Oh no! not Big Sur!
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Posted on June 28, 2008
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Have you seen the fires at Big Sur? CNN has been reporting them all day. I’m headed out that way in a couple of weeks. Was really looking forward to it, too. I have been along the Pacific Coast highway a couple of times in my life and each time its beauty almost made me weep.
And did you see enemy-of-nature Dirk Kempthorne, our notorious Sec. of the Interior?
His reaction to what is happening in California raised my anxiety levels a whole lot. He said that California has never seen fires like these — not this many, not this early. By August, maybe, but not June. He called the wildfire outbreak unprecedented and described the situation as “very, very stark.” You could feel his fear, as you can feel it among so many officials out west, about what this summer might bring to this drought-ridden, fire-damaged state.
Big Sur. Few places more beautiful in this country. 
I’m planning a brief reverential visit between two conferences, one the conference of Sisters of Earth, the other the summer institute of the Sophia Center. Put those conferences and the fires together and it should be a couple of weeks of profound contemplative reflection on all that is happening to our precious planet.
You also heard the news that the Arctic Ocean may melt enough to create a liquid passage this summer, altering our image of the globe — not two white polar caps, but a white one and a blue one. We are headed for another record-breaking year. Friends, what this says about the acceleration of global warming and climate change is stark and very, very serious. 
It will also speed up the warming process, as water absorbs more heat from the sun, while ice reflects it back out into space. And the melting permafrost will release tons and tons of methane into the atmosphere, another potent greenhouse gas.
Listening to scientists talking about this, their palpable fear certainly stirred up mine — and then in the context of our monumental midwest floods and the unprecedented burning of California.
And this — the persistent, probably permanent, drought in California has forced water rationing. Desert farmers are abandoning their crops as they realize they will not have enough water to irrigate.
California is running out of water. Just a little thing. This year’s Sierra snowpack and water content is 67 percent of normal. A whole agricultural industry based on irrigation, water from mountain snowmelt and the Colorado River — and these sources are going dry from overdemand and climate change.
But today, it’s the fires around Big Sur that sadden me so very much.
Ecological grief will accompany ecological hope every step of the way now, and we must welcome both, not resist them; they are our teachers in this moment of profound planetary change and upheaval.
Now, with this reflection in our hearts, ponder the meaning and the ramifications of this: the story that when the Environmental Protection Agency reluctantly issued a report concluding that greenhouse gases are pollutants and therefore subject to government regulation — a study conducted under pressure from a Supreme Court ruling — the Bush administration dealt with it by ordering that the email message sent with the report attached not be opened.
That’s right. When the Bush administration lost its argument before the Supreme Court and the EPA was compelled to address greenhouse gases as pollutants, Bush simply ordered that the document, sent by email, never be opened.
In both literal and symbolic terms, this reveals something more than stubbornness, nastiness, political smallness, and fear of truth. It reveals a wall of denial that now fuels the flames around Big Sur and sends water cascading into the farmlands and towns of the midwest.
The sky is darkening in the west here as a line of storms approaches. We are about a foot of precipitation above normal for the year here.
Earth to Bush — open the God blessed email!
Technorati Tags: Big Sur wildfire, ecological grief, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne, California drought, midwest floods, California tomato growers abandon crop, Sisters of Earth, Sophia Center, Arctic Ocean melting
Photo credits:
Smoke from California fires, NASA Earth Observatory
Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur, http://jrabold.net/bigsur/activ-brid.htm
Arctic Ocean Swirls, European Space Agency
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