back from the arctic
Just getting back from the arctic with various luminaries and a week’s worth of memories to unpack with family and friends. On day five we saw a rare sight at close range: three polar bears on the sea ice after taking a seal for food, with the arctic ivory gull flying around. It was a stunning sight. And a sight that is itself at risk because the ice is melting at a higher rate than expected. We sailed through areas normally shut off from the pack ice, but that’s all changing and it’s the reason polar bears have been placed on the endangered species list. Throughout the trip, I was meditating on Genesis, chapter one: the days of creation. Check it out: on day five of creation, the seas are released to teem with life–sea creatures and sea monsters and flying things across the deep. Then God gives the first blessing ever recorded in the Bible: “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the seas…” So there it is: God blessed them first and this blessing involved the sea creatures filling the seas.When you’re there on the open water in naked eye shot of these magnificent sea creatures (the polar bear is considered a marine mammal) and you realize that the earth’s rapid warming–the most rapid warming in at least a thousand years, the last one of it’s ilk melted the glaciers over my home state, a process that took 5,000 years so this warming is happening more quickly than that one–oh I’m carrying on, what do you expect? Where was I? Oh yes, in the arctic….no, talking about being out in the Arctic. When you’re out there you feel God’s ownership of the earth, and the seas, and the sea creatures. You don’t even have to think about it: this is the work of his hands, and it’s a work of his hands that he blessed.God has made our hearts big. We can care about them and we can care about each other and we can care about the poor. But I’m talking about them right now. The sea creatures.Back home, many of us are placing our bets on the climate skeptics who themselves admit that they are the minority view on this warming thing. We talk as if we are climatologists and these nincumpoops who call themselves climatolgists haven’t controlled for the factors we mention as alternate reasons for the warming: natural cycles, solar flares, a new cause a week. Believe me, they’ve controlled for those factors. They have considered those factors. Just because someone has a website and offers an opinion doesn’t mean that hundreds of climatologists haven’t thought of the same thing and done their due diligence to see it that and not our activity is the cause. And they are saying–the vast majority of scientists that is, are saying–that the carbon we’re producing is a significant factor in causing the warming. I hope they are right, because the earth is warming and if we’re part of the cause, we can do something about that part.I met major business leaders on this trip who weren’t convinced a while ago, but had their scientists look into it and report back and they are convinced now. These are level headed business people, not wild eyed cause mongers. They are changing their business plans accordingly. I met people who know their business and know their science and are concerned, deeply concerned, because, for whatever reason, the earth is warming and it’s putting stress on all sort of things. One of ‘em–a business guy–called the warming “the great exacerbator.” And the predicted effects of the warming–increasing drought, increased flooding, more pressure on the food supply–are happening. And ice is melting as never before leading to sea level rise. It’s measurable.The Roman Catholic Church, for heaven’s sake, an institution that no one can call “faddish” says we’ve got a climate change problem and we need to address it by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, but in a way that’s smart, that doesn’t put a crushing burden on people, especially the poor.But, I’ll admit: there may be a website, several in fact, that say otherwise. There are certainly plenty who are willing to go on talk radio to claim these things. Many companies (now changing their tune) have spent millions of dollars to slow us down from saying we have a problem. And few of us have the background to decide for ourselves who is right. But meanwhile, hello, the sea ice is melting and the ice over Greenland and elsewhere. And among many other effects–twice as much land affected by drought, for example–it’s stressing these polar bears. (They do their feeding during the winter when the ice is plentiful, so when the season shortens, it extends the time the mother bears go without food. By the way, father polar bears could care less about their young. The mothers do all the work.)So we have a choice: we can read our Bibles, and place our bets on the minority view–and the skeptics admit they are in the minority, the serious minority–that says human activity is not a cause of this recent warming. Or we can be what we’re called to be as good stewards: prudent. Prudence would suggest we roll up our sleeves, get educated on this thing, listen to what the Presidential candidates are both saying–we have a problem that needs our attention–and ask what God would have us do.And as we decide, we might consider this: God blessed them first, these sea creatures, and our blessing is bound up with theirs. We’re not separate from the rest of creation: we too are the work of his hands along with them. We too are creatures and we’re part of a mysterious and awe-inspiring network of life and living things. If, in fact, we’re standing in the way of their blessing–to multiply and fill the seas–then we’re standing on the wrong side of God. Is what I’m thinking on my way back from the Arctic.
