Global Warming: A Changing Earth

Today is Transfiguration Sunday on the Christian Calendar. It marks that event described in Matthew 17: 1-6..

1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

(When I was a kid reading comic books, this is where there would have been a picture of open-mouthed, forehead-slapping disciples and a word balloon containing the words “What the..?” That’s how Peter reacts, anyway; he’s excited, confused, and more than a little frightened.)

4 Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."

(Forgive Peter for acting silly, which is what he’s doing here. He wants to do something to mark this moment- make it last. So he offers, of all things, to build houses for everyone!)

5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

(This is the voice of gentle invitation, but it is terrifying to the disciples. Again, we may find it easy to judge them as we sit here in a comfortable, warm, and safe place but, as we’ll be talking about it in a moment, that same voice of God, that same gentle invitation, might be heard by any of us in equally discombobulating circumstances.)

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid." 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

And there is some good news! It comes in the form of a command from Jesus- “Get up! Be resurrected! Don’t… be… afraid!”

And that’s our segue into today’s topic of the day- Global Warming, or, as it is also being called, Climate Change. It is part of the Transfiguration of our own planet, and one in which we are all, by the nature of being human, playing a part. And I think that it is a phenomenon that will cause us all to be reminded again of those words of Jesus, “Don’t be Afraid.”

I’m not here today to debate the accuracy or inaccuracy of some of the predictions being made by diverse scientists and climatologists from around the world about the changing climate of the planet. The novelist Upton Sinclair wrote 80 years ago that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” None of us here today are unaware that oil and the raising of livestock are two of the factors identified by many scientists as being primary contributors to global weather changes. Almost every dollar that passes through this area, has its beginnings in one or both of those two commodities. So, admittedly, we all have some reluctance to embrace some of the doom and gloom predictions being made.

But there are some things we an agree on, I think. Here’s an example that has been helpful to me in understanding the problem in the first place. It is the greenhouse effect, which is what the real culprit in global warming is.

To illustrate the greenhouse effect, consider a car with the windows rolled up:

• The sun's rays- visible light- pass through the car's windows, and hit the car's seats.
• The visible light is absorbed by those car seats, and re-radiated to the interior of the car as Infrared heat.
• But the car's glass windows, while transparent to visible light, are opaque to Infrared heat, so the heat is trapped within the car, and the car's interior temperature becomes unbearable. It’s why the air in a car with the windows rolled up is 10, 15, 30 degrees hotter than is the air outside of the car.

The atmosphere of the earth is exactly like the windows of that car. Sunlight passes through the 8 mile high transparent atmosphere, and is absorbed by everything on the earth. Not only is it absorbed by everything on the earth- water, land, etc.- but it is absorbed by carbon and carbon dioxide molecules in the air. For millions of years there has been a perfect balance between what’s in the atmosphere and the ability of the planet to clean itself. Rainforests and ocean plankton were the perfect vacuum cleaners. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide and release it as oxygen, which doesn’t hang on to the sun’s heat. That balance has enabled life to thrive on earth, instead of turning it a desert planet like Venus.

But since the Industrial Revolution began 200 years ago, and as it has been fueled by the burning of fossil fuels ever since, a whole lot more carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere than can be absorbed by the plants of the earth. There is simply more and more stuff in the air to trap the infrared heat reflected by the earth. It’s measurable, it’s real, and about those facts there is no debate. We are putting more and more carbon into the air, and decreasing our abilities to clean it out of the air. The rainforests are being chopped down, China and India- the two most populous countries in the world- have entered the fuel-burning Industrial Age, and glaciers are measurably melting.

The good thing, and the bad thing about all of this is, is that it is all happening in relatively very slow motion, in most places. It is hard to see and, therefore, it is easy to ignore. And there is still an argument over the percentage effect that humans have in all of this versus what Nature itself has. The fact remains, however, that there has been the same amount of new carbons put into and suspended in the atmosphere over the past 100 years as were put there the previous 10,000 years. And we know that from analyzing the ancient ice of the now melting glaciers.

We can talk for the rest of the day about what unchecked climatic change will mean to life on the earth, long term, including the migration of humans and animals and plants northward, the changing of ocean currents, and the flooding of every ocean shoreline on earth. A ½” rise in the ocean has already engulfed two long-inhabited islands- one in the Bering Straits of Alaska and one off the coast of India. What will happen in Amsterdam, Miami, New York, and Boston and a thousand other seashore towns will be catastrophic.

“Get up. Don’t be afraid.” Hang on to those words now.

Climatic Change is happening, but- again- in slow motion. It is one of many reminders that the earth is not a series of parts but an integrated, functioning whole. There are other reminders that we have much geological history of, but little modern experience with, including: Super-volcanoes. The one we know as Yellowstone National Park has an average 200,000 year cycle. It last erupted 240,000 years ago. When it erupts, and someday it will, it will be equivalent to 2000 Mt. St. Helens eruptions.

Or, Super-tsunamis. We saw a big one in the area of Indonesia at Christmas in 2005, but there could just as easily be on in the Atlantic. The volcano Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands off of Africa caused part of the island to drop partway into the Atlantic in 1949. Another volcano, or even an earthquake there, could cause the other half of the island to fall all the way into the ocean. And when it does, an inland flood of unimaginable devastation will engulf shores 10 miles inland in England, Ireland, France, and the United States. That might not happen for 10,000 years. But it also could also happen in ten days.

In either one of those scenarios, Walmarts everywhere, among many other things, will be closed, for a long time.

I’m talking about these things this morning as a realistic reminder that we walk upon a liquid, changing, and fragile planet. We have some control over some of the disastrous potential scenarios- climate change and nuclear weapons among them- and no control over others. What we do have control over, because it is something given to us, a gift from God, is our fear about such events.

“Get up. Don’t be afraid.”

The disciples were afraid because they were seeing something that they had never seen before, or could even have imagined: Jesus transfigured, talking to the long-dead Moses and Elijah. It wasn’t a disastrous scenario, but it was just incomprehensible. It didn’t make sense. 2 + 2 no longer equaled 4.

And even if we don’t have to face any of those potential BIG earthly disasters, we all have to face from time to time, those events which personally are just as devastating, just as incomprehensible. And it is in those times, just as it might be, some day will be, when we humans must face true worldwide calamity, it is in all of those times that we can- against all odds- have the hope in our hearts made evident by Jesus’ transfiguration. The disciples saw the living Moses and the once again alive Elijah. What the…indeed! But Jesus came and touched them. ”Get up,” he said, “and don’t be afraid.”

The psalmist said all of the things I’ve just been saying, another way. Psalm 29:

3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;

the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic.

5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;

the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning.

8 The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare.

And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

And this brings us, I think, to the really exciting part of living in a faith that enables us, like the disciples, to expect Jesus to touch us, to reassure us, even in the midst of the incomprehensible- in the midst of disaster, trials, sadness, grief, and pain. For Jesus to touch us that way- and many of you have personal experience and evidence of that calming touch!- for Jesus to be able to touch us with the peace that passes understanding, and whisper in our ears, “Don’t be afraid.” For Jesus to be able to do that means that Jesus is present with us right now.

It’s not that Jesus will come to us at the time when we need him to, it is that Jesus is already here, right now. We walked up the mountain with him. Like Peter, we have sometimes reacted foolishly when we saw the things he wanted us to see. We have even, because Jesus was sensitizing us to it, we have even heard the voice of God at times- not always booming from a silver cloud, but more often in the still, small sounds God most often speaks with. And those things make it possible, even in the midst of chaos, even in the center of those situations which are causing others around us to react in fear and panic, that experience with Jesus makes it possible for us to live in no fear.

Stand up- be resurrected- and don’t be afraid!

Everyone who spent time with Jesus- beginning with his Mother Mary- saw things, experienced things which made no sense. “Don’t be afraid” The angel Gabriel told Mary. “Don’t be afraid” Jesus told his disciples again and again when thy saw things no humans had ever before seen. The importance of that phrase cannot be overemphasized. Walking with Jesus, following Jesus, opens our eyes to the tragedies and sufferings of the world- and those things are often frightening.

But Jesus’ approach to the world and all that he encountered in his world- his approach to it all, was with love. He embraced it, accepted it, touched it. It was a radical response.

The opposite of love, we sometimes think, is hate. If we don’t love something, we hate it. But the real opposite of love is not hate, but fear. We are in love, or we are in fear. And Jesus showed us that even though fear may be the initial response to a problem, it is not the Godly response; fear is not the response that will change anything, it only adds to the problem.

Being proactive in the face of that which causes fear is the very best way to turn that fear into love. And here is where many of our brothers and sisters in faith make a mistake, I think. (You might notice in this series how good I am at pointing out the faults of others. So be it) When many Christians encounter difficulties, they go ahead and built those little houses up on the mountain. They retreat into church. They start living in the Bible, instead of from the Bible. Where Jesus led his disciples down off the mountain, back into the world, after this fearsome encounter with God, there are those who “hole up”, go through holy motions, and-in effect- ignore the very problems that Jesus plunged himself into.

So, the opposite of fear is love, but that love translates into coming down off the mountain and doing something to alleviate the causes of fear in the lives of others.

We can live in fear of the havoc Global Warming will cause in the lives of our grandchildren, or, we can come off the mountain and…change the light bulbs. Really. You do the smallest things first. These new lights up here in the choir loft not only give better light, but they emit about 60% less carbon into the atmosphere. They are cheaper to use, and they burn more efficiently. Same with these guys (smaller fluorescent bulbs) in your homes. Over their 5 year lifetime, they will give off about 65% less carbon into the atmosphere than the old incandescent globes. And even when we are talking about light bulbs, small as they are, we are talking in terms of tons of carbon emissions.

I won’t bore you with a list of all the other things that it is possible to do. Magazines from Redbook to Popular Mechanics are full of ideas. I will tell you that, based on some recently completed research at M.I.T., areas like ours are going to be in the near future, prime areas for new manufacturing plants to be built in the United States. Abandoned gas and oil wells are perfect receptacles, it turns out, for factory emissions. One day there will be no more smokestacks. There will be pipes going underground where the shale we live on top of, it turns out, is one of the best absorbents of all that smoke which now goes straight into the atmosphere.

It’s proactivity in the face of fear. Doing something, anything, besides trembling on top of the mountain. Loving instead of fearing. Living with the touch of Jesus: “Get up, don’t be afraid.”