Environmental Summary: Introduction
Both locally and
globally, the church’s work and welfare is bound up with environmental
stability. As part of my work in the area of environmental stewardship, I send periodic
summaries or updates to Bishop Barker to help him stay informed about what is
happening with the environment, and particularly what is unfolding in the world
of climate science. We are sharing this summary more widely as there has been
lots of new information recently that will continue to have big impacts on
things such as food production, health, the world economy, and the spiritual needs
of people in the 21st century.
The original document
from October 28, which begins below, includes information from the first part
of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report around the physical basis for climate
change. Since then, information from the upcoming second part of the report
about the predicted impacts of climate change was leaked and shared in a
November 1 New York Times article with the headline Climate
Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies. The article says that the second
part of the report will tell us that food supplies are expected to decrease by
2% each remaining decade of this century. Elizabeth Kolbert posted Is
It Too Late to Prepare for Climate Change? in response to the leaked
information, writing: “The force of the report comes simply from assembling all the data in one place; the summary reads like a laundry list of the apocalypse—flood, drought, disease, starvation.” She goes on to talk about the even more dire impacts for non-human species of animals and plants. (Our lives are of course inextricably bound up with theirs, so these are indirectly dire impacts for humankind as well.)
Then Typhoon Haiyan came along and devastated the Philippines. Its wind speed at landfall was 195 mph, the strongest winds at landfall ever recorded. We can’t say what influence global warming does or does not have on any particular storm, but we do know that the overall pattern of severe weather is changing and that global warming provides the conditions in the oceans and the atmosphere that are known to amplify severe storms. At the UN climate conference now meeting in Warsaw, Philippine representative Yeb Sano gave an emotional plea to “stop the madness”. Knowing that people at home had no food after the storm, he vowed to fast during the climate talks until significant progress is made to help the nations most immediately vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Then Typhoon Haiyan came along and devastated the Philippines. Its wind speed at landfall was 195 mph, the strongest winds at landfall ever recorded. We can’t say what influence global warming does or does not have on any particular storm, but we do know that the overall pattern of severe weather is changing and that global warming provides the conditions in the oceans and the atmosphere that are known to amplify severe storms. At the UN climate conference now meeting in Warsaw, Philippine representative Yeb Sano gave an emotional plea to “stop the madness”. Knowing that people at home had no food after the storm, he vowed to fast during the climate talks until significant progress is made to help the nations most immediately vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
October 28 summary
September was the 343rd consecutive month with
global temperatures warmer than the twentieth century average.
Two reports in recent weeks have given us updated
information about climate change and predictions for the future.
IPCC Fifth Assessment
Report
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 5th
Assessment Report for the group of scientists looking at the physical
science basis for climate change got a lot of popular press for saying that
there is a very high probability (approaching certainty) that climate change is
for the most part the result of human activity. The version of the report
published for policymakers is found
here.
But there are other things worth the attention of
non-scientists. One is the mention for the first time of geoengineering as a
possible way to prevent catastrophic warming now that certain tipping points
have either been reached or are soon to be reached. Along with the unknowns
about the long-term effects of geoengineering – either finding a way to remove
significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it or
“solar radiation management” (constructing ways of reflecting enough sunlight
away from the earth to cool the planet) -- this addition is noteworthy because
it signals something about the critical nature of climate change at this point.
Enough feedback loops are in play that even if governments and industries were
inclined to make huge cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions, there would still
be some degree of temperature rise. And the political reality is that those
cutbacks in emissions to any truly significant degree are not in the works.
Some other key findings were summarized well in Mother Jones
magazine in an earlier article entitled 5 Terrifying Statements in the Leaked
Climate Report. The five, which the
article discusses in some detail, are these:
·
We're on course to change the planet in a way
"unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years.
·
Ocean acidification is "virtually
certain" to increase.
·
Long-term, sea level rise could be 5 to 10
meters.
·
This also implies a substantial melting of the
Greenland ice sheet.
·
Much of the carbon we've emitted will stay in
the atmosphere for a millennium…even after we've stopped emitting it.
One more thing to note about the IPCC report is that their
findings are very conservative as the work is done by reaching consensus among
scientists. Many individual scientists see things deteriorating more rapidly
and more severely than the IPCC report indicates.
“The projected timing
of climate departure from recent variability”:
Within a generation, sooner for the tropics
Camilo Mora and others from the University of Hawai’i
published a report in the October 10 issue of Nature that predicts when various locations in the world will reach the
point of climate departure from recent variability – i.e. when the average
temperature of that location’s coolest year will be greater than the average
temperature of its hottest year for the period from 1860 to 2005. In the University
of Hawai’i press release about the report, Camilo Mora says: “The results
shocked us. Regardless of the scenario, changes will be coming soon. Within my
generation, whatever climate we were used to will be a thing of the past.”
This graphic from
The Washington Post shows expected dates of this big change for several
cities. If little changes, the average year for climate departure overall will
be 2047 (yes, only 34 years from now); if greenhouse gas emissions were to be
stabilized, the average year becomes 2069. Of particular concern to us in the
Diocese of Nebraska given our companion dioceses in the Dominican Republic and
South Sudan, tropical areas are expected to experience this change within the next decade. Chicago has a
date of 2052 without mitigation and 2081 with stabilization of emissions.
With “business as usual”
 |
| http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/hot-spots/506/ |
With mitigation:
 |
| http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/hot-spots/506/ |
There is debate among environmentalists about exactly
how dire all of this is: do we face a very changed world that still supports
human life, or are we looking at total human extinction? (Guy McPherson is a
scientist who thinks the most recent evidence points to the latter. While I’m
not yet convinced, his moving reflection on how we live that is the second half
of this
short video (starting around 2:17) can really speak to either option.)
That
we are even asking the question, though, is certainly cause for theological
reflection that may help the church be an effective pastoral presence as the
reality of climate change breaks through to increasing numbers of people.
Effects on people
living in poverty
The Yale
Environment 360 Digest reports on a study by the U.K.’s Overseas
Development Institute that says that increased extreme weather events will make
poverty worse in parts of the world that already are among the poorest. The
study suggests that aid money should be spent on reducing the risks to people
from extreme weather events instead of only on humanitarian relief after a
disaster.
As the church looks at ways to respond to the challenges
of climate change, this sort of study should be useful.
And lest we think the phenomena of climate refuges and of
climate change affecting the poorest people first and worst are things that
happen only in other countries, the Huffington Post ran Life on the Edge of Climate Change
this week. The author, Babs Roaming Buffalo Bagwell, is the senior public
relations and media liaison for The Isle de Jean Charles Band of
Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians. She describes how climate change affects her
community every day, writing: Some may be
ignoring this reality, but we don't have that luxury. When the water's edge is
at your doorstep, sea level rise and extreme rainstorms aren't political,
they're personal.
What do we have for
this? And what/how do we teach our children?
At
our Annual Council Eucharist, Bishop Barker brought our environmental reality
into the homily: “We are
in fact living in a moment of unprecedented challenge and change for
humankind. We are hastening towards global environmental disaster.
In the lifetime of the youngest people now dwelling on earth, everything
changes.” Bishop Barker’s question from the show The Book of Mormon – “What do
you have for this?” – is a question that we might ask repeatedly as we learn
about climate change and reflect on the church’s response to this most urgent
and global issue.
As I was writing this summary, Wendy Bell, a Unitarian
minister I met at the Climate Reality Leadership Training this summer, posted
on Facebook that she had just read the most pessimistic climate report she had
yet seen. A little later, she posted this question:
Ministers: If you had been a
chaplain on the Titanic, how might you have understood your role? DRE's
[Directors of Religious Education]: What would you have taught the children?
What are our roles as ministers – lay or ordained – in the
Episcopal Church? How do we best live as the Body of Christ in a world that is
in big trouble that is so seldom acknowledged? To use Walter Brueggemann’s
term, how do we break through the numbness? And what do we do then?
And in light of what we know we can expect in their
lifetimes, what do we teach the children? The latter is a huge question for the
church that is seldom if ever discussed. What can we teach them about God and
the world and their relationship with Christ and with one another that can
prepare them for today’s world and for whatever the remainder of this century
brings? How do we best model and teach the classic Christian disciplines of
prayer, study, and love for God and one another so that our children are
well-equipped spiritually to be the Body of Christ in a changed and changing
world?
In many ways, it’s no different from what we’ve always done,
preparing our children for whatever life might bring them. At this point of
human history, though, when we know how fragile the future is for everyone (and
when the adults in leadership positions are doing so little to ensure their
future), it seems to be especially important to equip our children with the
spiritual practices, traditions, and knowledge that will help them develop spiritually
resilience that can last throughout their lifetimes.
