The Spectrum Blog

Generational climate change

By Alexander Carpenter

From the Jamaica Gleaner:

Early on in the broadcast, Paulsen turned briefly to the camera for remarks meant largely to amend some of the church's older generations' opinions of young people.

"I'm more preaching - and I am preaching - to those who are watching. You need to make sure that you trust those who are young with responsibility. It is an indisputable fact that if you do not engage those who are young, they will walk away from the church."

Following a question on civil engagement, Paulsen said Christians should not only ask what they can contribute to the church, but also what they can contribute to the communities where they live. One way to impact society is to hold political office.

Or at least vote along the words of Jesus -- blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Ah, it's great to see people listening and caring about the future for the next generation. Despite the dwindling number of global warming deniers TV-watching and Google-ing themselves into an opinion, the climate really is changing among the next generation of citizens.

From the Politico:

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), once a skeptic of global warming, got a hint that the political winds might be shifting when a longtime supporter warned that he might vote against Inglis if he “didn’t clean up his act on the environment.”

The warning came from Inglis’ eldest son, Robert Jr., now 22.

His daughter was no less blunt about the congressman’s refusal to embrace the view that global warming was being caused by human actions and that a serious response is needed. “I have three more kids coming up — and they seem to share the same view,” Inglis said.

Family pressure worked. Inglis traveled to Antarctica and, most recently, to Greenland to witness the effects of rising CO2 levels and temperatures. He now believes the science behind global warming. And he believes the politics are equally conclusive: Republicans will “get hammered” if they do not reckon with the issue soon.

So will Christian morality. I'm proud that despite a know-nothing attitude among some, back in 1995, the Seventh-day Adventist Church ADCOM noted the human connection to climate change. And voted on it.

Unfortunately, that statement is outdated and should be debated, strengthened, and reissued publicly so that we can continue our prophetic witness on the need to care for creation. And with Jan Paulsen encouraging Adventist young people to "talk" and get involved in their community at the decision-making level, it would be great if the General Conference leadership turned talk to action and gave the next generation a say in shaping its future climate today. 

NOW | God and Global Warming | PBS

By Alexander Carpenter

In August, NOW traveled with an unlikely alliance of Evangelical Christians and leading scientists to witness the breathtaking effects of global warming on Alaska's rapidly changing environment. Though many in the evangelical community feel recognition of global warming is in opposition to their mission, the week-long trip inspired new thinking on the relationship between science and religion, and on our moral responsibility to protect the planet. A breathtaking and surprising journey to find common ground between earth and sky.

Watch the episode here.

This web-exclusive special footage is related to the NOW on PBS program "God and Global Warming" which aired Friday, October 26.

Congratulations to Al Gore and the IPCC

By Alexander Carpenter

As you've heard, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize went to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Spectrum Blog would also like offer congratulations to La Sierra University's M.Div. student Jared Wright who created the blog: Adventist Environmental Advocacy.

Al Gore said that he accepted the Nobel Prize "on behalf of all the people that have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency." Thus, kudos to Jared and everyone else who worked to integrate faith with the science of global warming.

The Times adds: "In New Delhi, the Indian climatologist who heads the panel, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said, that science had won out over skepticism."

Thoughtful Adventism, like good citizenship,  means always asking questions, but it also requires thinking critically about answers and action. As information increases, we all must form habits of critical appraisal of facts and their authorities.

Some might object to this Nobel Prize going to a polarizing figure, but that may say more about our current climate of ideological antagonism. There's been some debate, although few substantive disagreements over the science of human-caused global warming on the Spectrum Blog. Unfortunately there remain folks still pish-poshing every major scientific body in the world and the 2,000 scientists of the IPCC, who only recycle fossil-fuel industry press releases and redacted governmental reports. But as the great physicist Richard P. Feynman warned: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

Thus, from now on: if someone wants to quote the novel opinions of Michael Crichton or tobacco industry scientists moonlighting for the coal industry or complain that Gore's house is too big, they will have to do more than comment. They will have to marshal evidence, engage the research, and go beyond arm chair skepticism. They will also have to state their parameters for being convinced by the evidence. I have a sticker on my laptop that says "Question Authority," but really anyone can ask questions -- as most children do. Mature citizenship means prizing solutions, even though they might cause -- or stop -- change.

Al Gore responds:

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.

Creation, faith, crisis for the future

By Alexander Carpenter

The shift on environmental concern among self-described conservative Christians continues.

Environmentalists are often envisioned as tree-hugging, granola-munching types whose politics lean far to the left. But environmental awareness is also spreading into the pews and pulpits of conservative Christian churches. In Evansville and beyond, environmental awareness is starting to attract more attention among folks who fall far outside the stereotypical "green" profile. "I think it's still catching on, especially with the more conservative Christians," said Lisa Sideris, assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana University.

[snip]

Among conservative Christians, the concept has become stewardship — the responsibility to care for nature because God made it.

"If it's God's, I'm going to think twice about messing it up. If it's mine, then I'm going to use it as I see fit," said the Rev. Tom Wenig, pastor of Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer on Evansville's East Side.

[snip]

For his part, Wenig said he believes the earth does face a looming energy crisis and that human activity is exacerbating if not causing global warming.  He acknowledges that these views aren't widely held among conservative Christians. A lot of people feel the global warming issue is a propaganda campaign put out by the radical left."

In response, Wenig cites numerous scriptural references that he believes point toward environmental stewardship.

He cites the story of Noah, in which God instructs Noah to bring animals into the ark to spare them from the flood. This, Wenig said, means that people should care about animals and avoid knowingly contributing to their extinction. "Even if they have no particular human economic value, they have value," Wenig said. And in John 6:12, Jesus, after he has fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes, tells his disciples to "gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost."  This passage, Wenig believes, means God doesn't want humans to waste what's been given to them.

From the current Economist:

The terms of the transaction between faith and ecology vary a lot. In places like Scandinavia, where religion is weakish, a cleric who “goes green” may reach a wider audience; in countries like India, where faith is powerful, spiritual messages touch more hearts than secular ones do. That doesn't stop some environmental scientists from saying they are being hijacked by clerics in search of relevance. But Mary Evelyn Tucker, of America's Yale University, says secular greens badly need their spiritual allies: “Religions provide a cultural integrity, a spiritual depth and moral force which secular approaches lack.”

Speaking of the environment, faith, and Yale, the divinity school has packed their current issue of Reflections with a plethora of great articles by luminaries in the green faith movement. Oh, and the journal is FREE to order.

And treat your brain to Mary Evelyn Tucker brilliantly discussing the ethics of biocide and geocide from a religious perspective.

Save your pocket & the earth with this simple change

by Johnny A. Ramirez

Laughs aside, the New York Times article this video references makes a solid point.

...this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Instead of consuming four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles, we need to start thinking about what all those bottles are doing to the planet’s health.

For the one week I've been home and two weeks prior while I was in Spain I was inspired by my cousin to carry around and refill the same plastic water bottle. I lost the cap and thought I should make this permanent so I bought a Sigg water bottle from REI. It's really cool and I think that it will inspire me to drink more water and also remind myself to consume less. Not just natural resources but soft drinks also.

Fearing and loathing unnatural capitalism with Hunter Lovins

By Alexander Carpenter

I'm out in Colorado with 44 faith leaders who run the Interfaith Power and Light campaign. This evening we listened to the wise words of Hunter Lovins. She is a postmodern prophet -- tough, cowboy hat-wearin', convertible drivin' and she's been working on climate change science and sustainable business consulting for over twenty years.

Now she hangs out with Bill Clinton and Sir Richard Branson and talks at places like the World Economic Forum and Saint John the Divine cathedral.

She knows more about sustainable business than anyone I've ever heard. And she's brilliant on stopping global warming via cutting our emissions first and then developing renewable energy. She also convinced me that nuclear is not an option in our lifetime -- too long to make it work, too dangerous, too carbon wasteful in refinement and construction, much less the extraction. Bottom line: The next ten years are the most critical for us to act in saving our natural environment.

Check out her firm: Natural Capitalism, creating the next industrial revolution. (Lots of free resources and information to share with your friends and congregates!)

Green business grows

By Alexander Carpenter

Look at these hippies -- err, corporate suits -- all into stopping global warming and talking green business.

Created by the filmmakers, scientists and strategic communicators over at Sea Studios,this documentary notes the changing climate within the high-end business community.

More and more companies which want an edge and a stronger bottom line realize that going green saves money by shrinking their environmental footprint. Unfortunately these forward-thinking companies are still the exception, not the capitalizing rule.

Save your church money and save our planet

By Alexander Carpenter

Whether or not one believes that humans affect the climate, or our water, or that energy should be renewable, here's a way that congregations can at least save money. And if you or your pastor happens to care about the environment, that's a bonus as well. Plus, there's the bonus of being a witness and seeing if that beatitude holds up: blessed are the meek for they shall inherent the earth. . .

Your tax dollars help pay for the Environmental Protection Agency, and here's a way for Adventist congregations to put our government to work. The ENERGY STAR Congregations program notes:

Most congregations can cut energy costs by up to 30% by investing strategically in efficient equipment, facility upgrades and maintenance. With free, unbiased information and technical support from ENERGY STAR, your congregation can more easily improve stewardship of your budget’s energy dollars, and of the earth by reducing energy waste and energy costs, while protecting the environment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Congregations Network provides free information, technical support and public recognition for congregations that take significant action against energy waste. In 2005, with the help of ENERGY STAR, Americans saved enough energy to power 28 million homes and prevented global warming emissions equivalent to those of 23 million cars – while saving $12 billion on utility bills.

They offer awards to congregations based on their conservation efforts and energy savings. Your congregation can apply for one of these awards if you fulfill the following criteria:
-Have a facility of 100,000 square feet or less.
-Practice exemplary energy efficiency that translates into real dollar savings.
-Occupy current facility/have been in location for at least 12 months. 
The deadline to apply is June 30, 2007. For more information, call 1-888-STAR YES or check the Congregations website. (It takes about five minutes.) And it would a nice gift to the next generation of Adventists. . .

Biblical environmentalism

By Alexander Carpenter

For our final event of the year, my Graduate Theological Union chapter of the Beatitudes Society teamed up with California Interfaith Power and Light to co-host Dr. Matthew Sleeth. An evangelical environmenalist, Dr. Sleeth shared the textual and moral reasons why he gave up his medical practice and cut his families' carbon footprint. Now he works full time to share the good news that following Christ includes caring about creation and changing our consumer culture to stop global warming. We had a packed room with about a quarter of the audience made up of people from local churches.

Here's a link to his site, Serve God, Save the Planet.

Ethical living on earth

By Alexander Carpenter

Check out Jared Wright's thoughtful three point post on why stopping global warming is a moral issue.

VIDEO: Apocalypse How?

By Alexander Carpenter

The Daily Show mixes a Revelation seminar and global warming - a little apocalyptic humor in honor of Earth Day.

Resources for greening Adventism

By Alexander Carpenter

As mentioned in yesterday's post, here's some resources for Adventists who are interested to doing something about global warming: in devotional life, home, congregation, community, and government.

Five things to think and pray about: 

1. Essential, although a bit dated, here's the official Seventh-day Adventist Church statement to industrialized countries.

2. Here's lots of scripture showing that caring for creation comes with taking the Judeo-Christian tradition and the example of Christ seriously.

3. The Center for American Progress released this helpful statement on the IPCC report and Congress' recent sub-committee hearing on global warming.

4. Whenever you hear nay-sayers on climate change, check out Real Climate, run by real climatologists with good laymen discussions mixed with peer-reviewed work.

5. Adventist missionary Jared Wright has a great blog: http://adventist-environmental-advocacy.blogspot.com

Five things to do: 

(Here's just one practical thing that we can do to make a difference in each sphere of influence.)

Home
Replace ordinary light bulbs with energy efficient alternatives According to efficiency experts, one of the simplest ways to reduce your CO2 emissions is by replacing ordinary incandescent light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent bulbs, which provide the same amount of light but use a fraction of the electricity as normal bulbs. According to the nonprofit group Environmental Defense (http://www.fightglobalwarming.org), if every household replaced three 60-watt incandescent light bulbs with these bulbs, it would be the equivalent of removing 3.5 million cars from the road.

Work
Tune up, replace or share your car Hybrid cars are becoming popular choices, but still comprise a small part of the U.S. vehicle fleet. If you're not ready for a new car or truck, you can make sure your current one operates more efficiently by keeping it properly tuned. You can also reduce emissions by carpooling whenever possible or taking public transportation if it's available.

Church
Interfaith Power and Light is a great organization and as far as I know at least two Adventist churches have signed their Congregation Covenant. IPL provides a lot of support for local churches that want to save money on energy while learning more about conservation. I know some of these folks personally and they are stand up folks! And they like working with Adventists.

Local Community
Frequent your nearest farmers market. Buy local, slow, and organic. It supports small family farms, it's healthier for your family, and it's really fun. The government has a site where you can click on a map and look through a list of certified farmers markets in your state.

National Community
Learn about and support great organizations like Restoring Eden that get Christian college students active on national policy. And vote for candidates with hot ratings from the League of Conservation Voters.

The corporation and our environment

By Alexander Carpenter

Sunday is Earth Day.  Lately we've had some good discussions about science, creation and how reasonable people integrate skepticism and evidence. It's pretty clear that all bodies of climatologists and the major international consortia agree that human transportation, industry, and energy production warm our earth's temperature. I know that some readers of this blog are pretty convinced by the evidence, some don't care and some - I'm smiling at you Bob - disagree with the IPCC. If people want to debate the evidence that's fine, although I'd suggest that the burden of proof is on the climate change doubters since there is a lot of easy-to-read, peer-reviewed evidence available online. Just poking holes is not a debate. Unlike some theologies, scientific theories are testable without claiming all the answers.

One of the reasons that doubts continue is that energy and industrial corporations have spent millions through the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and some of the most prominent lobbying firms. Last summer in DC I hung out with a friend who graduated from an Adventist college who works for one of the firms, Berman & Co, recently featured on 60 Minutes. I talked with the mostly recent college grads who worked there. Their jobs include planting op-eds and quotes in newspaper articles around the country raising questions about green technology, drinking and driving, animal cruelty, workers rights, second hand smoke, and climate change. As they pointed out, their job is to create doubt about the messengers and the evidence.

Of course, all corporations are not evil, but the the bottom line is their bottom line. Money matters most. Thus change that cares for creation has not seemed good for their business as usual. But that is changing, especially out here in Silicon Valley. I just listened to a panel discussion sponsored by Google among major venture capitalists who say that green energy and sustainable-living are the profit wave of the future. We see this with Toyota quickly passing Detroit in profits due to their hybrid foresight. Tomorrow I'll post some ideas on why climate change matters to people of faith - anyone preaching on ecology on Sabbath? - but here's a well-regarded documentary, based on legal scholar Joel Bakan's book The Corporation, on how corporations create demand and fuel human consumption habits that corrupt creation.

Consider greening your local church

By Alexander Carpenter

Recognizing the deep connection between faith and ecology, the Regeneration Project is one of the emerging interfaith grassroots organizations that works directly with congregations in greening houses of worship. In October, it put An Inconvenient Truth (the third most successful documentary of all time) in 4000 churches through its state Interfaith Power & Light chapters.

According to their web site, "In 2001, we co-founded California Interfaith Power and Light, which helps people of faith in California to organize and promote positive environmental change around energy and global warming. Nationally, we are working to establish Interfaith Power and Light programs in every state."

As a person of faith, here's three things you and your community can do right now:

1. Sign up your congregation to become an IPL member in your state.

2. Ask your religious leader to give a sermon on global warming.

3. Be an Energy Star Congregation by considering ways to improve the efficiency of your buildings and equipment and curtail unnecessary energy use. For information, call 888 STAR-YES. It will save your church money.

Learn more here.

If you or your congration has participated in a greening project, drop a comment below.