September 18 2016

THE DARKNESS DEEPENS

Last week I felt down, ready to throw up my hands and say: “the heck with it all: what’s the use. Why not turn on the television, read a trashy novel and give up on writing every day and translating more of J. H. Bavinck”.

But then, on second thought, it’s difficult for me to go against my nature. I am the perfect specimen of a neo-Calvinist to the core, a workaholic, a goal-driven guy, a fanatic in a sense, and consumed – in the good way – to share my religious insights with others via this medium of the Internet. Quite presumptuous, actually! Who am I but an auto-didactic oldster with time on his hands, a person addicted to reading, running, biking, organic home-grown produce, vegetarian to boot.

What set this off was reading how a powerful minority in our world, strongest in the United States and Australia, holds on to the idea that Climate Change is a hoax. The Republican governor of Florida, a state that almost certainly will lose population centers and land area to rising seas, has banned the use of the words CLIMATE CHANGE by state employees. Meanwhile they are, due to a strong El Nino and Climate Change combined, experiencing record temperatures and are seeing signs that they may be approaching climate tipping points already as Florida was hit by flooding rains for the second time in a week, with a third threat on the way. Oh no, nothing to do with Climate Change, of course.
Oh yes, there’s something else I am deeply worried about: it now looks as if the other person trying to become POTUS –President Of The United States – might even make it. His party, the GOP, is composed of “hard-core” climate denialists. “Hard-core” climate denialists stubbornly and publicly proclaim a belief that anthropogenic – human-induced- Climate Change is either unsupported by scientific evidence or, more frequently, an elaborate hoax. “Hard-core” climate denialists demonstrate a very soft relationship to physical and scientific reality, and will clutch at any piece of information that seems to discredit climate science and climate action. Just as they connect all sorts of ailments with Hillary so too they continually invent various fables to support their beliefs that humans have nothing to do with climate catastrophes. They totally ignore that last month was the hottest August ever recorded, marking the 11th straight month that global heat records have been shattered, according to NASA data. Usually July is the hottest month of the year, but this time August equals it. “No, no,” say the hard-core deniers, “this is all nonsense”. Actually, when incorporating the seasonal cycle, it was more than 2°C or 3.6°F warmer in July and August 2016 than it used to be.

I guess I am writing to the converted, but just the same last week Anchorage, the most populous city in Alaska saw a record high temperature of 25C or 78 degrees F, which beat the previous record by a whopping seven degrees. You may remember that Alaska lies in the Arctic Circle.

Yet, we all are Climate Change Deniers.

Forget about the ‘hard-core’ deniers. We’ve all met them and nothing will convince them. They are like the RAPTURE adherents, presumably taken away – raptured – before the real trouble start. What’s the word again? Pre-tribulation!
No, I don’t worry about them: nothing will sway them. I do worry about a much more troubling web of climate denial that is far more widespread. I refer to the “soft-hearted” climate denial crowd which can be found everywhere in society. They acknowledge that in some ways Climate Change is real, is disastrous and is happening now. But they refuse to see that in their own life and action they ignore global warming. They also refuse to admit that we are in a real catastrophic situation: they see the danger far away in the future.

Band aid solutions.

Oh yes, changes are contemplated: politicians and businessmen advocate the embrace of various carbon pricing systems claiming them to be the single “silver bullet” to avoid climate catastrophe. Also charitable trusts and church pension funds are divesting funds away from fossil fuel companies and pleading for the removal of their subsidies. This sort of band aid action allows most of us to live split lives: we theoretically and politically are fully in favor of Climate Change and ardently defend it, but still we cling to a lifestyle most typical of the high-consuming middle and upper classes.

I am not the exception.

Am I an exception there? No. I too want my cake and eat it too. Of course we were not among those who this past week traveled in ultra-comfort on that giant cruise ship which encountered no obstructions while sailing on the North Pole with people paying as much as $120,000 for the 32 day cruise. I am also sure that almost all of them too believe in Climate Change.
Is Climate Change really that bad and the danger that immediate?
Consider the following, taken from the ARCTIC NEWS website.

1. A rapid temperature rise is held off by the temporary masking effect of aerosols emitted when burning fuel (especially sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants). Once this masking effect ends, a huge sudden rise in temperature can be expected.
2. A rapid temperature rise is also held off by the fact that some impact and feedbacks take time to kick in. There is a huge (but decreasing) capacity of oceans, ice sheets and glaciers to act as a buffer for heat. Demise of the ice and snow cover in the Arctic and methane releases from the seabed of the Arctic Ocean also take time to eventuate and much sunlight is still reflected back into space by the snow and ice cover in the Arctic. However, even though their impact may now look only minimal, one or more feedbacks can cause a dramatic non-linear rise, speeding up the way one or more feedbacks kick in, not only in terms of progression of a non-linear rise, but also due to interaction between feedbacks.
3. There are three kinds of warming in the Arctic: emissions from our industrial and personal living practices, which, in turn, produce soot. This then changes the albedo effect as dark absorbs more heat than white – snow or ice. This leads to see ice loss, weakens and releases the Arctic methane, the real kicker.

The scenario of a rapid 10°C temperature rise thus becomes a distinct possibility when considering the size and vulnerability of some of the terrestrial and marine carbon pools and the combined warming impact of:
1. Carbon dioxide emitted over the past decade reaching their peak impact soon
2. Ending of the masking effect that aerosols currently exercise over global warming; and
3. Feedbacks causing even higher levels of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, ozone, etc.), less sunlight being reflected back into space and less heat being radiated from Earth.

The Potential For Huge Methane Release

A recent source gives a figure of 63,400 Gt C (Giga tons) for the Klauda & Sandler (2005) estimate of marine hydrates. A warming Gulf Stream is causing methane eruptions off the North American coast. Further eruptions of methane from marine sediments have been reported off the coast of New Zealand.

Methane hydrates in marine sediments aren’t the only type of hydrates that should be considered. Methane also appears to be erupting from hydrates on land almost everywhere in the Arctic and Antarctica. There lies the greatest danger and the immediate threat.
End of quote from ARCTIC NEWS.

The Bible again.

I know that the Bible does not mention Climate Change in these words. It does indicate that an all-compassing fire will clean up the mess we have created (2 Peter 3: 10) and a 10 degree Celsius warming will easily do that. What the Bible does say is that God will not condone half-hearted measure where it concerns his holiness because the world we live in is holy: it is God’s work of Art, which calls for the highest degree of reverence.

To fail to see the earth as holy, as God’s created Word, as his Primary Revelation, is the church’s most glaring omission. It has created a schizophrenic Christianity, hot for the Written Word, cold for the Created Word. A mixture of hot and cold generates a lukewarm attitude.

I think I am in order to relate this condition to a letter Jesus wrote to an Asia Minor Church, Laodicea, as recorded in Revelation 3: “Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth”.

Is it too farfetched to apply this to us?

Why Laodicea? Why those damning words? Why? Because Laodicea was like our Western world.

The city was rich, prosperous, had lots of industry, and a medical university. Science, art, technical know-how were flourishing in this well-established Asian-Minor center. In this atmosphere the church in Laodicea was born and grew up. Apparently she acquired a touch of the mood of the city, one of self-satisfaction, just not so much that it became a terrible nuisance. This city featured an aura of contentment, an aroma of having arrived, and the church there too was that way.
We sometimes speak of conforming to the world and mean with that such matters as gambling or lotteries perhaps, or abandoning church altogether. But essentially conforming to the world goes much deeper, is much harder to measure and more difficult to weigh. It more resembles a mist that, unnoticed, waves through the open windows, infiltrates the clothes, the furniture and penetrates all the pores of one’s personality without perceiving it. Something of that kind of conformity had affected that church. The entire mood of the city, of the surrounding area where they lived had acquired this prevailing, light-hearted, up-beat, satisfied disposition which had permeated all thinking like an all-pervasive poison.
It seems to me that present day Christianity is like that City, some 2000 years ago, neither hot nor cold, perfectly conforming with a way of life that, except for Sundays for an hour, totally conforms to secular life.

I believe that Christians, confessing that THIS WORLD BELONGS TO GOD ought to be at the forefront of Climate Change action. Churches and preachers ought to warn against this soft and hard climate denial, work in concert, mobilize social movements, invent new and revitalize existing political and government institutions, use all relevant social resources, to cut emissions to zero to stabilize climate processes. Each church member should become an example to his/her neighbors as leaders in Climate Change, car-pooling, retrofit their dwellings, live in communities, anything that approaches zero emissions.

By simply acknowledging that Climate Change is a problem and voicing general support for some form of climate policy vs. the evil or willfully-ignorant hard climate denialists, do we soft climate denialists feel that we have discharged our duty towards posterity and maintain the integrity of the biosphere for human life?

Fact is that current climate policy has been next to useless and an obstruction to decisive action. Do we find that troubling?
Will we wait until we are confronted by extreme weather, flooding, droughts, rising seas, the effects of disturbed ocean chemistry and high temperatures?

Do we really care that we are producing famines, deaths by drowning and hyperthermia?
Will some money to such organizations as WORLD RENEW or PRESBYTERIAN WORLD SERVICE or WORLD VISION be our sole effort?

IS AN INCREASE OF TEN DEGREE CELSIUS NOW A CERTAINTY?

It seems to me that high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already locked us in for a future temperature rise of 10°C. Carbon dioxide emissions reach their greatest warming impact then years after release. In other words, the full wrath of the carbon dioxide emitted over the past decade is yet to come.
Back to my original heading: THE DARKNESS DEEPENS, a line borrowed from ABIDE WITH ME. This begs the question HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?

I only have one answer, found in 2 Peter 3 as well, verse 14:”So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”

That also implies that we love the earth: John 3: 16.