Resources for the First Days of Climate Talks

 How interesting that these first day of climate talks take place across the triduum of Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day.  While I don't have a poem that makes use of that conjunction (but I will!), I do have plenty of poems that ponder climate change.  Here's one that seems to fit best for this first day of climate talks in Glasgow; it's from my chapbook of the same name, and it first appeared here, with haunting art work to accompany it, at Escape Into Life. :

Life in the Holocene Extinction


I complete the day’s tasks
of e-mails and reports and other paperwork.
I think about which species
have gone extinct
in the amount of time it takes
to troll the Internet.
I squash a mosquito.

He drives to the grocery store
to pick up the few items he needs
for dinner: shark from a distant
sea, wine redolent of minerals from a foreign
soil. He avoids the berries
from a tropical country with lax
control of chemicals.

As she packs up her office,
she thinks about habitat loss,
those orphaned animals stranded
in a world of heat and pavement.
She wishes she had saved
more money while she had a job.
She knows she will lose the house.
She wonders what possessions
will fit into her car.

Maybe you were hoping for less poetic resources.  The website for the meeting is here.  For something less dry (pun intended), I loved this article that has the author going to new condo buildings in Miami Beach where she posed as a wealthy buyer and reports on sea level rise and its impact--or puzzling lack of impact--on the high end real estate market.

I first heard about that article in this episode of Hidden Brain that explores the idea of what happens if we approach the issue of climate catastrophe either like Dunkirk or Normandy, those WWII situations.  You may have to scroll down to look for the episode "We Broke the Planet:  Now What?"  I also liked this episode of It's Been a Minute, which didn't seem like the same old, same old about the topic.

It is hard to believe that these climate talks will make a difference.  It is hard to understate how time is running out--or may have already run out, for some of us in some locations.  Sigh.

Pumpkin Offload 2019

Today I am sore.  But it's a good kind of sore.  Yesterday was the annual pumpkin offload at my church.  We buy part of a truckload (the 18 wheeler kind of truck, not the Ford F150 kind of truck) of pumpkins that come to us straight from the fields of New Mexico.  We have to get them out of the truck and into the front grassy area.

Some years, it's taken over 5 hours.  Yesterday we did it in just under 2.  Because it was a Saturday afternoon we had a lot more help--it's been tougher in years when it's a school night.

Because it was a Saturday afternoon, we had some people we didn't know show up:  3 kids on bikes and a homeless guy   We also had teenagers of church members that we hadn't seen in awhile come to help. 

Not everyone can help.  But that's fine.  They can cheer from the sidelines or just enjoy the parade of pumpkins.

This year we got a larger amount of the smaller pumpkins.  Over the past several years, we've noticed that people don't buy the bigger pumpkins like they used to.

Because more of us are using pumpkins and gourds for decorating than for carving or cooking, we got a lovely assortment of those.  Bonus:  the littlest children can set those up, while those of us with bigger muscles can get the bigger pumpkins off the truck.

Here and there we found some rotted pumpkins.  Back to the earth they go.

At the end, we swept the hay out of the truck.  We put it on the pathways between the pumpkins.  Does it protect the grass?  Does it protect our shoes?

Some children further north get to jump in leaves.  Our children jump in hay.

This year, our pumpkin offload was tinged with even more nostalgia than usual.  There's the usual nostalgia--children whom I have known since they were in elementary school are now teenagers.

And then there's the larger nostalgia--our church is in the process of possibly selling the front part of the 4 acre property.  If the sale goes through, we will build a new structure in the back.  Where will we be this time next year?

We may be in exactly the same place, offloading pumpkins, transforming a church yard into a pumpkin patch.  We may not.

Of course, that's our situation every year.  We just aren't always as aware of it.

When Morning Gilds the Skies

I woke up around 1 a.m. or so unable to fall back asleep--so I got up and worked on some writing projects.  By 5:30, I was ready for some exercise.  My sister and I are going to start a running program, but I wasn't thinking it would be this morning.

But I felt a strange restlessness at the thought of just walking.  So I thought, let me just try running a few blocks--but lo and behold, I found I could keep running for a half hour.

Part of it was that the temperature and humidity had fallen to easier to run through ranges.  But part was the beauty of the pre-dawn sky.  I thought of that hymn "When Morning Gilds the Skies."  Gild was the correct verb for this morning.

I had ecology on the brain as I so often do when moving through the morning.  Plus, I've been reading Bill McKibben's latest book, Oil and Honey.  I have that sense of time warping--the book covers the beginning of the protest against the pipeline back in 2011, and here we are, years later, still waiting to see how it all turns out, with a possible vote in the Senate today.

Regardless of how the vote goes, it's important to remember that the vote has been delayed for years because of the actions of this band of protestors.  And President Obama may prevent the construction of the pipeline, if the Senate and the House give approval--and that would not have been the case without this protest movement.

The movement was helped by the larger institutionalized protest groups--but the bulk of the movement was comprised of ordinary folks.  McKibben, himself, is a fairly ordinary guy:  a teacher and a writer at midlife.  He shows the way that a movement can be built:  he knows these people who know these people and eventually, they get the attention of the White House.

The book also tells the story of one of the more successful beekeepers in the U.S.  It explores the ways that people can combine resources:  McKibben has a bit of money to buy some land, but no time to care for it the way he would like.  The beekeeper has vast knowledge, but no money to buy land.  They combine forces to find that interesting twists and turns happen.

It's a book about the land and all the ways we might save it.  It's a book about ordinary citizens and the power that they have.  It's a good reminder in these political times.

And regardless of how the vote goes, McKibben continuously reminds us (and I'm only halfway through the book) that the environmental struggle is never truly won.  I would say that the flip side is that the battle is never truly lost either.  I've written this before, but it bears repeating:  when I was a child, you couldn't swim in many of the country's rivers--and they sometimes caught fire. Now you can swim in most of them without too much fear. When I was a child, in major metropolitan areas, you could see the air you were breathing. Now, you can't, at least in Europe and the U.S.

It's good to remember that we've thought that the planet was doomed before--and yet, here we still are.  And many a scientist would remind us that even if human life becomes unsustainable on this planet, other life forms will likely thrive in our absence.

On a glorious morning like this one, I was ready to quit worrying altogether.  I thought of the words of John the Baptist:  "I am not the Messiah."  I thought of some children whom I knew decades ago who would see a glorious sunrise and say, "Great show, God!"

Great show, God!

Inspirations on the Feast Day of Saint Francis

Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis.  I'm amazed at what Francis managed to accomplish, as I am amazed at what so many of those medieval Christians could accomplish, without the help of computers or motorized vehicles or penicillin.

Let's take a minute and think about what St. Francis did and how that might inspire our own modern lives.

--Francis is most associated with love of animals, which may explain his enduring popularity.  Churches across the world will celebrate his feast day by having services where people are welcome to bring their pets for a blessing. 

Today is a good day to think about the role of pets in our lives and to think about how we feel about less cuddly animals.  Should we welcome pets into our churches on a more regular basis?  After all, many church members may feel closer to their pets than to their family members.  I realize the impossible logistics of opening our buildings to animals, so I'm not seriously suggesting it, except as a way to think about how we feel about pets and how we feel about animals.

--And as we're thinking about animals, we might also think about others whom we don't or can't welcome into our church buildings.  Francis is also known for his work with lepers, the sick who are the lowest on the totem pole.

As I write this, I'm listening to a discussion of Ebola and I'm thinking about Ebola victims as being a modern example of the leper.  How would Francis direct us to treat these patients?  And how should we care for African countries that are overwhelmed by this disease?

--Francis came from a very wealthy family, a family he renounced in solidarity with society's poor and outcast.  He lived amongst the lowest of the low, and ministered to their needs, spending his wealth to help care for them.

Although we may not feel like it, if we're citizens of developed countries, we're in a similar situation to Francis.  We come from a place of great wealth and privilege compared to poorer countries.  How can we use our wealth and privilege to care for those who are outcast?

--Francis worked to help end the Crusades.

It's a good day to think about the social justice movements that need attention in our own day.  It's a good day to think about modern wars and the sweep of destruction.  We might also think about just wars, the kind that many Crusaders would tell you that they were fighting.  What's the best way to rescue populations that are invaded?  Or should we intervene at all?

--Francis has come to be associated with the environmental movement, in part because of his love of animals, in part because he liked to visit ruined parts of society.

Today is a good day to think about our planet, much of which is already ruined.  We might think about the fact that we're living in the Holocene Extinction, one of 5-7 times in our planet's history where we know we're losing species at a far faster, and perhaps catastrophic, rate. 

 --Francis created the first Nativity scene, what we might today call a living Nativity scene, complete with real animals.  His scenes were inspired by paintings of the Nativity scene (think Jesus in a manger, surrounded by those who loved him and some animals).  He wanted visitors to feel the full engagement of all their senses.  We might think of Francis as an early performance artist or maybe someone who created a piece of installation art.

For many of us, the time between now and the new year will be full of opportunities for celebrating holidays.  We can do it the way we always have or we can think about new ways of celebrating.

--Francis created three religious orders, two of which exist today, centuries after he created them.  Several times during his life, Francis had to write a rule book for how the communities would live together.  Those ideals have survived to this day.

For me, this accomplishment is the most impressive.  We live in a world where few of us can stay committed to even the small community which is our family.  The minute we're dissatisfied with any of our communities, our response is often to leave.  How would the world be transformed if we committed ourselves anew to developing and deepening community?

Here's a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, we don't always take good care of your creations. Please give us the generosity of St. Francis as we wrestle with the best way to use our resources. Please open our hearts the way you opened the heart of St. Francis so that we can take care of the members of our society who are at the lowest levels. Please give us the courage to create communities which will allow the light of Christ to shine more brightly.

Sparrows and Snappers and Sting Rays

Yesterday, we finally made it back to the reef.  I had begun to think we might never SCUBA dive again.  The last dive we took was in 2011 which I wrote about in this post.  In 2012, we had a dive scheduled, but my spouse had such severe back pain that we had to cancel--that was one of the events that let me know how bad his back had gotten.  In 2013, we were buying a house, moving, and selling a house, so we missed all sorts of opportunities.

But yesterday, we finally got back to the world below the surface.  For more on the trip itself, see this post on my creativity blog.

I am happy to report that the reef looked healthy, as did the fish.  We don't always see that situation.  We have been diving when the coral has been banged up, either by careless divers or by careless boaters or by hurricanes, which take carelessness to a whole different level.

But yesterday, we saw lots of fish of all sizes and coral that looks whole.  Hurrah. 

Diving always puts me in a spiritual frame of mind.  I am amazed at our creator, who shows such care with such a variety of landscapes.   I thought of Bible passages that remind us that God keeps count of every sparrow.  I assume that God keeps track of every snapper, every sting ray, every creature of every sort.  And dives remind me of how many creatures there are.

At one point I looked out and there was a shimmering curtain of yellow fish, as far and wide as I could see.  I said a quick prayer of appreciation and gratitude. 

Diving also makes me aware of my own body, of every breath, of every ability of my muscles to move in ways that make swimming possible.  If God had made only one creature as complex as the human, I would be in awe.  But to make such a vast variety of creatures and habitats.  Wow.

It's hard to dive without realizing the damage that humans are inflicting on the planet.  Yesterday, as in 2011, at the surface we swam through huge swarms of jellyfish. In some ways, they were beautiful, translucently blue as they floated by.  They were HUGE.  I've never seen jellyfish this big.  They weren't the smaller jellyfish you find in the Chesapeake Bay this time of year.  No, these jellyfish were the size of dinner plates, large dinner plates.

Jellyfish are an ominous sign for many reasons.  One is that they've never been as numerous as they have been this season.   Now that fact could mean that the currents are different, which would not have to be a big deal.  But the increase in jellyfish points to a decrease in the health of the oceans.  Jellyfish thrive in warmer waters than most creatures like, and the ocean temperatures have been breaking all records here.  You may recall that five years ago when I was diving/snorkeling, the temperature at Molasses Reef broke the previous record when it climbed to 91 degrees (I wrote about the implications here and here).  Since then, those temps have become a new normal.

We can argue about what's causing the rise in global temperatures, which leads to a rise in ocean temperatures and acidification.  I don't understand people who argue that warming, either of the seas or the air, isn't happening at all.  We have records going back a long time--it's a warmer planet that inhabit today, warmer than it's been in thousands of years, if we go strictly by human-kept records.  It's warmer than it's been in a longer time than that, if we want to trust what scientists tell us about the time before humans.

My Christian faith has trained me to live in hope, not in fear.  My Christian faith has trained me to expect resurrection.  My human existence has shown me that bleak situations can be redeemed.

I will continue to pray for the planet, as I pray for all who are distressed and under threat.  I often focus on humans when I pray, but after swimming through seas enswamped with jellyfish, I'm reminded to pray for our habitats too.

Environmental Stewardship on a Smaller Scale

--When people ask me why I don't have pets, I say, "I can't even keep houseplants alive."

--But that's not exactly true.  On Memorial Day, I bought plants that found their way into 4 pots that have spent the summer on my front porch:

--Some of the flower plants in the 2 big pots have died, but overall, those 2 pots have thrived.  I lost a batch of mint, part of the basil, and a batch of dill, but the other herbs (mint, basil, and rosemary) are hanging on.

--However, I must confess that the big pots are not nearly as bushy as they were the first week-end that I brought them home from the Home Depot.

--When I was scrolling through my Feb. entries, looking for posts about my latest revision of my book-length poetry manuscript, I came across this post and the line "be the asteroid":  "I heard a scientist say that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs; this time, we're the asteroid.  What does it mean to be the asteroid?" 

--The planet doesn't need us.  The human species may die off, but other species will survive.  Still, I continue to water the plants on the porch, plants who rely on me for water.

--I've also been thinking about the environment on a bodily scale.  Earlier this year, I had two colleagues and my best friend from high school diagnosed with cancer, 3 different kinds.  I thought about God, who loves all of creation, even the cancer cell.

--I've felt moments of shaken faith many times in my life, but that realization, that God loves all parts of creation equally, from me to the cancer cells that may kill those whom I love, that realization shook me for a few minutes.

--I've been intrigued by disease for many decades.  I'm lucky enough to be able to be fascinated by Ebola from a distance.  For a look at what it means close up, don't miss this postcard in The New Yorker.  It's a description that hearkens back to medieval days and the black death:  "The hospitals of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, are full of Ebola patients and are turning away new patients, including women in childbirth. American Ebola experts in Monrovia are hearing reports that infected bodies are being left in the streets: the outbreak is beginning to assume a medieval character. People sick with Ebola are leaving Monrovia and going into the countryside to search for village faith healers, or to stay with relatives."

--We can try to comfort ourselves by saying that the seas won't swallow our front porches until we're dead and gone, that our U.S. health care system could handle Ebola when it comes to our shores.  But it doesn't take much to tip the balance away from civilization and back towards a life less attractive.

Reminders of God's Good Creation

A week ago, at our Church Council meeting, we were giving our highs and lows, as part a variation  of the Faith Five exercise we've begun to do at the beginning of each meeting.  Our pastor talked about his high being a chance to get out into nature and take some of the nature photographs that he loves.

We had a brief conversation about living in an urban setting and still finding plenty of nature.  Our pastor talked about different butterflies he's seen in the southern part of the county to our south and his amazement that he doesn't find them here, not even 70 miles away.  We talked about the parks and the green spaces.

We talked about the families of foxes that lives between the community college and the regional airport.  I expressed my amazement that foxes would want to live so close to humanity (some 40,000 students, as well as other community members) and roaring airplanes.  We talked about all the hidden spaces that are there, places that would look good to foxes.

It was a good reminder that we have evidence of God's creation everywhere, even if we live in places that seem determined to pave over all of it.  We can make our own spots of resistance, places that will attract wildlife. 

A butterfly garden is easy to plant, and the sight of butterflies gives most people great joy.  Our church has planted a butterfly garden, and we've given our members encouragement and extra supplies so that we can plant a home garden too.

As we shift into August and begin to make plans for the season to come, now might be a good time to think about how we can encourage nature and heal the planet.  A simple flower garden or butterfly sanctuary is a good place to start.

Can Resurrection Come Out of Global Warming?

Yesterday, I wrote about nuclear pollution and the nuclear nightmares that haunted my adolescence.  I noted that in recent years, I had been more worried about global warming.  An article by the ever-wonderful Bill McKibben in the current Rolling Stone confirms that we're right to worry.  The damage to the planet has accelerated in ways that have surprised even the most sober of scientists.

It's hard to imagine that the planet can regroup after the kind of disaster we're foisting upon it--but it's recovered before.  This NPR piece reminds us of an earlier global warming event that killed off an estimated 95% of life on Earth.  As we know, life has come back.

Still, I'd prefer not to have this front seat admission to the Holocene extinction.  McKibben begins his article this way:

"If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

The article gives important background in terms of the science of what the planet can stand.  McKibben understands what we're up against, how hard it will be for humans to change.  He says, "This record of failure means we know a lot about what strategies don't work. Green groups, for instance, have spent a lot of time trying to change individual lifestyles: the iconic twisty light bulb has been installed by the millions, but so have a new generation of energy-sucking flatscreen TVs. Most of us are fundamentally ambivalent about going green: We like cheap flights to warm places, and we're certainly not going to give them up if everyone else is still taking them. Since all of us are in some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it's as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders."

McKibben is clear that the true villains in this story are the petroleum companies--that idea will probably not be new to most of us.  He concludes this way:

"The week after the Rio conference limped to its conclusion, Arctic sea ice hit the lowest level ever recorded for that date. Last month, on a single weekend, Tropical Storm Debby dumped more than 20 inches of rain on Florida – the earliest the season's fourth-named cyclone has ever arrived. At the same time, the largest fire in New Mexico history burned on, and the most destructive fire in Colorado's annals claimed 346 homes in Colorado Springs – breaking a record set the week before in Fort Collins. This month, scientists issued a new study concluding that global warming has dramatically increased the likelihood of severe heat and drought – days after a heat wave across the Plains and Midwest broke records that had stood since the Dust Bowl, threatening this year's harvest. You want a big number? In the course of this month, a quadrillion kernels of corn need to pollinate across the grain belt, something they can't do if temperatures remain off the charts. Just like us, our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year period of climatic stability we're now leaving... in the dust."

I'm convinced by his argument, although to be accurate, I agreed with his points before I read the article.  What is unclear to me is what we can do as individuals.

McKibben references the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980's, and I remember attending a prayer service during that time where we prayed for South Africa.  I remember being doubtful that we were doing any good, but I prayed too.  Not many years later, Nelson Mandela was freed, and not long after that, he was elected to lead his nation.

So, too, shall I pray for the planet.  I will pray that the health of the planet can be restored without the extinction of humanity.

Social Justice and Care for Creation

I tend to think of social justice in terms of humans.  But I try to remind myself that social justice should make me concerned about the land and the environment too.

For the past week, my reading has plunged me back into the world of nuclear nightmares.  I spent one week-end reading Kristen Iversen's Full Body Burden, a book which combines memoir with a history of Rocky Flats, a plant which made plutonium triggers and was a huge polluter.  Four days later, I read Kathleen Flenniken's Plume, a book of poems rooted in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, another huge polluter.

For the past decade or so, I've been more fretful about global warming and sea level rise than nuclear apocalypse. And I read those 2 books in the same week, and I think about the nuclear nightmares that haunted my youth, and I'm forcefully reminded that they still exist. I think about the body's tissues and how easy it is to damage them. Some weeks, life seems so fragile.

I spent my youth with one eye trained to the distance, looking for that telltale mushroom cloud.  I didn't think about plutonium particles leaching into the soil.  I didn't think about nuclear pollution in sediments in lakes and river beds.  I didn't think about water tables being polluted.

Nuclear scientists and historians will tell us that I was right to be thinking in terms of nuclear explosions.  But I also should have been worried about pollution from the plants making those bombs.  In the long run, that pollution will probably prove more dangerous.

And since I'm writing on my theology blog, my thoughts turn to the Creator.  I feel sadness for this soiled creation.  I feel sadness for the ways we've used our creative energy to build such destructive forces.  I wonder if we're in the midst of a great die-off and if so, what will bloom from that soil?

We've had mass extinctions before (for more on that, go to this NPR blog piece).  Obviously, it's a disaster for the living organisms who experience it, but amazingly, life regroups and rebuilds. 

Why should that surprise me?  It's one of the central messages of Christianity, after all:  from death can come life/resurrection, and death will not have the last word.

Destroyer of Worlds

On this day, in 1945, we entered the nuclear age for real. On this day, in 1945, the United States exploded the first nuclear bomb in the desert of New Mexico, and launched us all into a different world with different mental landscapes.

I'm always a bit in awe and horror of those scientists, who exploded their bomb without being fully sure of what it would do. Some of the scientists worried that the explosion might harm the atmosphere irrevocably. But they went ahead anyway.

Humans are full of this kind of hubris. Many of us never seem to think about worst case scenarios, and in some instances, this optimism is infectious and admirable. Unfortunately, we've spent a long time assuming that scientists will be able to solve all the problems that our progress creates, and we've probably propelled ourselves into a new climatological age; if you don't believe me, Bill McKibben makes a compelling case in his latest book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

Oppenheimer claims that he thought of lines from The Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." If I had to choose a motto for the twentieth century, with its genocides and mass slaughters and illnesses and technology run amok, I could make a strong case for that line.

Unfortunately, I don't see much of a change as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Those of us who are Christians, however, must keep working towards a better care of creation. We are charged to be good stewards of the earth, and today, the 65th anniversary of the explosion at the Trinity site, is a good day to ponder that mission. Oil has stopped spewing into the Gulf. I feel cautiously optimistic.

Saving the Coral Reef--A Social Justice Issue?

Yesterday, I went to Key Largo to Scuba dive in the morning and snorkel in the afternoon. On the dive boat, I heard one of the guys say that the ocean temperature at Molasses Reef registered 91 degrees--the hottest ocean temperature ever recorded at that location.

As I swam through the reef waters the rest of the day, I kept thinking about ocean temperatures and the beautiful sea creatures who swam around me. I thought about the news story I read last week that says that ocean temperatures around the world are at the highest levels ever recorded this summer. That fact does not bode well for our reefs.

One of the guys on the dive boat said that the observers of the reefs around Key Largo could see the coral bleaching on a daily basis, which is quite scary. When coral reefs bleach, they die, and that process has usually taken much longer than a day. The Science Faculty member with whom I was diving said that 90% of the coral reef around Florida has already died.

As I was swimming and feeling sad about all of these things, I decided to pray. It's wonderful to pray while swimming in a marine sanctuary; I've never done that before. I don't have faith in my fellow humans to reverse global warming. I think it's too late for the coral reef and probably for humans, although I think our species will die out after the coral reef is gone.

But what kind of statement is that about my faith in God? Do I believe that the God that made all of these environments that I love cannot save them?

I also thought about our approach to social justice. Most of the social movements in which I've been most active have been trying to save other humans: those living in South Africa, those living in Central America, the homeless, the hungry, children. Maybe it's time to think about marine animals, most of whom are equally helpless, most of whom are in immediate peril.