Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

"I wouldn't be shocked to find out that by 2100 most things were destroyed."

What?

I pulled this quote from the remarkably frightening new book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert.  The source is climatologist David Rind, who has been working at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) since 1978.  I really don't know how to make this any easier.  We are headed for big trouble and, to keep everything from being destroyed, we have to change how we live right now.I have not yet finished the book, but when I do in the next day or so, I will have more to say about it on my "Books I've Been Reading Page."  But, just to give you a sense of things, computer models used by GISS scientists show that as CO2 emissions rise, we can expect water shortages to increase around the world, starting along the equator and fanning out.  These models also show that the risk of summertine drought to the US will rise from 40-60 percent in the Northeast, 60-80 percent in the Midwest, and 80-100 percent in the Rocky Mountain States and California.

This is just a tidbit from the bad news in this book.

While CO2 emissions rise and demand increases exponentially over the next few decades, if we continue as we are, we will very likely be setting in motion the type of climate change that has wiped out past civilizations and/or caused massive extinction of species.  A very legitimate question is whether the human species will survive, and if so, just how many of our descendents there will be, living under what kind of conditions.  Certainly what life remains will be struggling to adapt to a permanetly altered earth.

Here's one kind of response to our predicament — from Rex. W. Tillerson, the new CEO of Exxon/Mobil, one of the largest corporations in the world doing just about the least of any energy company to address climate change:  according to the NY Times, Tillerson basically says the company will do almost nothing.  "Mr. Tillerson…saw no reason for any sharp departure in strategy.  Exxon's business is about increasing oil and gas supplies to consumers…not chasing alternatives that offer little prospect of replacing the fossil fuels that he views as the only realistic way to meet the world's huge and growing demand for energy."

Thank you, Mr. Tillerson.  In this way do we party happily and obliviously under our cathedral ceilings in our McMansions, arriving in our gas-based cars, eating food shipped by airplane and truck from far away places, while drinking spring water out of plastic water bottles while the earth literally burns.

I look at the children and babies in my life.  How heavy this future will be for them.

Here is another response, from the Inuit of Canada:  Hunter Noah Metuq — "The world is slowly disintegrating… They call it climate change.  But we just call it breaking up."  And this from Sheila Watt-Coultier, head of the International Circumpolar Conference — "People have become disconnected from their environment.  But the Inuit have remained through this whole dilemma, remained extremely connected to its environment and wildlife.  They are the early warning.  They see what's happening to the planet, and give the message to the rest of the world."

The only way to avoid this disaster is to sharply reduce, right now, the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted by humans into our atmosphere.  And that means an abrupt change in how we live our lives.  We in the US have the greatest responsibility because we still emit more carbon dioxide than any other country.

Think of your children.  Go to the playground and watch the children play.  Decide what you are willing to do about this.