Climate Change Part 1

During the 1970s, my dad worked as a dispatcher for a trucking company in Michigan. In 1981, the company suspended operation of the Michigan terminal, but offered him a job in Wisconsin. So the family, which at that time only meant Mom, Dad and my oldest brother who was a baby, moved to Wisconsin. Life got very hectic as three more children were born, the last of which was me in 1990. But in 1998, while visiting Grandma and Grandpa nearby in Michigan City, Indiana, my parents thought it would be fun to drive through their old haunts in Benton Harbor, Michigan and see what became of the terminal where Dad used to work. To their shock, it had been abandoned, and this neglect meant that nature reclaimed it. Untamed weeds climbed the walls of the building, enveloping it. I have a general memory of being in the back seat of the car during this driving tour, but I don't remember this moment when they saw the building. As a blind kid who couldn't look out the window like the rest of the family, and as an eight-year-old who probably wouldn't have found the sight very interesting even if I could, I must have fallen asleep or tuned the tour out. But years later when the subject came up somehow and Mom described to me what happened to this building, the fascinating thought occurred to me that this building was a micro illustration of what would happen to the whole earth if humanity were wiped out. Nature doesn't need us. It would reclaim what we bulldozed, take over the buildings we built. It was here before we were created, and will thrive long after we are gone, or perhaps more accurately, long after we destroy ourselves. Of course, now I believe God won't let us completely destroy ourselves, but I wasn't yet a fully committed Christian with a confident faith in God's glorious plan for Creation when Mom told me about this building.

As I have written about before, I am not a fan of the dog days of summer when most days are hot, humid and buggy and there is constant social pressure to go out in it. But I love those first warm days of Spring, when most of the bugs are still dormant, but the temperature is perfect, even in the sun, and the joyful songs of the birds, and the fragrant fresh air that breezes through open windows beckons me outdoors. In recent years, as I depart the stuffy house into the sun and fresh air without needing to protect myself from the elements with a coat, hat and scarf, I find myself singing a modern Christian pop song that we often sing in church: "You called my name, and I ran out of that grave! Out of the darkness into Your glorious day!" It is also the time of year when it feels like old friends have returned. My mom loves to mark on the calendar when she sees the first robins in our yard, and Dad will stop what he is doing to holler excitedly to Mom to come look, there's a deer or a fox! I look forward to hearing the complex melodic song of the black-capped chickadee, and will stop what I am reading on the swing and attempt to mimic its song by whistling to him to see if I might draw him closer. And we all adore the sandhill cranes, who prefer our yard over the yards of the neighbors because we don't treat our lawn with pesticides, so the ground is full of yummy worms to eat. My parents say they are beautiful, tall birds and when they start talking, you would think we lived in the jungle it is so majestic. Mom thought these elegant birds deserved sophisticated British names. So the first generation we named Nigel and Penelope. The following year, Nigel and Penelope had two babies we named Albert and Beatrice. This generation is named Victoria and Oliver. Once they are adults, Mom said you cannot tell them apart, but it is still fun to name them. This year we put up a bird house a neighbor made for us, and my parents thought it would be fun to buy two bird feeders to entertain our cat Aslan when he looks out the window, but they have ended up entertaining us even more. Now we have a new friend, a house wren that chose the bird house our neighbor made for her nest. When Mom noticed one of my friends, a black-capped chickadee, destroying the house wren's nest, I was a little sad that a bird with such a sweet song could be so mean, but the wild is cruel sometimes, so I talked Mom out of throwing a rock at him. But it ended up working out for all of us because our house wren is a resilient little bird who fought the black-capped chickadee off and rebuilt the nest in no time. (Since our bird clock died five years ago, my ability to identify birds by their song has gotten rusty, but a couple weeks ago, I found a very accessible app for my phone, Merlin BirdId and am relearning my birds. My dad also downloaded a bird identification app on his phone and now we all love to identify the birds we hear while reading outside or eating breakfast at our table in front of the window.)

And this time of year, as night falls, the perfect unity and harmony of thousands of frogs singing their mating calls rival the most beautiful choir. As a Christian I believe it was no coincidence that Jesus's resurrection occurred in Spring. After all, it is a season of joy and new life for all creation. But conversely, this time of year when all creation literally sings, it is difficult to not be even more acutely sad about the degree to which humanity in our fallen state has exploited and trashed this beautiful creation and the warped responses of Christians and the secular world alike to this tragedy.

Especially since the modern, industrial age and its accompanying mindset of conquering nature, humans have seen themselves as separate from creation. When I was in college, I took a course on the Religious Traditions of America, and one of the assigned books was God Is Red, a book written by Vine Deloria, Jr., a native American philosopher. While I didn't agree with every argument he made, one thing he said still resonates with me. While native American worship is conducted outdoors and centers on reverence for the earth, Christians separate themselves from creation, worshipping indoors in man-made churches. This point became even more striking as I became more intimately familiar with the Bible and how many of the narratives in both the Old and New Testament take place outdoors. Genesis opens with Adam and Eve whom God created from the dust of the ground, in a beautiful garden. God reveals himself to the Israelites in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promise Land. Many of Jesus's parables draw inspiration from elements of the natural world, and the book of Revelation states that when Jesus returns to redeem all things, we will once again dwell in a beautiful garden. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes affirms that we are made of the same biological stuff as animals. And yet, the Catholic church I was raised in held mass outdoors only once a year, in conjunction with the annual church festival, and the Protestant church I attend now baptizes people in a pond one Sunday afternoon a year in July, but all other services are held indoors. Not only that but as Christopher Wright points out in his book The Mission of God's People, which was assigned in the course on the book of Genesis I took my first semester at Trinity, on Mission Sundays, only missionaries engaged in the salvation of humans are recognized, despite the fact that the Bible is full of evidence of God's love for all of creation, not just humans. While the salvation of humans is certainly important, for mission to be truly holistic, it must also address our responsibility to be good stewards of all the natural resources God created, and thus Wright argues that Christians who feel called to advocate for the environment or protect endangered species should be granted the same legitimacy by churches as those called to the salvation of humans. The most tragic, extreme end of the Christian separation from nature is the prosperity gospel, which views the prosperity God wants for us in the shallow sense of material wealth, and when Christ returns, he is going to create a new heaven and a new earth, so what does it matter if we exploit the earth now? Agenda 21, a dystopian novel co-authored by ultra-conservatives Glenn Beck and Harriet Parke and inspired by a U.N. resolution by the same name, imagines a future of authoritarian government in the name of environmental restoration. Babies are taken away from their parents at birth to be indoctrinated in state institutions, and people are forcibly uprooted from their former lives and sent to concrete compounds in planned communities where food (nourishment cubes) and energy are strictly rationed, and people incapable of procreating, and creating clean energy for the Republic by walking their energy board each day are of no use to society.

But the secular response to human exploitation of creation is just as alarming. For years, I have seen articles indicating that a growing number of young people, especially in Generation Z are saying they do not plan to have children, not because of economic uncertainty, but because they believe it is immoral to bring children into a world whose resources are already strained by too many people, and because these children would suffer the full effects of climate change: famine, drought, extreme weather, wildfires. But even more alarming to me is a small but according to Adam Kirsch, growing movement of people embracing the idea of human extinction. After listening to this book review of his book The Revolt Against Humanity, I was filled with such morbid fascination that I couldn't resist listening to his entire book on Audible. This book is an overview of antihumanism and transhumanism, and the broad argument it makes is that while antihumanists and transhumanists have radically different views on what a posthuman world might look like, they agree on two central ideas: that the end of humanity as we know it is inevitable, and that we should welcome it as a sentence we deserve given the devastation we have caused, from the trash at the bottom of the ocean, to the hole in the ozone layer. Kirsch even calls into question the Bible's assertion that the flourishing of humanity is good. "The bible gives the negative commandment thou shall not kill, as well as the positive commandment be fruitful and multiply, and traditionally they have gone together. But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen itself as a form of killing since it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good" (Page 20). But Kirsch also questions even the optimistic view that while creation may not need us, we can enrich it, in the sense that without us, creation would march on, but it would be pointless, akin to performing a show without an audience. Kirsch quotes David Benatar, a South African thinker who calls this optimistic view "metaphysical arrogance." "What is so special about a world which contains moral agents and rational deliberators?" Benatar jeers, "that humans value a world that contains beings such as themselves says more about their inappropriate sense of self-importance than it does about the world" (Page 49). Since I have life experience as both a performer and audience member for many shows, I thought it would be fun to run with this second analogy for awhile.

Chuck Berry is best known for his contribution to rock 'n roll music with songs like Johnny B Good, but one day during that dark period of depression and anxiety in 2016, Dad was driving me home from work when Sirius Xm played a lesser known and not entirely family friendly song, My Ding-a-ling, recorded with a live concert audience singing along. Hopefully my pastor won't find this and think less of me for listening to such filthy music, but it broke through my sadness that day, leaving both Dad and me in a fit of laughter. (I think Dad had heard this song before but part of his laughter came from watching how this song made his innocent Christian daughter laugh.)

The following day it occurred to me that a large part of what made this song so funny was Chuck Berry's interaction with the audience. For example, in between one of the verses, he stopped and singled out two women singing in harmony and said "That's alright, live like you wana live!" But there also exists a studio recording of just him, singing this song solo, and in this context, the song is creepy. This song needs audience interaction for it to be the silly song that I think Chuck Berry intended it to be.

Now for a fun thought experiment, let's pretend that instead of coming to have a good time together and sing a silly song, Chuck Berry's audience that night was a pack of rude, drunken revelers who heckled Chuck Berry, started a riot. In response, security rushed in, kicked everyone out of the arena and called off the show. There may have been a few respectful audience members sitting in their seats, horrified at the behavior of the audience around them, but their numbers were so small, and the atmosphere so chaotic that the show could not go on. Now let's say you and I were among those rude, drunken revelers. Sure, Chuck Berry would have been sad and discouraged that his audience was so disrespectful at the show he intended to bring happiness. But he did not really need our presence at his show. Musicians do not sing primarily for the adoration of an audience but because they are passionate about music. When I sang in the Milwaukee Children's choir, I had the opportunity to travel to Italy with the choir, where we sang for a Saturday evening mass at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. During one rehearsal in preparation for this trip, the choir director shared some experiences from a previous trip to Japan, which was before my time in the choir. For some reason, no one showed up for one of the choir's performances in Japan, but they sang anyway to an empty cathedral. But after the show, multiple choir members said this performance was the most meaningful part of the trip. Just having the opportunity to sing in such a beautiful place was special. It didn't matter that no one was there to hear their music. Therefore, Chuck Berry and his band could have kept on playing to an empty arena. It would be too late to book another artist in that arena after all, and tickets for a show like that would be nonrefundable, so he and his band would have still been paid, even if the audience squandered the opportunity to see the show. But the next morning, once we had recovered from our drunken stupor, wouldn't we be filled with a sickening sense of regret that because of our behavior, we forfeited the opportunity of a fun evening singing along with a talented artist? And if we were one of the few respectful audience members, I imagine that as we exited the arena, we would feel a mixture of anger, and sadness, a loss of faith in humanity. Whether you believe in the Christian God or not, I don't think it is "metaphysical arrogance" to say to yourself as you walk through a garden of fragrant flowers, or wake up to the beautiful cacophony of birds singing, "Wow, some grand designer of the universe or wonderful feat of higher evolution brought me into existence to appreciate the beauty of creation on a higher level than other animals! What a privilege, a privilege which children and grandchildren ought to get to enjoy as well!" Of course, all analogies are imperfect and oversimplified, but I believe it is fair to say that although we are already experiencing some of the consequences of climate change, the Grand Designer has been incredibly merciful. Although I disagree with the secular worldview from which antihumanists and transhumanists approach this issue, their premise that we deserve to be thrown out of this beautiful arena called Creation is valid.

But in truth, the analogy of us being audience members to the beautiful show of creation ought to be completely scrapped because it continues to permit humans to think of ourselves as separate from nature. There is an associate pastor at our church who is a huge sports fan, and also serves as chaplain for the Milwaukee Bucks. Occasionally, he will deliver the sermon and although I am not a sports fan, I appreciate his effective use of sports analogies, and as he likes to say, "There are no bench warmers or spectators in God's kingdom." We all have to get out there and play our part.

Even if you do not believe in the Christian God, you cannot escape the reality that we are inextricably intertwined with Creation. Farmers still depend on rain to water crops as piping in water during a drought period can be done in theory but is impractical and expensive, and then depleting water from lakes, rivers and underground water tables would cause other problems. (The region where I live is experiencing a moderate drought right now.) In 2019, the Amazon rainforest made front page news because the corrupt prime minister of Brazil was encouraging vast areas of the rainforest to be burned and cleared for farming. This was not the first time the Amazon rainforest had been threatened, but the scale on which the Prime Minister was allowing the destruction was alarming. When I heard about this, I was disheartened, but absorbed it with the usual emotional distance of a situation a world away that doesn't effect me. But then a climate scientist said that the Amazon rainforest has so many large trees that absorb so much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that if this rainforest is lost, the air quality all over the world will be impacted! These are just a couple of examples. They show that in reality, we did not, and actually cannot conquer nature. We are, and will always be dependent on nature, and when one part of our delicate ecosystem is threatened, our existence is also threatened.

Since my passion is singing choral music, I propose that we think of all creation, including ourselves, as performers in a beautiful choral work, like say, Handel's Messiah. All creation, which obviously includes all living plants and animals, but even includes nonliving components like the wind, the rivers and oceans, is the orchestra, and we are the choir. In theory, you could perform Handel's Messiah without a choir. The orchestral accompaniment is beautiful in its own right. In fact, before the choir or soloists come in, there is a long and lovely orchestral overture, which reminds me of Genesis chapter 1, when God looked upon everything he had created even before humans and declared that it was good. But the addition of the choir and the lyrics they sing adds a whole new layer of complexity, meaning and beauty that transforms Handel's Messiah from a work that is "good" to one that is "very good."

Now imagine that we were a completely dysfunctional choir. We refused to read our music or follow the leading of the choir director or the orchestra Conductor, choosing to just sing whatever we wanted. If we were assigned to sing in the soprano section, we look with disdain upon the softer, and thus in our mind less valuable altos, tenors and basses, and strive to intimidate them into not singing, or at least to overpower them. All sections of the choir view the orchestra as less valuable because it has no voice, and we all seek to overpower it. Maybe some of us are enamored by the percussion section, but instead of appreciating the subtle but spectacular color these instruments and the skilled musicians behind them add to the orchestra, we greedily grab their instruments away from them and have a blast banging on them with complete disrespect, even breaking some of them. A few singers truly want to appreciate the beauty of the music and their part in it, and do their best to tune out the chaos around them and follow the Conductor and the choir director. But it is not easy, and given the extent of the chaos, even they will inevitably be a little out of tune, and out of sync with the Conductor. The choir director and Conductor are heartbroken that a piece that should have been so beautiful went so completely awry. Of course, this analogy too could be criticized as oversimplified, but I believe it is useful for thinking about our part in creation. We are not just audience members to a beautiful show, but essential performers in it. Not only do we add richness to creation with our literature, unique cultural foods, art and music, but when we live in harmony with creation, we have the potential to transform chaos into beauty. Now forgive me for the arrogant analogy, but imagine that you were the Grand Designer of earth. Perhaps you would have taken a moment to appreciate the chaos, beautiful in a unique way, of vegetation growing wild, no one to prune the trees, plant flower gardens or manage the weeds, the whole world resembling my dad's abandoned terminal. But can you empathize with how the Grand Designer, God, could have come to the conclusion that the creation of humans with higher intelligence that he hoped would live in harmony with nature and bring order to the chaos is akin to the cake that is alright without icing, but so much better once the icing is added?

Of course, whether we are religious or not, we can all agree that we have not lived in harmony with nature. Collectively, you could say in general that those of us who live in wealthy countries have viewed ourselves as the sopranos who carry the melody of the song in the worldly sense that we dominate the world economy. We perceive other singers as less valuable, creating a system in which less desirable jobs like meat packing are predominantly filled by undocumented immigrants who are forced to accept lower wages, and where manufacturing of everything from garments to smartphones is outsourced to countries in Asia in pursuit of cheap, unregulated labor. But all humans to some extent have viewed the orchestra of nature as free for exploitation, valuing a rainforest not for its beautiful biodiversity but for the wood we can extract from it, and the vast amount of land that could be cleared for industrial agriculture. While very few of us are lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry, or the heads of companies responsible for deforestation, we all, at least in the developed world, were born into a system, an industrial society such that we really cannot avoid the use of fossil fuels if we want to participate in mainstream society. Not only that, but the global supply chain has become so complex that even if we try to be environmentally responsible, it is impossible to get everything right.

For example, when my dad retired in September 2020 and had to return his company car, we realized we would be just fine with only one car. I cannot drive, and our commitments are minimal enough that we have had no trouble communicating and coordinating. On a couple rare occasions, I have been a little annoyed that Mom and I had to sit and wait a few minutes for Dad to pick us up, or that Mom and I had to sit in the parking lot waiting for Dad, and would think back nostalgically to "the good old days." But when I am thinking clearly again, I realize this attitude is embarrassing evidence of how thoroughly I have embraced the entitled, individualistic Western mindset. Families shared resources, and sacrificed for the collective good for most of human history, and still do in most parts of the world today. In addition to saving money by only having to pay for the maintenance of one car, we are also taking a small step toward being better environmental stewards. I am intrigued by the insight of some environmental activists who envision a future of car sharing rather than car ownership, since most of the time, most cars are sitting idle in parking lots and garages that could one day be restored as green spaces, and all of that metal and other resources from all of these underutilized cars could be recycled and used in a more constructive way. But given society as it currently is, especially for suburbanites like our family, we aren't ready for that yet. But while owning one car is still necessary, when you think about it, environmental activists would be fair in arguing that for a household like ours, owning two cars is excessive. I think there has only been one instance when Mom needed to take a trip to visit Granny and Dad stayed home, when we rented a car because Dad and I were a little nervous about being "stranded" for two days. But Mom pointed out that even then, we could have planned ahead, ensuring the house was stocked with groceries before she left, and calling a taxi service or neighbor in a true emergency. We, as a society have just become so accustomed to individualism and convenience that we have forgotten how to share, coordinate, live creatively. When our old minivan required expensive repairs that we couldn't justify given how old it was and how many miles it had on it, we purchased a smaller, fuel efficient car. It is not an electric car. We decided to wait for the price to come down, and for the technology and infrastructure for charging these vehicles to improve. But it is a little disconcerting, but kind of cool how the engine shuts off at stoplights. This is just one example of how my parents and I try to live simply, be good environmental stewards. But then, while reading this article to refresh my memory on the heartbreaking story of the Amazon rainforest destruction in 2019, I read that leather from cattle ranchers in the Amazon rainforest is shipped to car and furniture manufacturers all over the U.S. Our car has leather seats. This is just one example of many I could have used which shows that much as we might sincerely want to be good environmental stewards, given the engrained complexity (chaos) of our industrial society, every single one of us is singing out of tune with Creation.

But what is beautiful about the Christian worldview is that it doesn't give up on us. Of course, because of our sinful state, we will never be completely in sync with the Conductor until Christ returns to redeem all things, including our hearts. But Jesus is clear that we are called to try and offer the world a foretaste of God's kingdom now. It is hard not to be discouraged by the extent of devastation we have caused, the hurricanes, droughts, floods and wildfires that seem to get worse each year. I admit I have wondered myself why God has let the show go on this long. But I think this sense of hopelessness explains some of our paralysis and inaction. I wish everyone would trust in the Christian God, because as I will elaborate on more in my next post, God's Holy Spirit could give us the perspective we need to address climate change more constructively. But even if you don't yet believe in the Christian God, I hope I can inspire some antihumanists not to mourn the fact that the universe has let our terrible show go on this long, but instead to see this as a beautiful act of mercy. Every day we are still breathing, we have a chance to repent of our greed and exploitation of one another and of Creation, and start to reclaim the beautiful song we were created to sing, in harmony with one another, and with the orchestra of Creation.