Global warming, climate change, climate chaos, climate disruption — or whatever you call it

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Posted on February 20, 2008
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Earth spirituality

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Got into the tail end of a 2-day long conversation on the DotEarth blog. This is the blog that belongs to Andrew Revkin, science writer for the NY Times. I check in now and then because these are very interesting conversations.

On the 18th, Revkin started an exchange on the issue of just exactly what to call this climate crisis that is beginning to manifest now on our planet, Global Heating, Atmosphere Cancer, Pollution Death. What’s in a Name?

A lot’s in a name, as we know. What you call something can make all the difference.

Well, there are far more responses than any of us have time to read, but Revkin’s post strikes a chord with me. I, too, think that the term ‘global warming’ is way too benign for what we are dealing with. Same with ‘climate change,’ another overused term — here on this blog, too. The word ‘change’ doesn’t necessarily tell you very much (you know, like ‘Change we can believe in” - OK, spell out the change; I’m listening).

Now Revkin recommends for our consideration a term offered by John P. Holdren, Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard. Holdren is one of our important U.S. voices in the matter of climate and the environment, and I recommend reading him. The term he offers is this: global climate disruption. Yes, much better.

As we have said many times, climate and weather are different things, and global warming doesn’t mean that everybody’s weather is warming. Here in Milwaukee, I have read many a snide comment from local ‘global warming skeptics’ noting the very impressive winter we’ve been having here — 78 inches of snow and counting, approaching the top five on record if we get a few more inches, and some pretty impressive shots of Arctic air — like today when wind chills remain well below zero.

That is very much beside the point.

Climate impacts weather, however — weather patterns, how weather forms and manifests. As we have also written before, warmer temperatures hold more moisture and energy. This is one reason why among the consequences of global warming (heating, as some scientists prefer) are more extreme weather events. For example, while the amount of rainfall over the U.S. has remained fairly consistent in the past couple of decades, the amount that falls at the rate of 2-3-4-5 inches per hour has increased a whole lot.

For an article just today on how this pattern will impact the West, click this article from the Las Vegas Sun, Expect it to rain less but when it does, watch out.

More deluges, more permanent drought, more changes in habitats impacting forests, plants, animals, birds, insects. This, too, has further climate repercussions (changes in forest cover will change weather patterns, warmer oceans will have climate repercussions, a warmer Gulf of Mexico will mean stronger hurricanes, etc.).

What we call this matters, then, if what we are trying to do is alarm people into awareness. If global warming lulls people to sleep, like a nice winter vacation in Florida, then let’s call it what it really is — climate disruption, climate chaos, climate unpredictability, and therefore more weather disasters (Katrina).

Holdren offers some hope that we of the United States, so far behind the rest of the world in this awareness, are finally waking up. To listen to an interesting interview with Holdren conducted two days ago (the 18th), visit this page at London’s The Guardian.

If you have other ideas for how to talk about our climate crisis, please share them here.


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One Response to “Global warming, climate change, climate chaos, climate disruption — or whatever you call it”

  1. Richard Schwartz on February 21st, 2008 4:11 pm

    NEW DOCUMENTARY APPLIES JEWISH VALUES TO ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH, HUMANE ISSUES
    Richard H. Schwartz

    Because the world is heading rapidly toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) has produced a documentary, A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD, to address these threats from a positive Jewish perspective. JVNA will send a free copy to anyone who will help arrange a screening or help promote the movie in some other way.

    Almost daily there are reports of severe droughts, floods, storms or wildfires, of the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps and other indicators of global warming. It is frightening that, while these effects are due to an increase in temperature of less than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group composed of hundreds of the world’s climate scientists, is projecting an increase of 3 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Even more ominous is that some climate scientists, including James Hansen of NASA, are warning that global warming may reach a tipping point and spiral out of control within a decade, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes are soon made. Israel is especially vulnerable to global climate change, in terms of reduced rainfall, severe storms and flooding from a rising Mediterranean Sea.

    A SACRED DUTY is a Jewish response to these realities. It reminds us that it is our sacred duty to become aware of current threats and our responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain our food, use natural resources, and live among other creatures whom God created. It offers simple, practical measures for reducing our impact on the planet, including “an inconvenient truth” that even Al Gore has not yet acknowledged.

    Produced by the highly acclaimed, multi-award-winning film maker, Lionel Friedberg, A SACRED DUTY reinforces the messages in Al Gore’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and Leonardo di Caprio’s, THE ELEVENTH HOUR about the dangers of global warming. However, it goes beyond these films, by showing how religious responses can make a major difference and why a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of efforts to reduce global climate change and other environmental threats. It also challenges people to consider the many moral issues related to our diets, including Torah teachings on how animals are treated on factory farms and the effects on human health and the environment.

    Although it is primarily intended for a Jewish audience, A SACRED DUTY speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of our relationship to the natural world in which we live. The movie’s universal message will appeal to anyone interested in such topics as biblical teachings, Israel, the environment, health, nutrition, vegetarianism, hunger and resource usage. The movie may be said to be like Levy’s Jewish Rye bread - you do not have to be Jewish to appreciate it.

    The documentary features interviews with leading Israeli and American environmental, health, vegetarian and animal rights activists as well as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secular leaders.

    Interviewees include: Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Haifa; Rabbi David Rosen, Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee; Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, Chief Scientist: Israel Environmental Ministry and many other rabbis and Jewish leaders and activists.

    Biblical passages are read by the acclaimed Jewish star of Broadway and screen Theodore Bikel

    A SACRED DUTY and the many activities being planned around it have the potential to help move our imperiled world toward a sustainable path. But only if the movie is widely viewed and discussed.
    So, please order your FREE copy and please consider taking one or more of the following actions after viewing the movie: have viewings for family, neighbors and friends; try to schedule showings at a local school, a synagogue and/or other houses of worship, a community center or other communal site, etc.; share the DVD with local rabbis and other religious leaders, teachers, politicians and other local influential people.

    You can request a free DVD by sending your name and mailing address to JVNA’s secretary/treasurer John Diamond (jdiamond4@cox.net). If you feel that you can profitably use more than one DVD, just let John know, with a brief description of how you plan to use them. Additional information about the movie may be found at www.asacredduty.com.

    JVNA plans to build a major campaign around the movie to get tikkun olam (the repair and healing of the world) to become a central focus in Jewish life today, with a shift toward plant-based diets as an essential part of the changes that can help move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. If you would like to be involved in the campaign or have suggestions, please contact Richard Schwartz at President@JewishVeg.com.
    =========================
    Blurbs Supporting A SACRED DUTY
    A SACRED DUTY has received a very favorable response from the vegetarian and animal rights communities. Some blurbs are below. We would like to have an even wider variety of blurbs from key people, to help support and promote the documentary. Please let me know if you have suggestions re others whom we should contact re getting additional blurbs. Please feel free to use these blurbs and any other information in this or past or future JVNA newsletters to help promote A SACRED DUTY. Many thanks.

    BLURBS

    A Sacred Duty melds modern science with Jewish religious teachings to make a compelling case for vegetarianism that conscientious viewers will find hard to resist. A cheekier title might have been “What Would Moses Eat Today?” in the face of catastrophic global warming and environmental degradation, world hunger and needless violence to billions of helpless animals every year. I hope A Sacred Duty will help redefine kosher for the 21st century Jew, for vegetarianism - a diet infused with kindness and blessedly free of bloodshed - is our Biblical root (“behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed”) and our moral destiny (“and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”).

    Syd Baumel, writer and animal activist, publisher of eatkind.net

    ——————————————————-

    Even knowing the issues and arguments, being a long-term environmentalist and vegetarian, I was taken in by the beauty and power of this remarkable film. A Sacred Duty is a must see and a must do, so that we and our children may live. I have already shared the film with rabbis and others and am in the process of scheduling screenings at my synagogue, other synagogues, the Jewish Community Center, and my local vegetarian society.-

    –Dan Brook, Ph.D.
    (The Vegetarian Mitzvah)

    ——————————————————-

    Dear Richard,
    I enjoyed the video so much that I am planning to teach two courses on Tikun Olam next semester: one for a 4 part adult ed series and another for a 12 part high school program. Keep up the great work.

    Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg
    Temple Emanu-El
    Waterford, CT
    ——————————————————-

    A Sacred Duty should be mandated viewing for all people on planet Earth. Great job!

    Howard F. Lyman, the Mad Cowboy
    ——————————————————-
    “A Sacred Duty” is a tour de force. Anyone who watches with an open heart and an open mind will leave the theater deeply moved and called to action.
    –Bruce Friedrich, Vice-President, PETA.
    ——————————————————-

    A Sacred Duty melds modern science with Jewish religious teachings to make a compelling case for vegetarianism that conscientious viewers will find hard to resist. A cheekier title might have been “What Would Moses Eat Today?” in the face of catastrophic global warming and environmental degradation, world hunger and needless violence to billions of helpless animals every year. I hope A Sacred Duty will help redefine kosher for the 21st century Jew, for vegetarianism - a diet infused with kindness and blessedly free of bloodshed - is our Biblical root (“behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed”) and our moral destiny (“and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”).

    Syd Baumel, writer and animal activist, publisher of eatkind.net
    =========================

    I can’t find the words to tell you how deeply I was moved by A Sacred Duty. I’ve seen similar factory farming footage for decades, but in the context of this extraordinary film, it was particularly compelling….very moving. Poignantly written, beautifully filmed and perfectly executed, it was enlightening without being admonishing. A truly monumental film not only for those of the Jewish faith, but for people of all faiths or none, and it will certainly benefit the animals. Another, very subtle impression was the fact that you were able to bring together representatives from all corners of the Jewish faith. While just by nature of their categories, there are things that separate them, their words around this topic had great unison, sounding as though they came from one voice. From the first scene to the final word, this film is absolutely brilliant! Thank you, Lionel, Richard, and all who were involved, for the legacy of this contribution to our planet, its people and its animals.
    Kris Haley
    Manager of Multifaith Outreach/Animals & Religion
    Best Friends Animal Society
    ——————————————————-

    A Sacred Duty makes a crystal clear argument for taking action to end factory farming. How could any person of faith and conviction remain indifferent after seeing this film? Humane Society Animals & Religion was created out of the belief that religious people can do much to end the current state of industrial animal agriculture in this country. At a time when people are searching for ways to apply their spirituality to their daily lives, what better cause than ethical, mindful, compassionate food choices?
    Karen L. Allanach
    Associate Director, Animals & Religion
    The Humane Society of the United States
    kallanach@humanesociety.org
    humanesociety.org/religion
    ——————————————————-

    A SACRED DUTY is a wake-up call for Jews and all others who care about the fate of our planet. A deep love for Earth, for humanity, and for our animal cousins shines through it. This documentary shows how compassionate dietary choices can unite Jews and other people of faith in taking action to rescue and heal our precious, imperiled earth.
    Gracia Fay Ellwood
    Editor, THE PEACEABLE TABLE
    A Quaker Online Journal
    ——————————————————-

    A SACRED DUTY is beautiful and poetic, inspiring and optimistic, good in all possible senses. The image of the tear shedding cow was so moving, that I couldn’t restrain myself and burst out crying! The quotations from Tanach [the Jewish scriptures] were very wisely selected and inserted in well-suited places. Congratulations for all the team who prepared the movie. Keep on assuring a good distribution of it!

    Luiza CAROL - writer, Israeli delegate of TEVA (Tutmonda Esperantista Vegetarana Asocio) (World Association of Esperantist Vegetarians)
    ——————————————————-

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