Much Damage Needs Correction

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted November 17, 2025

Human survival on our planet requires air, water, food, and shelter. To flourish beyond these basics, we also need effective health care, adequate education, meaningful occupation, and time enough for rest and sleep. A functioning government should assure that all these needs are met for their entire population.

To the contrary, in July Republican lawmakers enacted legislation which granted perpetual tax breaks to the wealthiest while omitting extension beyond the end of 2025 of health insurance subsidies for the non-wealthy. More recently those same Republicans withheld cash support for food purchases as a political cudgel to compel Democrats to abandon their attempts to restore health insurance assistance for 2026.

Equally disturbing, though gaining far less public attention, are policies that degrade the safety and quality of our air and water. Soon after taking office Trump began making significant cuts in staff and funding for the EPA. This includes closing the office which monitored pollution and contamination in our environment and eliminating funding grants for scientific research.

Even as global conditions make the growing threat of climate change unmistakable, the Trump administration remains in denial. They promote coal mining and oil and gas drilling while opposing clean energy efforts. Calling the science of climate change “a hoax,” Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement and failed to send a high-level delegation to the United Nations annual climate summit, happening now in Brazil.

We need to be aware of the damage to earth and to future generations that the current regime is doing, and dedicate our energy to correcting it.

EARTH DAY #50

A half century ago Earth Day was a new and intriguing concept. Space exploration had given us our first images of our planet as a whole ~ a beautiful blue orb, a jewel in the cosmos. Yet many of us were painfully aware of the terrible damage our species had done and was doing to that gem.  Earth Day was an opportunity for consciousness raising, for calling attention to what needed to be done, for banding together to organize for change.

Demand Honesty; Preserve Our Republic

I wrote the following letter to the editor on 11/29/2016. It was published in the 12/09/2016 print edition of LNP, the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, daily newspaper.

How do we live as a nation among nations with a Head of State whose word means nothing?  To Trump down is up, dark is light, the grass is purple, and the sky is orange.  Then tomorrow he will contradict everything he said today and declare that he never said anything different.  Truth means nothing to him.  Facts are irrelevant.

He has said that he will pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accords on Climate Change.  He has named climate change deniers to critical positions on his staff.  On Sunday (11/27) his prospective Chief of Staff Reince Priebus stated that Trump “has his default position [on climate science], which most of it is a bunch of bunk.”  His disregard for the basic principles of science is stunning in its ignorance.

Trump’s words and actions are the tactics of an abuser.  They threaten the safety and well-being of our country and of our world.  The worst of the damage resulting from his inaction on climate change will not become evident until after he leaves office.  The harm to our international relationships will be much more immediate.  Our allies will lose trust in our ability to keep our word and to fulfill obligations.  They will quite likely diminish or withdraw their support and cooperation.  Our adversaries will delight in the uncertainty, taking advantage of the confusion and mistrust to further their own ends with little restraint.

We must be vigilant.  We must refuse to normalize Trump’s behavior.  We must demand honesty in our government. We must struggle in whatever way we can to preserve our republic and to insist that all our elected officials respect and adhere to the provisions of our Constitution.  The generations coming after us deserve no less.

 

To the Seventh Generation

For years I’ve been declaring that I would spend some of my retirement time in serious genealogical research.  The impetus to action came earlier this summer, when my sister found a packet of photo negatives and shared the resulting images with others in the family.  Though I already have a fairly substantial collection of old family photos, these were mostly pictures that I had never seen before.  We could put names to some of the faces; others remain a total mystery.  In that initial search for identities, I found the spark that moved my long-intended project into concrete action.

This process of searching for ancestors has led me to reflect on our awareness of place and generations.  It is said that the U. S. is a nation of immigrants, and for the most part this is true.  When we only have to look back two or three generations to find an ancestor who came from another country, we simply haven’t had the opportunity to establish a long connection to the land on which we now live.  Our highly mobile society also works against our having a sense of belonging to a particular place.

Thinking Biblically about Climate Change

About a month ago I signed up for my first try at on-line learning.  The course that intrigued me sufficiently to take that step is Climate Change in Four Dimensions, offered by the University of California – San Diego and made available through Coursera.  According to course statistics announced at the conclusion of the first week, there are over 12,768 enrolled in the course, with 5595 actively participating.  A fee-based option with additional required work and the opportunity for personal interaction with the professors is available.  The number of students who have chosen that option in order to earn academic credit has not been disclosed.

The “four dimensions” in the course title refers to the examination of the issue of climate change from the points of view of natural science, technology, social science, and the humanities.  The first two weeks of material have concentrated on the natural science undergirding the study, but have also drawn in considerations of social science.  Natural science and social science necessarily intersect as soon as the question is raised about opposition to the current scientific consensus.

Two papers that were presented for our reading (Oreskes 2004; Cook et al 2013) both conclude that the scientific consensus about the reality of climate change and anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming is about 97%.  The most recent report (AR5 – 2013) issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that “[i]t is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.  The evidence for this has grown, thanks to more and better observations, an improved understanding of the climate system response and improved climate models.  Warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

Polling consistently shows that attitudes and beliefs of Americans regarding climate change lag substantially behind the scientific consensus.  The 2012 ecoAmerica report “Trends in America’s Climate and Ecological Attitudes” indicates that belief that global warming is happening declined from a high of 70+% in 2007 to 57% in 2010, then edged up to 61% in 2011.  Depending on how the question is asked, various polls taken in 2011 and early 2012 show that 40% to 60% of Americans believe that global warming is human caused.

Needless to say, this disparity between what the best scientists studying global warming and climate change understand and what the American public believes is quite disturbing.  It is axiomatic that a community must acknowledge that a problem exists and have a working comprehension of its origins and scope before significant steps can be taken to address it and begin to find solutions.

There are multiple reasons for this gap in understanding and knowledge.  One explanation is that in the current economic climate a large proportion of the populace is focused primarily on day-to-day living.  Another factor is political affiliation.  Surveys completed by Brookings and Pew Research in late 2011 revealed that 78% and 77%, respectively, of Democrats say that there is solid evidence of global warming, while the percentages for Republicans are only 47% and 43%.  A more recent (March 2013) Pew Research survey indicates that the percentage for Democrats has risen to 87%, while for Republicans it remains nearly unchanged at 44%.

A third influence is the organized, deliberate campaign of disinformation that has been mounted by those persons and corporations who perceive they have much to lose if the actions necessary to slow climate change and mitigate its effects were to become national policy.  Using many of the tactics that were employed by the tobacco industry to forestall accountability, this campaign of climate change denial has steadily increased in subtlety and ubiquity since the 1990s.  Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle, in a major study published in December 2013, concluded, “The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change.”

In light of all this, I have been asking myself the question, “What insights might we gain from studying the Bible?  What passages might help me better to understand, and perhaps in some way to counter, the forces that are keeping us on the path toward potentially devastating social and ecological disruptions due to our rapidly changing climate?”

Though I am just beginning to follow this train of thought and have reached few conclusions, three passages have so far suggested themselves.  The first is the idea that children are punished for the sins of their parents, even to the third or fourth or seventh generation.  This appears in Exodus 20:5, specifically as punishment for idolatry, and is expressed in more general terms in the saying quoted in Jeremiah 31:29.  Reading this as descriptive rather than prescriptive, we can see how perceptive the ancient Israelites were in understanding how the harmful actions of one generation can negatively affect succeeding generations.  Too often we think only of immediate results of our actions.  We need to adopt the practice of considering generations yet unborn in our decision making. 

A second is the exchange between Jesus and the rich young ruler, as recorded in Luke 18:18-25.  The teaching we can gain from this story is recognition of how very difficult it is to give up the riches and comforts that we are used to enjoying.  The young man sincerely wanted to do what was necessary “to inherit eternal life,” but he was too attached to his belongings to take the final step of selling everything and giving it to the poor in order to follow Jesus.  The decision to adjust our industrial-world lifestyle to the degree that science indicates is necessary if we are to maintain a livable planet requires both individual and collective action.  It will not be easy, but it is possible if we all resolve to share our resources so that the burden does not fall unfairly on the backs of the poor.

The final incident which I am presently considering is found in Acts 16:16-24.  Paul and Silas encounter a slave girl who is possessed by a spirit of divination and whose owners are exploiting her because of it for their own gain.  When Paul heals the girl by casting out the spirit, her owners are furious at losing their money-making capability.  They drag Paul and Silas before the authorities and falsely accuse them, so that they are thrown into prison.  The parallels with the behavior of climate change deniers are quite apparent.  Accumulation of wealth is valued above the wellbeing of the exploited, and any opposition is met with lies and vicious retaliation.

The course has eight more weeks to run.  I’m eager to continue learning and to seek more insight from scripture to add to my understanding.

So, What's a Christian to Do?

Most of my blog posts begin life as columns for my local paper.  This one was no exception.  Because of the preponderance of conservative Christian thought in the area where I live, in this particular column I had two goals ~ to counter the bad theology that one hears used in support of climate change denial, and to give those Christians of good will who want to be good stewards of earth the faith language they need to justify moving forward.  I recognize that these goals will be of less relevance to some blog readers than to others.  I simply ask that readers recognize the context in which this was written.  This is not an end; these are the baby steps of beginning to address the terrible threat of anthropogenic climate change from a faith perspective.

The gospel reading for September 22 (the 18^th Sunday after Pentecost) for churches that follow the common lectionary was the Parable of the Shrewd Manager (also titled the Parable of the Dishonest Servant), as recorded in Luke 16:1-13.  Our pastors always provide a short introduction to be read by the scripture reader to set the stage.  So at Lititz Moravian we heard, “The parable of the shrewd manager can be interpreted in many ways. At its simplest, it reminds us that we have a Master who doesn’t want us to squander the Master’s property. What if the Master were to say to you, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management.’”

We could have stopped right there and had plenty to chew on and pray about for the coming week.  It’s a challenge which has occupied a considerable part of my consciousness in recent years.  My faith teaches me that the Master is God the Creator, and that all the universe is God’s property.  On the bit of the cosmos known to us as planet earth, human beings have emerged as the dominant species.  So in the language of faith, humans are the designated managers of our portion of creation.

The Choice Is Ours

And it came to pass that God walked out one morning to watch the sunrise.  Sipping a second cup of coffee, God wandered through the gardens of heaven and looked out over the universe, delighting in creation.  Suddenly one of the angels from the house staff came running up.

“Hey, boss!  Did you forget that you are hearing special petitions this morning?  You’re due in the Great Hall in ten minutes.  And I have to tell you, there is a huge crowd in the waiting room.”

Christians and Climate Change

In recent months I have been reading with deep concern about the acceleration of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.  Many Christian denominations, driven by their understanding of stewardship and care of creation, are now turning their attention to what is happening to our planet.  Some are engaged in advocacy to curb the human activities which are rapidly changing the make-up of our atmosphere.  Others are focused more on ministering with those – many of them in poor, developing countries – who are most likely to suffer from the effects of climate change.  Still others are participating in preparations, such as the Transition Towns movement, which will assist communities in adapting to a changed world.

Opposed to these efforts, however, are other Christian groups which not only deny the reality of climate change but are also actively opposing any efforts to prepare communities or to make the necessary alterations in our lives which may help to slow its acceleration and mitigate its effects.  In my reading, then, I have been trying to understand the reasoning and the theology behind these oppositional forces.  There seems to be a number of underlying causes involved.

Meditation on Water

Because Easter was so late this year, the annual Earth Day celebration fell on Good Friday.  After considering this unusual convergence, and seeking some point of commonality, it occurred to me that water is central both to the life of Jesus and the life of our planet.

Examples of the role that water played in Jesus’ life are easy to find in the gospel narratives.  His ministry began with his baptism by John in the River Jordan, and his first recorded miracle involved turning water into wine.  Most of his public ministry took place on and around the Sea of Galilee; indeed, a number of his disciples were by trade fishermen, earning their livelihoods in intimate connection with the sea.  Familiar sea stories include Jesus’ calming the waves during a storm, walking on water as he approached a ship carrying his friends, and preaching to the crowds while seated in a boat a bit offshore.