Sign of the Times?
As I try to avoid worrying about Republicans allowing the Big Three automakers to die (probably leading to a global depression!) or what happens next in the Illinois scandal, I found this interesting piece of news.
Richard Cizik, for decades the Public Policy head of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals, has resigned after an interview in which he admitted “shifting” on same-sex marriage. Cizik now says that he supports same-sex civil unions and is reconsidering civil marriage equality! A recent study by Pew showed that younger evangelicals are also becoming more open to gay rights. Cizik was previously the target of the Religious Right because of his push for U.S. evangelicals to become concerned about the environment (“creation care”), taking on those Religious Right leaders who believe either that the Second Coming removes all Christian concern for the environment or that global warming is a hoax or both. Here, again, Cizik seems more representative of younger white evangelicals than most leaders of his generation. Wow!
I’m sad that Cizik’s voice of sanity will be lost at NAE and hope that he continues to find ways to speak out to his fellow conservative Christians about these vital matters.
We Can Solve It
This ad will air tonight in the U.S. during coverage of the Olympic Games. Makes more sense than drilling, no?
Al Gore: Baptist of the Year
The Baptist Center for Ethics has chosen fmr. U.S. Vice President R. Albert Gore, Jr. (Al Gore) as “Baptist of the Year.” I try to take a global view of my Baptist family and so I wondered whether or not this was a U.S.-centered choice. [Update: This is the first year BCE has chosen a Baptist from North America. They began this award in 2004, selecting several people from around the globe. In 2005, they chose Paul Montacute, a British Baptist and head of Baptist World Aid, for his quick humanitarian responses to the tsunami and to the earthquake in Pakistan. In 2006, BCE chose collectively the Baptists in Lebanon for their grace and courage during the war which put them literally in the line of fire between Hezbollah and Israel. So, this wasn’t as U.S.-centered as I wondered.] But in a year in which the former Vice President (who, at the most charitable reading of the Supreme Court’s 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, at least won the popular vote for U.S. President in 2000), won an Academy Award for the film version of An Inconvenient Truth and, together with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his attempts to end the carbon-based war on the planet, this decision by BCE seems perfectly justified. I am not sure that we have enough time or the political will, even now, to take effective action against global warming before major and irreversible damage is done all across the globe. It may well be too late to do more than limit the damage and save what we can and whom we can. But if we do have enough time and political will, even here in the United States, then Al Gore will deserve much of the credit as a modern day Paul Revere warning “The HEAT is Coming!”
Congratulations, Mr. Gore. I only hope your efforts have paid off in time. Keep up the good work.
Update: I have not always been impressed with Mr. Gore’s skills in political oratory. But a major exception is his Nobel Prize Lecture. It is well worth reading. Unless you are in delusional denial about climate change (like Fred Thompson or Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) ), you should find it very inspiring. I know I did.
Environmental Defense: Climate Action in Congress This Year!
Environmental Defense is convinced that it can get a strong Climate Action vote through both the House and the Senate this year and have it on the president’s desk before the primaries get into full swing in ’08. In this video, Elizabeth Thompson, Environmental Defense’s Legislative Director, lays out the principles for a strong, effective bill on global warming:
- It must have hard caps on carbon emissions. Not goals, not vague aspirations, but real caps, with strong enforcement mechanisms. We must also ensure that all forms of global warming pollution are covered.
- A strong bill must have both a short-term and long-term frame. Although the problem will be with us for a long time and we must plan accordingly, we must take aggressive action NOW to avoid the worst ecological disasters.
- We must foster market competition for alternative fuels, alternative energies, for the next generation. That competition will ensure stronger solutions, faster.
An explanation of how a “cap and trade” system (which worked very well in cutting acid rain and ozone depletion) would combine strong government action with market principles to simultaneously promote energy security, combat global warming, and stimulate green economic growth is found in a video at this link. But such a system only works with hard caps, not vague “goals” such as Pres. George W. Bush favors. (When you watch the cap and trade video, be sure to note the assessment of what we are really paying at the gas pump: when one adds the price at the pump to the cost in military action to secure oil for the U.S., the real price is at least $7-8 per gallon! That will only increase unless we break our oil addiction when one combines the problems of peak oil, huge competition for the same oil resources from China and India, increasing instability in oil producing regions, etc.)
U.S. citizens should take action now by contacting Congress and insisting on a strong climate bill this year. Then contact your friends and urge them to take action, too. To donate to Operation Climate Vote, click here.
Fighting Global Warming Necessary to End Poverty & Hunger
Dr. Rachendra Pachauri, Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which, along with fmr. VP Al Gore, just won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize) has this excellent article showing why catastrophic climate change is a threat to the struggle to end global hunger and poverty. Now, we just need strong public policies and global citizen actions to work on both at the same time.
Ecological Virtues
Well, as promised, this will now be a single post and not a series because there was less interest expressed than I expected. Each of these brief notes could be expanded to be a post in itself.
What Virtues Should Be Nurtured if Humanity is to Live in an Ecologically Sustainable Fashion?
I can think of nine (9) such virtues, but I make no claims that these are exhaustive. I would like to give credit where it is due here, but I can’t. The following comes from notes I took several years ago in one of the annual meetings of the Society of Christian Ethics, but I can no longer read the speaker’s name. Nevertheless, readers should know that what follows is not original with me and, if any have seen this in print, please let me know so I can give proper attribution. No plagiarism intended.
- Sustainability: This is the virtue of living within the bounds of the regenerative, absorptive, and carrying capacities of the earth, continuously and indefinitely. Within limits, the earth regenerates and renews itself–cut trees grow back if not overlogged; without overfishing or over-hunting, species’ populations will renew. Within limits, the earth can absorb our pollutants, even carbon emissions, and clean them from the air and water–but those limits are being reached and surpassed. “Carrying capacity” refers to the ability of the earth to handle human populations. The maximum carrying capacity is not known, but is believed to be somewhere around 10 billion people–a number we are fast approaching. When we fail to limit our own population size, we inevitably encroach on the habitats necessary to sustain the populations of other plants and animals–creatures God created and called “good.”
- Adaptability: Closely related to sustainability is the virtue of adaptability. Recognizing ecological limits, the virtue of adaptability accomadates to those forces and constraints of nature that cannot be changed. Adaptability is an ecological virtue because so many environmental problems evidence the lack of it–e.g., reducing an ecosystem or a species’ population to a remnant that can be annihilated by a single natural disaster. One of the reasons I have a very traditional view of human sinfulness, of our fallen nature, is that we pridefully insist that everything else in God’s creation adapt to us, but we refuse to adapt to natural forces. We often pay the price.
- Relationality: This virtue can be defined as the acute sensitivity to the fact that everything is connected and has consequences for everything else. Relationality demands that one think holistically and refuse to act as if one’s actions have no consequences.
- Frugality: Here is a virtue that was much stressed in ages past, even at the beginnings of capitalism, but which is derided in our post-modern, late capitalistic culture. Thrift, moderation, efficiency, simplicity of lifestyle, and stringent conservation are all implied by frugality. It is the antithesis of consumerism and prodigality (and, thus, is subversive in our cultural context). Frugality thrives on the control of one’s consumption, the reduction of waste, and comprehensive recycling. Our grandparents in the “Greatest Generation” of the Great Depression and WWII cultivated frugality mightily, but it has been increasingly lost in the post-WWII era. The recovery of frugality is essential.
- Equity: This is the virtue of justice as it is applied to the distribution of the world’s goods and services so that all human beings have the essential material conditions not just for bare survival, but for human dignity and social participation. Since economic deprivation is a major cause and effect of ecological degradation, equity (distributive justice) is a necessary condition of ecological sustainability. This virtue also applies to the fair distribution of costs and benefits for pollution and other forms of ecological degradation.
- Solidarity: This virtue is the moral response to human interdependance. Solidarity today must be global and environmental.
- Biodiversity: Biodiversity is (currently) a fact of nature. It is also a virtue to be cultivated: the extension of solidarity to the whole biosphere. Respect for biodiversity is a commitment to sustaining viable populations of all other species in healthy habitats until the end of their evolutionary time. It is, therefore, characterized by antagonism to the radical reductions and extinctions of species. This virtue, unlike sustainability, seeks to save other creatures for their own sake, not only for the sake of humanity’s own well-being.
- Sufficiency: This is the overtly political member of the ecological virtues. Solutions to ecological and/or economic problems must be proportionate to the intricacies and magnitude of the problems. Sufficiency is the opposite of “too little, too late.”
- Humility: This the self-realistic virtue that recognizes the limitations of human knowledge, technological ingenuity, moral character, and biological status. It avoids overconfidence in human powers to control nature, exaggerations of human authority and rights over nature, and undervaluations of other creatures and their rights–to exist and thrive.
Additions, corrections, and discussion greatly welcome. I do NOT suggest that a focus on virtues is all that is necessary for an ecological ethic, but I do think that this dimension is a necessary focus alongside considerations of a deontological and/or consequentialist nature. I believe these virtues correspond to the overlapping dimensions of the ecological crisis:
- Pollution of air, ground, and water.
- Global Warming
- Ozone Depletion (which will add to global warming)
- Resource exhaustion
- Overpopulation
- Maldistribution of goods and services
- Loss of Biodiversity
- Perils associated with Genetic Engineering
Al Gore & Climate Change Panel Win Nobel Peace Prize
Fmr. U. S. Vice President R. Albert Gore, Jr. (better known as “Al Gore”), already having won an Oscar for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and an Emmy for his work with Current TV, will now receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He will share the prize with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientists who have carefully documented the consensus views on global warming, their human-based causes, and their most likely effects. In announcing the shared award, which will be presented in December, the Nobel Committee cited the connections between global warming and wars over resources, a process it believes is already happening in Africa. Gore’s initial response to the announcement was:
I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
Thank you,
Al Gore
Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics, which runs EthicsDaily.com, has a fine article on Gore as the Third Baptist from the U.S. South to win the Nobel Peace Prize (the others were Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964 and Jimmy Carter in 2002). It stresses the role of the Bible and Sunday School in shaping these peacemakers–and the way the largest body of Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention, has treated all three with contempt. (Some SBC leaders will now speak respectfully of MLK, Jr., and a few mavericks–derided at the time as “liberals”–honored King during his life. But the vast majority of the SBC leadership derided King as a “liberal, communist race-mixer” during his life, sneered at his Nobel Prize, and met his assassination with either silence or open cheering. ) As Parham rightly notes, these Baptist prophets have been honored everywhere except by white Southern Baptists.
Global Warming: Why We Should Act Even in Face of Uncertainty
My reading of the data from the world’s climate scientists (plus watching melting polar ice, etc.) leaves me with little doubt left about global warming–and an urgency to act. Further, I think the sooner we act, the more we can minimize the economic costs of reducing carbon in the air, etc. (and even create economic opportunities) while saving the planet. I also don’t think we have too much time left to act in order to prevent major catastrophes. But if you are not convinced, this video is for you. It gives a foolproof argument as to why we should act to prevent global warming even if we aren’t certain it exists. (100% certainty can’t be had until it’s too late, of course.)
“Conservative” means “prudent,” so I have never been able to understand why conservatives don’t want to be prudent with the environment. Why do they want to engage in risky gambles with planet? It seems to me that the conservative thing to do would be to err on the side of caution. But this video makes that argument in a compelling, visual fashion.
Hat tip to Pastor Bob Cornwall for this video. Thanks, Bob.
Sign the Live Earth Pledge
I was skeptical, at first, of the usefulness of the Live Earth concerts Al Gore is mustering this weekend as a way to mobilize action to reverse global warming and prevent disastrous climate change. But maybe concerts can raise awareness. It’s worked with hunger campaigns, Farm Aid, and more. And I am impressed with the 7 point Live Earth Pledge–and Gore has been persuasive enough that major U.S. Democratic leaders have signed up including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-AZ), Democratic National Chair Howard Dean, and almost all the Democratic presidential candidates. Here’s the pledge: I PLEDGE
1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;
2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral;”
3.To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;
4.To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;
5.To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;
6.To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,
7.To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.
If you can sign that pledge, click here and then tell your friends–and act on the pledge.
Al Gore to Congress: Act on Global Warming NOW!
You can see highlights of Gore’s testimony before Congress here or his entire opening statement here. Gore challenged lawmakers to cut carbon emissions by 90% before 2050 using stronger proposals than anything currently on the legislative table. In addition to scientific data, concrete proposals, and an academy award for his slideshow-turned-documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Gore brought over 500,000 messages from citizens to Congress supporting swift, decisive action to prevent/reduce the catastrophic climate change caused by global warming. Although no-nothings like Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) called global warming “a hoax,” the majority of lawmakers seemed receptive to Gore’s message, although it will take much citizen action to get the strong changes he is recommending. (Gore called the first hearings on global warming in Congress in 1973 and they are still dragging their feet about doing anything!)
Among Gore’s concrete proposals are:
- An immediate national freeze on new carbon emissions, affecting everything from cars to lawnmowers to coal-fired electric plants.
- Changing the tax code to reduce payroll taxes and increase taxes on polluters, especially those who put greenhouse gasses like CO2 into the air.
- Following Australia’s lead in banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of new compact (and far more energy efficient) flourescent light bulbs.
- Raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars–something the major car companies themselves asked Congress for clear guidelines on just this week. Will oil company dollars to Congressional campaigns trump concern for the planet AND the clear desires of Detroit automakers?
- Creating a “carbon neutral home mortgage association” which would allow homeowners to more easily finance energy-efficient renovations. This last may sound radical, but Jimmy Carter did something similar in the 1970s when, after installing solar panels on the White House roof (removed by the first Pres. Bush), he got Congress to pass tax credits for homeowners who installed solar panels to their roofs (or windmills, etc.). My parents took advantage of this with our Orlando home and some years we actually generated enough of our own electricity to sell some BACK to the power company. Reagan led in cancelling these tax credits for homeowners in 1981–at the same time he started rolling back fuel standards for cars, and we’ve been going in the wrong direction ever since.
The folks at Environmental Defense now have a page called “Ask the Green Car Guru” to help consumers concerned about the environment. They have also worked with Yahoo! to develop a Green Car Center that does rather comprehensive ratings and shows what criteria are used in order to help consumers make wise choices. The Union of Concerned Scientists have called for passage of the Safe Climate Act (which falls short of Gore’s proposals, but would be a step in the right direction), and its engineers have designed the Vanguard, a safe, affordable, and green mini-van.
So, the ball is now in our court as citizens to convince Congress to act and as consumers to convince companies to give us the green technologies we want. We also need to make lifestyle choices for the planet: live closer to our work, insulate our homes, walk, bike, and ride public transportation whenever possible, etc.
About
Michael L. Westmoreland-White, Ph.D. I live in Louisville, KY USA with my wife, Kate, and our two wonderful daughters. My wife, Kate, is a Baptist minister who works at a Catholic charity (the Society of St. Vincent de Paul) to provide assisted housing to homeless people. Our daughters are Molly (’95) and Miriam (’99). I am a former soldier converted to gospel nonviolence and a once (and future?) academic theologian turned peace activist, author, and peace educator. Contact me at [email protected]
The Levellers were a 17th C. movement during the English Civil War. They were a religiously-inspired political movement for democracy, human rights, justice for the poor, and peace. Their strongest leader was Richard Overton, a pacifist General Baptist influenced by Dutch Mennonites. Although I write on a wide range of topics, most often this blog deals with the intersection of faith, especially Christian faith, and work for social justice and peace. So, I have named the blog and dedicated it to the spirit of Richard Overton and the 17th C. Levellers.
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