, to avert cataclysm, we must give up dirty, expensive, and finite sources of energy for clean, free renewables and make that transition available to all peoples of the world, irrespective of their ability to pay for it. It is in our interest to do so.
Once this is accomplished, we may move on to solve other global problems waiting in the wings, like the shortage of potable water or impending collapse of ocean fisheries.
Thus, by avoiding cataclysm, we will set out on a new road that holds out promise of a happy, productive, and secure life for all people, while averting destruction of the few remaining wild things and places.
Seems like a easy call, so what stands in the way?
Greed, for one. Foolish consistency, selfishness, murderous anger, folly, and the lust for power as well.
We are not engaged here in a public policy debate. This is the old, familiar, fundamental struggle between good and evil, between things of the world and things of the spirit, between the principalities of war and peace, between that which is godly and that which is satanic.
It is a clash between the best and worst in our natures, a reality that has been obscured in the measured, moderate, negotiated outcomes of our representative democracy. To save our world and our skins, we must cut through the gray fog of collective irresponsibility, planned obfuscation, and policy relativity and cast things in black and white.
Third, as a practical matter, no global solution is possible without the leadership of the U.S., the world's sole superpower. The current U.S. climate agenda of advocates and activists is entirely focused on reducing U.S. carbon emissions, but that objective is too small. Our goal must be to bring the full weight of American power, capital, ingenuity, technical acumen and, yes, military might, to bear in a desperate, last-minute drive to avert cataclysm.
In a civic landscape of bloated SUVs and war for oil, this may seem impossible, but it is the genius of America that in times of great need we are able to shrug off the shackles of indolence, introspection, and greed and act quickly, with purpose and great self-sacrifice.
Every great surge of democracy and expansion of human rights in our history has been achieved by political and sometimes military means, but a moral groundwork was first laid by communities of faith. It required a civil war to end slavery, but that war could not have been fought until slavery was first understood as immoral.
And in each evolution, the Bible has been reinterpreted.
I suggest that in the story of Noah, the flood, and God's covenant of the rainbow, we find the keys to a theology of hope with a very practical application.
After the flood waters recede and Noah offers thanks, God grants dominion over all living things to Noah and his generations and promises never again to wantonly flood the earth. As a token of this covenant, God sets a rainbow in the clouds.
The deal is not between God and Noah alone. This is three-party contract, which includes "every living thing upon the earth." The tripartite nature of the covenant is reiterated no fewer than six times in 19 consecutive verses of Genesis (8:21, 9:9-10, 9:12, 9:13, 9:15, 9:16, 9:17).
"And the bow shall be in the cloud," says God, "and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." (Genesis 9:16)
Why is this meaningful? It emphasizes that God's promise to refrain from destruction covers humankind and all living things. Though not explicit, that promise is binding on Noah and transfers with the power of dominion.
Small echoes of that covenant resound through both books of the Bible. When Jesus is baptized, the spirit of the Lord descends in the form of a dove (as it did for Noah), and Satan appears to drive Jesus into the wilderness for the first temptation -- but he is not alone. According to Mark, Jesus "was with the wild beasts."
We, Noah's descendants, have broken the covenant because we have not, as God promised, refrained from destroying other living things. Extinction rates continue to climb from over hunting and fishing, habitat destruction, and climate change. If God's attorney brings this to his client's attention, then God may decide that he is no longer bound by the covenant -- in other words, he's free to flood again.
If, however, we accept our responsibility for all living things -- just as we came to accept that no human being should be owned by another -- than we will be moved to precautionary action, not on our own behalf, but because extinction of God's creations is unthinkable. We must take immediate action to halt the certain death of all coral reefs within a couple decades, for example.
By caring for God's creatures, we fulfill the terms of the covenant and avert a second flood.
We live now in twilight years before the storm, like the peoples of Europe in the years before World War II. Our leaders are desperate to avoid direct confrontation, just as the democracies sought to avoid confronting Hitler.
But there is no escape now, as there was none then.
We do not know what event, the equivalent to Pearl Harbor, will blow America out of our complacency -- two Katrina-level hurricanes crossing Florida in one year would probably do it. But that moment will be our greatest opportunity to turn America -- and through America, the world -- onto a livable path in keeping with the rainbow covenant.
It will also be a moment of chaos and fear, and there will be great pressure to turn to crackpot, quick-fix technical schemes, like lofting billions of small Mylar balloons into orbit between the earth and the sun.
To survive, to choose civilization over barbarism, requires people of compassion, courage, and righteousness, who have the strength to stand unbowed and unafraid against powerful forces. We are those people.
So ... we have a lot of work to do. Let's get cracking.
Oh, one last thing. I don't know about you, but I'm keeping a sharp eye on the sky on rainy days!
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Blowing up our clean energy future
Comments
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caniscandida Posted 10:29 pm
28 Apr 2008
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:51 pm
28 Apr 2008
At least to me, this failure by my not-so-great generation of leading elders is a profane "sin of omission" and tantamount to a criminal act against the family of humanity, life as we know it and the Earth God blesses us to inhabit....and not ruin, I suppose.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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Donald Hawkins Posted 11:13 pm
28 Apr 2008
James Hansen just came out
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Black Wallaby Posted 11:17 pm
28 Apr 2008
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Black Wallaby Posted 11:34 pm
28 Apr 2008
(Donald, yours crossed mine)
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Shel Posted 12:24 am
29 Apr 2008
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anotherID Posted 2:48 am
29 Apr 2008
It reminds me of Winston Churchill's quote.
"American can always be counted on to do the right thing, after exhausting all other options."
Unfortunately, this trait may be the one that hurts the most.
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314159265 Posted 3:24 am
29 Apr 2008
IT who allegedly created all living "things" and their crown, Homo S "Sapiens", making believe that Earth is just "things".
IT who distracts Homo S "Sapiens" from looking at Earth, making believe that it is nobler to look at metaphysical skies instead.
IT who makes Homo S "Sapiens" believe that daily bread is handed down from the sky.
IT who makes Homo S "Sapiens" believe that there will be a better after-life anyway.
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I like the interpretation of the Noah story... but still methinks theistic religion won't help. Homo S "Sapiens" needs to appreciate Earth as THE entity that gives and sustains life, and is not just some arbitrary thingy. There's the sacred. Perhaps we need some Earth based religion to motivate Homo S "Sapiens" to keep the global ecosystem running. Thy garden be thy temple.
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lorna salzman Posted 5:22 am
29 Apr 2008
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Don Posted 6:30 am
29 Apr 2008
For Lorna, appreciate your frustration. Lots going on that you may not know about. Check these out as just a few examples of faith groups influencing action at both the community and national political level on the environment:
Care of Creation
A Rocha USA
Evangelical Environment Network
Interfaith Power and Light
National Religious Parntership for the Environment
Restoring Eden
NCC EcoJustice Program
Many scientists and theologians are discovering they're not so far apart on environmental stewardship ethics after all. Maybe that could be your experience as well.
Grace and Peace,
Don (evaneco.com)
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Don Posted 6:34 am
29 Apr 2008
Sorry. :-)
Don (evaneco.com)
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Pangolin Posted 7:42 am
29 Apr 2008
If you don't read this on 4-29-2008 check out my blog where I've archived it.
Very strange.
Put the Carbon Back
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swimdoc Posted 3:17 pm
29 Apr 2008
Without some kind of massive cooperative population-limiting effort, the non-cooperative forces of nature will do the job: war, famine, and pestilence (disease) will kill ever more people, and the lives of those not killed will be miserable.
I fear that the necessary cooperation will not happen because humans (like most species) are genetically programmed to produce as many children as possible. We are also genetically programmed to fight wars and to hoard food and other resources for our family, clan, and tribe, but not to cooperate on a large scale.
So far religious leaders are not willing to abandon the notion that people should "be fruitful and multiply" or that people are supposed to "master" living things and "preserve" (by the way, the Hebrew word in Genesis here means "preserve, as in crush fruit to make preserves") the world's resources by using them up as rapidly as possible.
I don't feel very hopeful that people will actually face the problem of too many of us until it is too late to stop the destruction of the world as we have known it. It's hard to conceive of the Earth without people, but that may be what will happen. The cockroaches will probably survive, and perhaps new life forms will evolve as they did after past cataclysmic events in the Earth's history. We humans may well go the way of the dinosaur.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 8:33 pm
29 Apr 2008
Perhaps the time is coming when government officials stop employing every ruse under the sun to protect the selfish interests of over-consumers and hoarders, and start by choosing to do the right thing?
Life and human institutions like national economies are utterly dependent upon the Earth for existence; but too many of our leaders view the Earth as some kind of thing to be manipulated, dissipated, and ravaged secondary to their adamant practice of a religion called Endless Economic Growth. This clear and obvious object of their idolatry is the soon to become unsustainable expansion of the leviathan-like, global political economy. What a colossal sham. What a shame. What a shambles for our children to confront.
Always with thanks,
Steve
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caniscandida Posted 9:05 pm
29 Apr 2008
In this last message of yours, I like your rhetorical connexion of "sham," "shame," and "shambles." To my ear, though, I think it would sound better to put "shambles" first, then go to "sham," and last to "shame."
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 9:17 pm
29 Apr 2008
I certainly agree with you, though, in feeling frustrated that religionists of many traditions have been so painfully reluctant to accept environmentalist values as religious ones as well.
There are indeed individual Christians, and small groups of Christians, who have been doing great work. (And I am sure that is true of Jews as well; I do not know enough to say anything about Muslims, and members of the great Asian traditions.) But historically and culturally, Christians have for so long been anthropocentrists, focused on judgment and salvation, that environmentalism does not figure, for the great majority, as having any religious value.
Pope Benedict, formal head of the largest Christian denomination, has latterly been saying good things about environmentalist values. But non-Catholics should understand this about Catholic sociology: Just because the Pope pronounced something, does not mean the billion or so Catholics are at once going to take it to heart and act on it.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:29 pm
29 Apr 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 10:39 pm
29 Apr 2008
Your own criticism, though, of Ken Ward's exegesis of God's covenant with Noah, at the end of Genesis 8 and the beginning of 9, will not likely work outside of a circle of Christians (Evangelicals and their fellow-travelers) who are used to reading biblical texts in a peculiar, heterodox way.
Ken Ward understands very well how the concept of "covenant" works. Part of it is the mutual agreement that if one party fails to uphold his commitment, the other party is released from what he had committed himself to. So, in principle, if human beings fail to uphold the agreement that Noah as our representative made on our behalf (but see below), God is at liberty to send another flood.
Ward is wrong, though, to suggest that God intends to punish any violation, on our part, of our side of the agreement, by sending a second flood. There is nothing to suggest that in all of Genesis 8.21-9.17. Quite the contrary, the business about the rainbow, and the promise in 9.15c, "and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh," come across as a lagniappe, so to speak, an added favor, outside the basic deal; and one understands that the character of God here has grown, has learned a bitter lesson, has been horrified by the consequences of the flood which he has sent, and has personally vowed -- to himself, not to Noah -- that he could never do this again.
As for Noah as our representative in this covenant: Well, that is the usual interpretation. The lawyers, of course, would want a record of Noah's actual words, to the effect of, "I agree to uphold the conditions of this covenant." Not only are those words not present in the biblical text, they are not even asked for; so many lawyers will doubt that this is a covenant at all.
On the other hand, back at the end of 8, Noah sacrificed animals to God, and that might be interpreted as non-verbal compliance with the covenant that God was yet to describe. But I have no doubt his lawyers could get him out of that, if he wanted, with little trouble.
And, whether or not it was a true covenant, I am afraid far too many human beings have historically wanted to be not obligated at all, whatsoever, to taking good care of animals. So I am sympathetically on God's side, at least at this particular moment (not elsewhere, though: see below).
On eschatology: What the author of Second Peter has to tell us, about an end of the world in fire, helps us not a bit in understanding the truth that Ken Ward, our contemporary prophetic preacher, is telling us about the covenant between God and human beings, with animals the silent third partner apparently. Second Peter is probably the last book of the canonical Bible to be written, some time in the first half of the second century CE; and it testifies to some excellent theological insights, most notably the concept of the deification of the faithful, so valuable to the Eastern Orthodox, and to all of us through their witness (see 2 Pt 1.4, "partakers of the divine nature").
But it is not only a wobbling-of-wheels, but a Bridge-over-the-River-Kwai catastrophic train wreck, theologically, to associate the Second Peter text with the Noah text.
That is: Do you not destroy your respectability as an ambassador of a loving God, when on the one hand you tell us that he promised in his loving-kindness never again to destroy the world by flood, but then on the other you say, "But the document stipulated nothing about torching and/or incineration"?
We must always return to God's reasoning for sending the Flood in the first place, back in Genesis 6. We thoughtful, sensitive human beings MUST be allowed to question why anyone deserves to be put to death, in the first place; in this case, what was the "sinfulness" that God detected that merited being punished by death?; and, how in the world can "sinfulness" be attributed to innocent animals?
The story of the Flood is the story of a God who is a monster, and who most certainly does not deserve our worship. Michelangelo understood this, when, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in his depiction of Noah's Ark, he put the Ark in the distance, and concentrated in the foreground on the last remaining high ground above the flood waters, and the refugees, helping their loved ones up there, carrying them in their arms, on their shoulders, all doomed to die, thanks to that monstrous unworshipable God, all deserving our full sympathy.
Fortunately, the true God is not at all to be identified with the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is just a character, an unpleasant character, in stories, written by more or less confused writers.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 11:50 pm
29 Apr 2008
"What a shambles for our children to confront. What a colossal sham. What a shame."
The disservice my not-so-great generation of elders is doing to our children by mortgaging and threatening their very future is as unbelieveable as it is incredible. In the record of human history I am not able to find so egregious a lapse of intellectual honesty, acceptance of responsibility, performance of duties and moral courage, sad to say.
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wiscidea Posted 2:47 am
30 Apr 2008
"As things begin to go haywire, the cockamamie "End of Days" eschatology will be buttressed and made more appealing. "End of Days" believers are the folks who are looking forward to global catastrophe, which they believe signals that the time is at hand when a handful of true believers will be whisked directly to heaven."
Zeroing in on the term "cockamamie"... A significant number of people in the United States and elsewhere might be offended by the remark. But those are the people you have to win over. How does one persuade others that their interpretation of religious texts is the correct interpretation?
For the world's major religions to step in and save Creation, won't the liberal schools have to convince other schools to let go of their archaic doctrines? Is this a marketing issue? Or is Ken suggesting that the more inclusive and wholesome religious folks go it alone and ignore the so-called fundamentalists?
This sounds like a family feud of sorts. And it will have to be resolved before leaders of the worlds major religions can step in to save Creation... or decide once and for all not to get involved.
Who currently has the upper hand? Who will win? Who has the authority to decide what God really wants human beings to do?
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