We Can No Longer Delay Minimizing Global Warming/Climate Change

Summary: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued six Assessment Reports over the past three decades.  This blog has presented three posts recently tabulating the effects of warming and the scientific need for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that the Reports presented.  The posts focus on the unabated increase in man-made carbon dioxide emissions, the consequent increase in global average temperature, and the inexorable increase in sea level.  For each of these topics, from the beginning the Reports have declared the necessity of minimizing GHG emissions in order to avoid the worst harms and damages from continued warming.  Their warnings have become more urgent, and have been expressed with increasingly unambiguous certainty, as the series of Reports has been issued.

Harms and damages that were only hypothetical in the early Reports have now become commonplace, as sea levels have continued rising; droughts, famine and wildfires have ensued; and more intense, violent climate and weather events have unfolded with freakish intensity.  Even so, policymakers and commercial interests in the private realm have largely ignored these warnings throughout the three decades.  Now is the time energetically to combat further warming globally to make up for three decades of inaction, and to mitigate worsening climate change.  We have no alternative.

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Introduction – The Urgent Need to Minimize Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions.  In three recent posts this blog has summarized aspects of the work of climate scientists over the last 30 years.  The first post is titled “What,Again? Greenhouse Gases Accumulate in the Atmosphere”, the second is “What, Again? Global Warming Continues Unabated”, and the third is “What, Again? Sea Level Will Continue Rising for Centuries”.

Each post summarizes the aspect of climate science reflected in its title, as presented by the U. N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its series of six Assessment Reports (ARs) issued over the past 31 years up to the (first of three volumes of) the Sixth AR, which appeared in August 2021. Each post included a tabulation of the significant findings, and the suggested future policies, related to the title of the post, as found in each AR.  Significantly, the need to reduce GHG emissions was already expressed in the first AR in 1990 and has been reinforced in each report up to the present time in the Sixth AR.  What has changed is that the strength of the climate science underpinning those conclusions has increased dramatically over time.  The capabilities of gathering data and using more powerful computers to analyze them, and to develop more refined, detailed climate models, have all increased remarkably.

Sadly, the world’s policymakers and industries have not heeded these warnings, but have continued policies and practices leading to unabated, indeed increasing, GHGs emissions throughout these three decades, as shown in the graphic below.

 

 

Direct measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (smoothed over the 12 months of a year) taken atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii beginning in 1958.  The base level prior to the Industrial Revolution is 280 ppm.  Ppm, parts of carbon dioxide in 1 million parts of air. The vertical lines represent the dates of issue of the respective Assessment Reports, and the date of the U. N. Paris Climate Agreement (2015).    Adapted from the carbon dioxide data referenced in the URL at the bottom of the image.

 

In spite of the persistent urgings of the six teams of climate scientists writing the six ARs over three decades, and the agreement reached in Paris among virtually all GHG-emitting nations to begin reducing their emissions, the data in the graphic show no indication of slowing emission rates up to the present time.

Accumulated GHGs are directly responsible for increasing global temperatures.  Many man-made GHGs, including the extra carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, are “long-lived” GHGs.  Once emitted into the atmosphere they remain there for hundreds or thousands of years without being destroyed or taken up by the earth system, so that they accumulate to ever higher levels with each passing year.  (A minor fraction of carbon dioxide is absorbed by photosynthesis and by dissolving into oceans and lakes.)  That is why the image above shows that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere keep increasing.  The increase from one year to the next represents the net amount added to the atmosphere during that year.  Indeed, the carbon dioxide level increased from about 353 ppm at the time of the First AR to about 416 ppm at the Sixth AR, the present.

Greenhouse gases are called that because they retain a portion of the sun’s energy reaching the earth as heat energy, instead of having that heat be radiated from earth back into outer space.  This leads the temperature of the earth system to increase. The earth system mimics glass greenhouses in retaining heat.  Their glass enclosure captures outgoing heat energy, so that excess heat accumulates inside the greenhouse.  The interiors of cars in the summer sun heat up for the same reason.  Climate modeling of future warming, summarized in recent ARs, shows that the extent of incremental heating of the earth system depends on excess GHGs in the atmosphere (including excess carbon dioxide from fossil fuels) in almost a straight-line fashion.

It is critical to reduce the net annual GHG emission rate to near zero by midcentury, and optimally sooner.  The IPCC released “Global warming of 1.5°C [2.7°F]. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, V. Masson-Delmotte, and coworkers (eds.)” in 2018.

As emphasized above, the world’s policymakers had ample time to implement GHG reduction technologies in orderly fashion had they heeded climate scientists’ warnings beginning with the First AR.  These urgings have been ignored or rejected in the three decades since, with the result that future weather and climate extremes that scientists warned of at the outset have actually come to pass ferociously in recent years.  In addition, the goal of limiting warming to 2.0°C [3.6°F] above pre-industrial levels, proposed in earlier reports, has been replaced in the Special Report by a more stringent limit, 1.5°C.  Climate action has to be undertaken urgently from this time onward, to make up for the lower revised limit and the time lost in past decades. The IPCC Special Report lays out this case in great detail. 

Conclusion.  Climate scientists have been characterizing the harms and damages they expected from continued unabated burning of fossil fuels, and from other GHG sources, for more than three decades.  Throughout that period policymakers have not acted meaningfully on the scientists’ urgings to reduce use of fossil fuels, nor to reduce other GHG sources.  And now, in recent years those harms and damages are coming to pass around the globe with increasing frequency and severity.

This post presents the urgent, critical case that ambitious, aggressive, effective actions need to be taken starting now to reduce annual GHG emission rates toward zero by midcentury or preferably earlier.  Policymakers can no longer ignore the inexorable action of the physical laws governing global warming.  Industries providing fossil fuels and those using that energy seek to preserve their business models indefinitely.  This is now clearly untenable.  They must change the way they do business or get out of the way.  We all must act internationally, at the national level, at the state and provincial level, and locally; global warming originates across our planet and must be addressed by all nations and citizens of the world in concert. As many have said, “There is no Planet B!”

© 2021 Henry E. Auer

Major Faiths Support Climate Action

Summary: Faith leaders of three religions around the world are selected here for discussion of the basis in their respective faiths for action to address global warming/climate change.  Christianity and Judaism both emphasize Biblical verses found in the Old Testament relating to Creation, as well as others, and the role of humans in preserving Creation.  These lead to the principle that the bounties of our planet are ours to cherish, protect and nurture; i. e., that humans have the responsibility for stewardship of these resources rather than exploiting them.  In Islam verses from the Qur’an evoke the supremacy of Allah, who granted fertile land, fresh air and clean water to humans, all in balance. As humans corrupt this balance global climate change, and other ecological imbalances, result.

 These religions provide strong moral foundations for taking action to limit global warming/climate change.

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The religions professed by many peoples around the world express the relationship of humanity with the natural world in similar ways.  In the following I summarize relevant positions as expressed by Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Christianity

Pope Francis is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. He delivered a video message  to the Council of Europe on September 29, 2021, during the Council’s Assembly leading up to  the U. N. COP26 (the 26^th Conference of the Parties) climate conference convening in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021.  COP26 is intended to affirm and extend the Paris Agreement of 2015.  He said the Earth is our God-given resource, not to be disfigured or exploited.

“When the human being considers himself the master of the universe and not its responsible steward, he or she justifies any kind of waste and treats the other people and nature as mere objects…. [W]e must … take care of nature, so that it takes care of us.”

The Pope’s principal expression of the humanity-environment relationship is embodied in his encyclical Laudato Si’, released May 24, 2015.  He writes that the original grant of “dominion” over the Earth and its beasts has been misconstrued, leading to “sinful” domination over them:

“The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation … was disrupted …. This in turn distorted our mandate to ‘have dominion’ over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), to ‘till it and keep it’ (Gen 2:15). As a result, the originally harmonious relationship between hu­man beings and nature became conflictual (cf. Gen 3:17-19).”

The “conflict” appears to arise, in Francis’s view, because the first two Biblical citations refer to creation and inhabiting the garden of Eden, whereas the third takes place after (sinfully) eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil:

[We] “respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man ‘dominion’ over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible …. we must forcefully reject the notion that our being … given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures…. [Rather] they tell us to ‘till and keep’ the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). ‘Tilling’ refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while ‘keeping’ means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature.”

The encyclical characterizes the advances of science and technology, and urges humanity to overcome abuses of power and social justice that have resulted from these advances in recent times:

 ·       “We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous … change…. [Scientific and technological advances] have given … those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world…. It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have [such power].”

·        “Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us.”

·        “… Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan. Yet [humanity has] so far proved incapable of finding effective ways of dealing with grave environmental and social problems worldwide….[T]he use of highly polluting fossil fuels … needs to be … replaced without delay.”

Katharine Hayhoe is a world-respected atmospheric scientist based at Texas Tech University, where she is the director of the Climate Science Center.  She was recently named Chief Scientist at the Nature Conservancy. She is an effective communicator on the present climate crisis. 

Prof. Hayhoe is also an evangelical Christian.  She actively pursues efforts to bring evangelicals to accept the reality of climate change.  The first person she convinced was her husband, an evangelical pastor; they co-wrote the book, A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions. In 2021 she published “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World” (Atria) (reviewed here).  She persistently seeks out common ground with others, using shared values or experiences, to open the door to discuss climate change issues reasonably.  In the book review she states “I believe that if you are someone who takes the Bible seriously, then you already care about climate change….It’s the political polarization and tribalism…not the Bible that cause [evangelicals] to reject what science says about a changing climate.”

In distinction from Christianity, Judaism and Islam do not have a hierarchical clergy.  Below are selected leaders from each faith who have stated the theological bases of relating to the global warming/climate change crisis.

Judaism

Rabbi Pini Dunner offered an interesting comment in response to the climate extremes of the summer of 2021, and to the strong warning in the Sixth Assessment Report   of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued August 2021.  He cited: “While at war against a city that must be besieged for a long time …, do not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them — … you may not cut them down (Deut. 20:19).”  Rabbi Dunner finds this warns us not to lay waste to the resources that support us.

He extends this injunction to the present climate crisis: “Wanton destruction of our planet might seem okay in the moment of execution … but ultimately it is we who are left picking up the pieces. …The world’s industrialized nations have for far too long disengaged themselves from absorbing the short-term pain required [to rein in fossil fuel use] for the sake of long-term gain.”

David Kraemer, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, writes “Moses, speaking for God, says in Deuteronomy 29:13-14: ‘I make this covenant [both with you and] with those who are not with us this day.’”  In other words, God’s covenant applies to future generations as well as to those of us living today.  Passages elsewhere in the Old Testament help define the covenant, including Psalms (115:16) ‘the heavens belong to the Lord while He gave the earth to the children of men’, including that humans were given a garden (Genesis 2:15) ‘to work it and to guard it.’” We may not exploit its riches, nor in the extreme, destroy it.  Yet we humans have brought the destructive effects of global warming upon ourselves by wanton exploitation of fossil fuels, leading to the present climate crisis.  Prof. Kraemer concludes “Judaism … require[s] us to pursue the goals of the Paris accords and even more….In the view of Judaism, the survival of the earth and its creatures is our responsibility.”

After summarizing many of the climate disasters that have befallen communities around the world, and citing Biblical passages such as above, Richard H. Schwartz summons Jews to pursue the ancient rabbinic principle of tikkun olam (healing and restoring the world. [“I]t is essential that we Jews take an active role in applying our eternal, sacred values in struggles to sharply reduce climate changes and other environmental threats.”

Islam

Professor Mohammad Shomali, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Imam Khomeini Education & Research Institute, Iran, cites various Islamic scriptures, from the Qur’an and by imams.  The Holy Prophet, he writes, says “Preserve the earth because it is your mother.”  The Qur’an further writes “He is the one who created you from the earth and settled you upon it, so that you might cultivate the land and construct towns and cities in which to live.”  Imam Ali (the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammed) wrote “Fear God regarding His servants and lands! You are responsible for the lands and the animals.”

Prof. Shomali interprets several Qur’anic passages to mean “Not only must man use natural resources in a responsible way, but also, as the viceregent of God on the earth, he must feel responsible for their maintenance and improvement of their condition.” In this way we become guardians toward nature.  He writes that “human beings have been given the responsibility of stewardship and trust …by God.   According to Islamic thought, nature is a divine trust and man is the trustee….[S]ince future generations also have rights to benefit from it, nature is also a trust for them.”

A convocation of major Muslim clerics was convened in August 2015 in anticipation of the Paris Climate Conference that produced the 2015 Paris Agreement.  The convocation issued the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change.  It opens by summarizing its understanding of global climate change:

“This current rate of climate change cannot be sustained, and the earth’s fine  equilibrium (mīzān) may soon be lost. As we humans are woven into the fabric of the natural world, its gifts are for us to savour. But the same fossil fuels that helped us achieve most of the prosperity we see today are the main cause of climate change. Excessive pollution from fossil fuels threatens to destroy the gifts bestowed on us by God”.

Reflecting the concerns expressed by climate scientists, the Declaration states

“[l]eading climate scientists now believe that a rise of two degrees centigrade [3.6°F] in global temperature, which is considered to be the ‘tipping point’, is now very unlikely to be avoided if we continue with business-as-usual; other leading climate scientists consider 1.5 degrees centigrade [2.7°F] to be a more likely ‘tipping point’.”

 The Declaration then quotes verses of the Qur’an directed toward these concerns:

 ·       “God created the earth in perfect equilibrium (mīzān);….

·        The present climate change catastrophe is a result of the human disruption of this balance”.

 The Declaration then concluded:

 “We call upon the [coming U.N. climate deliberations] …to [reach] an equitable and binding conclusion, bearing in mind –

 The scientific consensus on global climate change, … to stabilize greenhouse gas … level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate systems [to avoid the] dire consequences to .. Earth if we do not do so;….

 “We call on the people of all nations and their leaders to –

 ·        Aim to phase out greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible …;

·        Commit … to 100 % renewable energy and/or a zero emissions strategy as early as possible …;

·        Realize that to chase after unlimited economic growth on a planet that is finite …is not viable. Growth must be pursued wisely and in moderation;….

 “ We call upon corporations, finance, and the business sector to –

 ·       [Acknowledge] their profit-making activities, and … reduc[e] their carbon footprint…;

·        …[C]ommit themselves to 100% renewable energy … as early as possible ….[and]

·        Pay more heed to social and ecological responsibilities….”

 Discussion

This post summarizes the theologies of creation and man’s place in it as expressed by Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  The views articulated by these three faiths are remarkably similar.  In terms of the ancient writings God created Earth and all its inhabitants: plants, animals and fish, and humans.  The relationship of humans to creation is one of stewardship and husbandry; humans have the responsibility to protect, preserve, nurture and sustain the created world. 

The interpretation that humans were granted (in English translation) “dominion over” the land and seas, and the life forms inhabiting them, leading to the domination of these resources, is interpreted as specious.  Instead, humans should care for them and cultivate them in ways that sustain both humans and the full scope of creation throughout the generations.

In the present day exploitation of resources (in the form of fossil fuels) enables  humans to enjoy lifestyles unimagined in the holy writings of these religions.  The spokespersons for these faiths understand that unbridled exploitation of creation’s resources has led to the present climate crisis.  They plead for humanity to restore the balance of nature in order to prevent climate catastrophe.

Our leaders and policymakers should embrace these faith-based pleas.  The morality of the effort to constrain global warming and climate change is profound and incontrovertible. As moral beings we must refrain from further greenhouse gas emissions and undertake the heroic actions needed to result in an energy economy based on renewable resources, for our own sake and that of future generations.

© 2021 Henry Auer