Advent 2: Listening to what counts

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius…” is the phrase that begins the Gospel passage (Luke 3:1-6) for the Second Sunday in Advent. Luke refers to various political and religious leaders in order to set the events he is describing in history, to pin down the year when John began preaching. Yet we pay much more attention today to the words of John than we do to anything the people considered “historical figures” said or did. What endures today isn’t so much what the rulers thought or did; what is important to us is what John was proclaiming out in the wilderness.

A big piece of environmental news this week was the publication of NOAA’s seventh annual Arctic Report Card. As you can hear in this video summary of the report, there are big changes in the Arctic; the Arctic “is entering a new state”, and these changes are taking place faster than had been anticipated.

The leaders of the world’s large nations are neither decreasing greenhouse gas emissions enough to significantly mitigate climate change nor to preparing adequately to adapt to our rapidly warming world. The political leaders – presidents and prime ministers -- whose names might very well be those that will serve as historical markers in the future – are not the ones doing the important work. It’s clear that we need to find ways to effect big changes fairly quickly without waiting for the world’s leaders to take charge of the situation. The people whose names are in the news most days may not be the ones carrying a message for us this Advent; we need to look around to find out what’s worth our attention.

This Advent, important messages are coming from scientists, like those whose research contributed to the Arctic Report Card. Other living things bring us messages if we will listen and look. Many of the biggest and oldest trees in the world are dying [see Mighty Old Trees Are Perishing Fast,Study Warns; the reasons for their dying and the way their loss will impact other living things deserve our attention. This Advent, important messages are coming from climate activists, some fairly well-known and others less noticed. Bill McKibben has just finished the Do the Math tour advocating for institutional divestment from the fossil fuel industry to effect the sorts of changes we need without waiting for the world’s official leaders. People dealing with the effects of Superstorm Sandy in the U.S. and the Caribbean have important things to tell us that can help us get a sense of how climate change impacts people now, and a taste of what we can expect on a greater scale in the future. And people around the world who are feeling the effects of droughts, floods, fires, sea level rise, or melting permafrost have much to tell us about the human implications of climate change.

Listening to these messages – today’s wilderness voices -- with our hearts as well as our ears can bring us to repentance and renewal just as John and the ancient prophets did for the people of their times.  

What Then Should We Do?

Arctic melting accelerating; sea levels rising

“What then should we do?” is the question the crowds ask John the Baptist in today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 3:1-14) for the Daily Office lectionary. John the Baptist is preaching about “the wrath to come”, a time of judgment, and tells the crowd that who they are or who their ancestors were won’t make any difference. Instead, they need to “bear fruits worthy of repentance”.

"What then should we do?" What does it look like to bear fruits worthy of repentance? John’s answer seems a little surprising, given John’s dramatic description of the coming time and the crowd’s apprehension. He tells them to do some fairly simple things: If you have extra clothing or food, share it with those in need. Tax collectors should collect no more than the prescribed amount. Soldiers shouldn’t use their power to extort money, but instead be satisfied with the money they are paid. Repentance, true sorrow for sins and an effort to live a better life, doesn’t have to be something dramatic or showy. It’s evidenced in daily behavior, in basic moral decency. It’s shown in caring for the poor, in everyday honesty, in using one’s power for good.

Instead of being proclaimed by a modern-day John the Baptist with apocalyptic imagery, a news story about the most recent scientific findings concerning climate change and sea level rise has been buried in the news this week. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) has released a summary of a full report that will be delivered to the foreign ministers of the eight Arctic nations next week; the Associated Press first reported on the summary on Tuesday of this week (see New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating ).

Three to Five Foot Rise in Sea Level by 2100

A prediction of sea level rise in this century made by the United Nation’s panel on climate change in 2007 predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100. That prediction did not take into account the dynamics of ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctica; research since that time makes it possible to include those dynamics in this new estimate. The new prediction is that sea levels will rise anywhere from 35 to 63 inches by 2100 – in the next 89 years. A baby born today may very well see great changes in geography through sea level rise alone, apart from other factors related to climate change.

The sorts of feedback mechanisms that scientists had predicted we would see as the Arctic ice started melting have now started to kick in. The report says that temperatures in the Arctic region the past six years were the highest ever recorded since measurements began in 1880. That means that even if carbon emissions were cut drastically tomorrow, some of the heating and melting would continue. We are no longer talking about preventing the melting of the Arctic ice cap and a consequent rise in sea level; we are talking about mitigation, about keeping the rise in both temperature and sea level rise as low as possible given where we are now.

What then should we do?

As we think about these comparatively rapid changes in our world and about the consequences for people and communities in coastal regions, we might very well ask the question the crowds asked John the Baptist: What then should we do?

There are several books that address that question in some depth. Two that I can recommend are Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse by David W. Orr and Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Both acknowledge that our planet has already been changed in ways that will not be reversed, but both also describe with hope ways to adapt to our changing planet and mitigate the effects of climate change.

My guess is that John the Baptist’s way of answering the same question points toward the way we might best answer it. While the more dramatic, large-scale underpinnings for our response to climate change will need to come from government and corporations, the lasting changes will come from our daily actions. As we come to understand that basic moral decency in this century includes weighing the environmental consequences of our everyday actions, the choices we must make will become clearer.

Those simple things we all know we should do – turning off lights when we leave a room, growing some of our own food and/or buying locally produced food, planning our errands to minimize driving, using alternatives like walking, biking, or public transportation where possible – aren’t very glamorous. They make a difference, though, not only in carbon emissions, but in the way we think about our relationship to the earth. As we consciously change our actions, we become more aware of our relationship to the earth; and as we become more aware of our relationship to the earth, the easier it is to see and accept the changes we must make if we are to preserve a sustainable environment for ourselves and for those who will be alive at the next turn of the century.

What then should we do? Be awake and aware. Find out what is happening, even if the news about climate change isn’t on the front page of the newspaper. Do the simple things we know can make a difference, and actively seek other things we can do. Advocate for policy changes in government and industry. Pray for the earth and pray for wisdom and guidance for ourselves and our leaders.

Or, as John the Baptist says, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”

All God's Children

One last unexpected summer trip for me coming right up against the beginning of fall semester has delayed this post a few days. It’s been an unusual start to the transition from summer toward fall for many of us given weather that is cooler and rainier than our usual, and a flu virus at the beginning of the school year. However, somehow we find ourselves at the beginning of September. Sitting here on my porch in Hastings, I’m already seeing monarch butterflies stopping by my coneflowers on their way south, and squirrels burying winter food. It’s time to transition to fall whether at school, in the parish, or at home.

Climate bill

I had thought my summer travels were all done when I got an invitation to a White House briefing on energy. This was a regional briefing for people from Midwestern and mid-Atlantic states. It was an opportunity for us to hear from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and others from the administration about their energy agenda and the expected outcomes for consumers, agriculture, commerce, and the climate if the Senate approves HR 2454, the climate bill, this fall. Secretary Vilsack said that he has not seen this sort of opportunity for rural America in his lifetime. A preliminary analysis from the USDA’s Chief Economist of the economic impacts of HR 2454 for agriculture seems to bear out this optimism.

Copenhagen climate conference
Looking beyond fall into December, there is hope that a climate bill will be passed before President Obama goes to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen; it will be difficult for the United States to be in a leadership role at this conference if we don’t have some sort of significant legislation in place. More seriously for people of all nationalities, if this conference gets stalled and cannot reach a significant agreement among the nations that share this planet, it may be difficult or perhaps just plain too late to stop climate change before it reaches the point of having devastating effects on all living things on Earth.

More evidence of climate change
A study of the Arctic climate in yesterday's issue of Science magazine shows the magnitude of the response of the Arctic climate to global warming. An article by Andrew Revkin in the New York Times quotes Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, one of the study’s authors and a climate scientist at the University of Arizona: “The fast rate of recent warming is the scary part. It means that major impacts on Arctic ecosystems and global sea level might not be that far off unless we act fast to slow global warming.” Time is growing short to get serious about climate change.

The Christian response
Our readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for this Sunday, though, suggest other reasons for Christians to advocate for changes in energy technology, transportation, agricultural practices, and many other areas of our lives so that the effects of climate change can be minimized. While every living thing on earth will be affected by climate change, among the human community the earliest effects and the most suffering will be experienced by the people who already are the poorest people in the world.

This Sunday’s reading from Proverbs reminds us that “the rich and poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.” The poorest people on our planet are God’s children just as we are; their lives are more precious than our convenience. James, talking about the folly of dishonoring the poor, says that there is no good in our saying we care about others – in telling them to “Go in peace” – if we aren’t willing to make sure others are clothed and fed. The passage from Mark’s Gospel is a turning point in Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus recognizes the depth of the faith of a Syrophoenician woman, someone from a different culture who claims her place in God’s kingdom.

When our brothers and sisters who live in Arctic villages or on Pacific islands, in easily flooded places like Bangladesh, in Africa where famine and malaria will increase with global warming, are living increasingly marginalized lives as climate change accelerates, we Christians are called to take notice and do what we can to prevent their suffering. We are all on this planet together. Ultimately, all of humanity will suffer if climate change cannot be stopped. But in the next half century or so, it will be the poorest people who bear the brunt of the burden. Per capita, the United States has the largest carbon output of any nation; we are the rich people in this story. As Christians, we know how Christ would have us treat the poorer people who share our world.

We have much to gain for ourselves by turning to new energy technologies and capping our carbon output, and, just as importantly, we have much to gain for the poorest people with whom we share the Earth.