Earth Day 2023

Today is Earth Day.  The first celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States.  It now is observed in 192 countries, and coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer Denis Hayes.  According to Hays, Earth Day is now "the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year."

Hays created Earth Day in response to the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which spewed more than three million gallons of oil, resulting in an 800 square-mile oil slick he viewed by plane.  The day is to demonstrate our commitment to environmental protection.  Our commitment to be good stewards of the Earth.

Through the pandemic, we saw the impact that we can make in that regard.  How our actions (or in this case inaction) can impact the world around us.  And improve things for the better.

While we were in quarantine, we saw truly remarkable reports of environmental improvement around the world.  Our Earth is getting wilder - and cleaner.  Compared to the previous five years, March 2020 air pollution was down 46% in Paris, 35% in Bengaluru, India, 38% in Sydney, 29% in Los Angeles, 26% in Rio de Janeiro and 9% in Durban, South Africa, NASA measurements show.  Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and Indians had views of the skyline that they have not seen before.  Nitrogen dioxide pollution in the US northeast was down 30%.

The Earth improved because we were not out in it.  Think about that for a while.

Our challenge this year is whether we can continue to improve things for the better, or whether, in our haste to return things back to "normal" we have gone back to our past of taking the earth for granted.  Can we bring the positive aspects of going back to normal - human interaction, social gatherings, smiles and hugs - while also keeping the aspects that have had such a positive impact on the environment around us?

On this Earth Day, we should remember that we can make a difference.  We're seeing it all around us in this time.  What kind of difference we make when this is over is up to us.

Earth Day @ 50

Today marks the fiftieth celebration of Earth Day.  The first celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States.  It now is observed in 192 countries, and coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer Denis Hayes.  According to Hays, Earth Day is now "the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year."

Hays created Earth Day in response to the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which spewed more than three million gallons of oil, resulting in an 800 square-mile oil slick he viewed by plane.  The day is to demonstrate our commitment to environmental protection.  Our commitment to be good stewards of the Earth.

This year, more than ever, we should see the impact that we can make in that regard.  How our actions (or in this case inaction) can impact the world around us.  And improve things for the better.

With us all in quarantine, we are seeing truly remarkable reports of environmental improvement around the world.  Our Earth is getting wilder - and cleaner.  Compared to the previous five years, March air pollution is down 46% in Paris, 35% in Bengaluru, India, 38% in Sydney, 29% in Los Angeles, 26% in Rio de Janeiro and 9% in Durban, South Africa, NASA measurements show.  Smog has stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and Indians have views of the skyline that they have not seen before.  Nitrogen dioxide pollution in the US northeast is down 30%.

The Earth is improving because we are not out in it.  Think about that for a while.

I know people who have thought that God sent COVID-19 to slow us down, to get our attention, to put families back together.  What if he sent it to heal His creation?  To fix the damage we have done as poor stewards of His creation?

This season is rough, no doubt, but it should be causing us to reflect and ask these questions.  I know everyone wants things to go back to normal, but if everything goes back exactly like it was before, then we've failed.  There are lessons to be learned from this and areas for us to improve when we start again.  How we steward the world around us should be one.

On this Earth Day, we should remember that we can make a difference.  We're seeing it all around us in this time.  What kind of difference we make when this is over is up to us.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

"This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

You say you “hear” us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5C degrees, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Maybe 50% is acceptable to you. But those numbers don’t include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of justice and equity. They also rely on my and my children’s generation sucking hundreds of billions of tonnes of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us – we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5C global temperature rise – the best odds given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world had 420 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide left to emit back on 1 January 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatonnes. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with business-as-usual and some technical solutions. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone in less than eight and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures today. Because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not."

Greta Thunberg, 16 year-old climate activist,
September 23, 2019 before the United Nations Climate Summit

Stewardship II

Or why it matters.  Why we can have hope.

In certain circles of opposition to environmentalism or global conservation, there is a bit of fatalism.  The idea that nothing we do matters in terms of the planet.  That if there is global warming, it's not caused by humans, but by other natural factors.  And likewise, that there is nothing that we could do to change it for the better.

This flies in the face of the available evidence.  We can clearly see areas in which the harms to the environment are our fault.  The plastic islands.  Ocean acidification.  Air pollution.  The list goes on and on.

With all of that, it would be easy to give into despair.  To believe the future is hopeless.  Go ahead and run a search on Google and see how many results come back for the question "should I have kids given global warming?"  There is reason enough to be so concerned that people are contemplating forgoing children instead of leaving them a ravaged planet Earth.

Clearly, there is an issue that demands action.

But, it is also important to remember that we have reasons for hope.

First and foremost, our God is a creator who takes care of His creation according to His will.  He is not just looking out for His people, He will be about redeeming His entire creation.  And that includes the Earth.  That is why there will be a new Earth following the Judgment.  He cares about His creation and He will make it perfect again.  Now, might He use global warming/climate change to accomplish His final judgment?  Yes.  He's done it before with a global flood.  But until and through that time, He is tending to what is His.

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not more valuable than they?”  

Matthew 6:26

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every creature and the breadth of all mankind.” 

Job 12:7-10

“In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.  The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” 

Psalm 95:4-5

Further, He has created a wonderfully, living, and self-sufficient organism in the planet Earth.  It is not designed to maintain a status quo, but to be a living and healing organism that adjusts to changes that occur and continually evolves.  It adapts.  That is what all of the effects of global climate change are.  Polar ice cap melting, global sea rise, removal of coastlines, etc.  They are all adaptations of the planet reacting to the change in temperature and trying to compensate.  A system trying to correct itself.  

What is hard to swallow in remembering this fact, is that sometimes the corrective action is devastating to the human race.  We, by nature, are creatures that like to maintain a status quo.  We want to be able to visit the same beach in the same place we remember as a kid, that our parents brought us to, that their parents brought them to, and so on and so on.  We want to be able to continually build houses in now flood prone areas.  In tornado alleys.  On fault lines.  On hurricane prone coastlines.  All on the chance that we will not be affected often.  That we can build to adapt.  

We remove forests, we displace local wildlife, we alter the topography of the region.  And expect that there will not be an effect.  So that we are surprised when nature reacts back.  

Maybe we need to start reconsidering our relationship with His creation?  How much we change it?  How much we take from it?

There is also reason to hope because we do see positive changes in the environment.  We are seeing the benefit of activism regarding protecting, cleaning, and reviving the world around us.

We are saving endangered species.  Red-cockaded Woodpeckers have been saved through science and ingenuity, moving the bird out of endangered status.

We are restoring natural landscapes.  The restoration of the Pawcatuck River in Rhode Island, once dammed, has restored a migratory pathway for American shad, river herring, sea-run brook trout and other species for the first time in centuries.

We are saving habitats ravaged by natural disasters.  Conservation techniques involving putting seedlings in a specific soil mix before transplanting has helped more than 70% native plants survive after wildfires in opposition to invasive cheatgrass.

We are finding new sustainable sources for food and other supplies.  Seaweed farming in particular requires little additional input than sunlight and sea water, holding the ability to remove excess nutrients from eutrophic areas, and even mitigating the effects of ocean acidification.  This could be a great help in saving our marine life.

We're changing our energy use.  Renewable energy use is on the rise.  A recent report from Wood Mackenzie predicts that clean energy technologies have become so cost effective that they will replace fossil fuels as the main source of energy within the next 20 years.  Currently, five states generate more 10 percent or more of their energy from solar energy.  More than 100 cities and counties are committed to transferring to 100 percent clean energy.  And other countries are leading the way.  Germany produced enough renewable energy in the first half of 2018 to power every household in the country for a year.  Portugal ran on renewable energy for the entire month of March.  Costa Rica has been maintaining 98-99% renewable energy for years now.

We are learning about some of the most effective solutions.  In particular, scientists have noted that there is a cumulative space around the world the size of the United States available for planting trees and that this would reduce global carbon emissions by 25%.  Scotland has done their part, planting over 22 million trees last year, smashing their goals.

We are making new discoveries each and every day and we are seeing millions of people, and scores of companies and governments committing to make a change. To become better stewards.  To give up what is easy or convenient, for what is better.  What is sustainable, what is beneficial.  What is healthy.

The good news is that there are very easy steps that can be taken to start.

Recycle.  Even if you don't live in an area where recycling is a part of the city or municipal garbage collection, you can start by being committed to recycling as much as possible.  Focus on eliminating single use items as much as possible, in particular plastics.  Such as plastic straws and other utensils, plastic plates and cups, plastic containers.  Reuse the plastic containers.  Be like our grandparents.  They make excellent containers for leftovers.  No need to buy them separate from the store.   When you upgrade your electronic devices, be sure to recycle the old ones with the electronics company.  They can be stripped for parts to be used in repairs or remodels.

Reuse.  Buy second hand items.  Find new purposes for old items.  Trade with friends and neighbors.  Donate items to charitable organizations so they can be redistributed. 

Reduce.  Reduce waste.  Compost food waste.  Switch single use items out for repetitive use versions.  Cloth napkins for paper towels, plates instead of paper plates, handkerchiefs instead of Kleenex, etc.  Look for ways to reduce the amount of items that you are putting in the trash.

Refuse.  Refuse products that are harmful to the environment.  Take the Plastics Pledge  refusing plastic straws, plastic bottles, and plastic bags.  

There are many easy steps we can take.  It just takes a commitment.

Are you willing to be a better steward of God's creation?  Do you desire to be the faithful servant in this respect?

Why not start today?

Stewardship

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

Genesis 2:15

How are we doing as stewards of God's creation?

We have five plastic garbage patches floating in the oceans.  The largest of which is twice the size of Texas.  By 2050, we will have more plastic in the ocean than fish, by weight.

Species extinction is happening 1,000 times faster, at a current rate of 150-200 species of plant and animal per day.

Air pollution is one of the world's largest single health risks, responsible for about 3.7 million deaths a year.

Half of the world’s wetlands have been lost since 1900.

Nearly 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated and polluting rivers, lakes, and coastal areas.

In developing countries, 70% of industrial waste is dumped untreated into waters where it pollutes the potable water supply.

Flint’s water situation is still not under control.  Pipes are still being replaced and the citizenry is still relying on bottled water.

Every day, 2 million tons of human waste is disposed in water bodies.

Recent evidence shows that groundwater supplies are diminishing with an estimated 20% of the world’s aquifiers being over-exploited.

The global sea level rose about 6.7 inches in the last century.  The rate in the last decade, however, was nearly double that.

And all of that is not even touching global climate change.

We are clearly doing a lot of damage to the planet.  We as humans are the only species that is able to inflict such great harm on our environment.  We take more than we need from it, we strip away its resources, and we leave our waste and trash in our wake.   

The concept of stewardship refers to looking after someone’s property in that person’s interest.  Biblical stewardship is accepting your role as a steward of God’s property.  Being the caretaker of God’s creation.  And a steward will be called into account for their management by the owner.

When God asks us how we took care of His creation, how are we going to respond?

And even more troubling, why is it that Christian groups are often the one's most hostile to environmental causes?

How many messages do we hear about taking care of the planet?

How often are Evangelicals the one's opposing the science behind climate change or other environmental causes?  We’ve had Evangelical anti-environmentalist groups urging the National Association of Evangelicals not to weigh in on global climate change.  We’ve shouted down voices like Jonathan Merritt and his “Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.”  We have the Cornwall Alliance devoted to portraying environmentalism as a cult which must be opposed.

I would contend that Christians should be the first one's championing care for the planet.  Championing causes to tend to and grow God's creation.

Churches and Christians should be leading the forefront on recycling.  Through recycling and composting the appropriate portions of trash.  Through reuse and donations of goods.  A commitment to reduction of single use items.

Churches and Christians should be committed to cleaning up the world around them.  Adopting sections of highway to remove litter and waste.  Cleaning up nearby rivers and lakes.  

Christian lobbying efforts and political positions should include commitments to reducing emissions and pollution.  To promote efforts to live more sustainably, with alternative energy forms.

Looking at the controversial climate change, the world’s leading climate scientists have warned we only have twelve years to make the necessary changes to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5º C.  Beyond that amount, even half a degree (or to 2º C) will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.  

The greatest risk at 2º C would be to nature.  Insects and plants are almost twice as likely to lose half their habitat.  Coral would be 99% lost at the higher temperature.  Marine fisheries would lose 3m tonnes at the higher temperature, twice the decline of the lower.  Sea ice-free summers in the Arctic would come once every 100 years at the lower temperature, but every 10 years with the half degree increase.

Even if we disagree that this is an eventuality, even if we disagree that human’s are the greatest cause, if the above is even a possibility, why would we not try to help prevent such a catastrophe?

Jesus discussed the general responsibilities of a steward in Luke 12, in the parable of the unfaithful steward.

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.  It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes.  Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.  It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.  But understand this:  If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be ready, because the Son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.’

Peter asked, ‘Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?’

The Lord answered, ‘Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whose the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the property time?  It will be good for that servant whose the master finds doing so when he returns.  Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.  But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk.  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.  He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 

The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.  But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.  From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.’"

Again, when Jesus returns and sees how we have stewarded the Earth, which steward will we be?  The faithful one who has been about His work, caring for His creation?  Or the unfaithful one who is caught unaware?

We've been entrusted with much.  Told to be "fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."  Much is then expected of us.

And it's not to destroy it.