Bauckham on Bible and Biodiversity

In 2010 theologian and biblical scholar Richard Bauckham published a book called Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the community of creation. It is short (178 pages) and covers the surprisingly (to some) strong scriptural bases for taking our responsibility and privilege to care for creation seriously. I highly recommend it. Around the same time, he gave this talk on biodiversity, which summarises some of the main themes of his book. The book covers more ground than this, but the talk might give you a taste.
H/T Mike.

Below are my notes on the talk, which are generally the parts of it that struck me as interesting, new and/or put well, without trying to be comprehensive:

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Introduction: We are confronted by mass extinction of species today, likely to keep getting worse. What do the scriptures have to say to this situation?

1. OT recognises biodiversity
The poetic account in Genesis 1 repeats the formulaic phrase "of every kind" or "according to their kind".

2. God delights in biodiversity
God saw that it was good. The sheer abundant diversity is one of the major focuses of the passages and God delights in that. Also in Job. Final chapters of Job are a panoramic tour of the creation in the imagination.

3. All creatures live to glorify God
Whole of creation worships God. This is the corollary of God's delight in his whole creation. Animals don't have words, or even consciousness in many cases. Simply by being themselves, they bring glory to God. Other creatures are fellow-worshippers.

In the ancient world, many people worshipped creatures. Creatures are creatures, not gods who should be worshipped. On the contrary, the creatures themselves worship God and our proper response is to join in their praise of God.

This is thus a de-divinised creation, but not a de-sacralised creation. Non-human creatures are not divine, but they are sacred to God. Creatures are our fellow-worshippers (Psalm 148), therefore don't instrumentalise them, reducing them to merely a tool to use in the satisfaction of our desires.

4. Various creatures have specific habitats
Psalm 104 is a picture of interdependence. Some creatures depend on others for their life. A first step in the direction of recognising ecosystems. Can't consider each species independently of others.

5. Human kinship with other creatures
Humans have sometimes been elevated above the natural world as though we didn't belong to it. We've tried to relate as demi-gods, rather than fellow creatures. Catastrophic results. Humans are distinctive among the creatures, but the creation narratives make our kinship with other creatures quite clear. Genesis 1 places creation of humans on the same day as creation of all other land animals. We don't get a day of our own. Genesis 2 offers a more vivid and emphatic depiction. Ontological relation signified by a play on words: 'Adam (man) from 'Adamah (ground/dirt/soil). We are earthy creatures. We belong with the earth and with the other creatures of the earth. Other creatures are not dispensable.

6. Humans and other creatures are fellow creatures in the community of the earth
A community of creatures is worth highlighting as a useful model for thinking about our place in creation. Term is not from scripture, but like many of the terms we use to talk about what the Bible teaches, I think it encapsulates a way of thinking which we do find in scripture. Most potent expression of this concept is in Genesis 9, which records a covenant between God and the earth's creatures. All the creatures of earth are interested parties. With them, we form the community sharing a common home. We have no right to evict others from the home that God has given us. Let us have no illusions about this community, which contains much conflict and violence. These are not eradicated in the Noahic covenant, but they are restrained; a price is put on life. God doesn't surrender his intention that his creatures should share the earth that he has given. This covenant is the first step towards renewing and perfecting.

7. Adam as the first taxonomist
Genesis 2: unlike Genesis 1, animals come after Adam. Naming them is not an act of authority but of understanding.

8. King Solomon as naturalist
The embodiment of wisdom. And he spoke of trees.

9. Subdue the earth
The double blessing/command at the end of Genesis 1 implies two distinct relationships: relationship to the earth vs relation to other living creatures. Humans are to subdue the earth, exercise dominion over other creatures.

In understanding these words, first note that it is not only humans which are told to multiply and be fruitful and fill, birds and fish are too. We can assume that creatures of the land are also to be fruitful and multiply.

However, only humans are told to fill the earth and to subdue the earth. Only by means of agriculture were humans able to fill the earth (to live in large portions of available land). To subdue is to take possession and till the soil to make it produce more food than it would otherwise do.

Are humans to supplant other animals? Humans are told that the produce of the earth is not intended to feed them alone, but also the living species of the earth. We are not to fill the earth and subdue it to the extent of leaving no room for the other creatures. Other creatures have a right to use of the soil. Human right is not unlimited but must respect the rights of other creatures. We are one creature among others.

10. Dominion
This second command in relation to other creatures tempts us to forget our own creatureliness and to set ourselves over against the other creatures. This is only possible if we take it out of context. Dominion is a role within creation, not over it. Other creatures are first and foremost our fellow creatures. Our distinctive role can only take place once we appreciate that. Dominion is not the only way we relate to other creatures. Dominion means a caring responsibility, not exploitation. This is widely agreed. We have a responsibility for our fellow creatures. This is a royal function and so it is worth recalling the only passage in the Law of Moses that refers to the role of a king within the people of Israel and there it is emphasised that the king is one amongst his brothers and sisters, one amongst his fellow Israelites (Deuteronomy 17.14-20). The king is not to be exalted above his subjects, and in the same way humanity is to wield authority for the benefit of other creatures.

11. Dominion begins from appreciating God's valuation of his creation.
This is an implication of the Genesis 1 six day creation account. Before we humans read of our responsibility for other living creatures, we are taken through a narrative of creation that stresses God's delight in each stage of his work. We are invited to share God's appreciation of his creation before we learn of our distinctive role within it. Our approach to exercising dominion should be rooted in that fundamental appreciation of the created world as God has made it.

12. Dominion is to be exercised in letting be just as much as in intervention
We are used to thinking of dominion as activity. In modern period, human task conceived as constant ongoing activity to transform the world into one that would suit us much better. Dominion seemed to require from us constant interfering with creation and constant attempts to change and transform it. Now, there is little left that hasn't been affected by human activity. There is a lot we would really like to preserve as it is. It is vital that we re-conceive Genesis dominion as letting be. This is clear later in the Mosaic Law in discussions of how to relate to the land and its creatures. Notice the Sabbatical institutions. First a weekly Sabbath: no work even by domestic animals. Also a Sabbatical year: fields, vineyards and orchards left to rest. So that the poor of your people may eat and wild animals. Even within the cultivated part of the land of Israel wild animals are expected to live. This is a symbol of respect for nature.

UPDATE: I took these notes some months ago while listening to the talk online at the link above. Some proportion of the above text is verbatim quotes from Prof Bauckham, though I now don't remember which parts are summaries of his message and which are his exact words. I think that all the titles at least were his own, and many of the phrases are likely to be either precisely or somewhat close to his words. If anyone has a problem with these notes as they stand, then please let me know so that I can adjust them.

For Lent, how about giving up biosphere destruction?

‘Jesus said; “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”’

- Mark 1:14-15.

"Continuing to pollute the atmosphere when we know the dangers, goes against what we know of God’s ways and God’s will. We are failing to love not only the earth, but our neighbours and ourselves, who are made in God's image. God grieves over the destruction of creation and so should we. Repentance means finding creative, constructive and immediate ways of addressing the danger. It happens when God’s Spirit enables a change of mind and change of heart, prompting a turn from past wrong and a decision to change direction. For our generation, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels has become essential to Christian discipleship."

- Ash Wednesday Declaration, 2012.

This quote is from a statement released today that was composed by Operation Noah and signed by numerous Christian leaders:

• Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
  
• Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
  
• Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales
  
• Richard Chartres, Bishop of London
  
• Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
  
• Val Morrison, Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church
  
• Lionel Osborn, President of the Conference of the Methodist Church
  
• David Arnott, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
  
• Joel Edwards, International Director of Micah Challenge
  
• Ellen Teague, Chair, National Catholic Justice & Peace Environment Group
  
• Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
  
• Jonathan Edwards, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain

The full text of the declaration can be found here and is worth reading. H/t Jason. Ash Wednesday is an appropriate day to consider our mortality, not just individually, but as a civilisation, and perhaps even as a species.

"Remember, o mortal, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the good news."

Urban Farming

Some intriguing and inspiring footage from a group of twenty or so families deliberately moving to an area of social deprivation in order to rebuild community, dignity and hope. It also happens to be not far from where some our extended family live. You can find out more about their activities here or on Facebook.

One thought we had about considering such a model in, say, Sydney or Edinburgh, is that since property prices have not crashed in the same way (yet?), then finding a suitable package of affordable land might be considerably more difficult. This hasn't stopped one group trying to do something somewhat similar in the Sydney CBD.
H/T John.

Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment

"Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."

- Romans 13.10.

Last year, the US National Association of Evangelicals published a conversation piece called Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment. It is another attempt to articulate an evangelical approach to thinking about climate change, especially as it relates to the global poor. Loving the Least of These highlights three theological reasons to care about a changing climate: (a) Love God, Care for Creation; (b) Love God, Love Your Neighbour; (c) Love God, Witness to the World. Each standing alone would be sufficient to motivate Christian response, but together they provide compelling reasons to care deeply about the effects of a changing climate.

Interspersed with vignettes from a pastor, a scientist and a development worker, the publication speaks into a social context in the USA where many evangelicals are deeply suspicious of climate science and/or of the most commonly proposed policy responses to it (it is worth carefully distinguishing these, as they are very different issues, far too often conflated). As such, it is somewhat minimal in its goals, simply speaking to those who might accept that humans play some role in the climatic changes we have already witnessed and so bear some kind of responsibility for trying to minimise the ill-effects of these on those who bear least responsibility and yet are most vulnerable to them. Similarly, the impacts focus on the bottom end of the projected range of changes (i.e. the most optimistic scenarios combining the rosiest outlooks on both emissions reduction and climate sensitivity). Higher possibilities are acknowledged, but the effects are not mentioned. This has the result of keeping the focus on the global poor, since the report explicitly assumes that rich nations will have the means to adapt successfully to the coming changes. The problem with this approach is that it invites the response: "if we can adapt because we're rich, oughtn't the focus be on adaptation rather than mitigation, and on growing the economies of the two-thirds world so that they can afford adaptation too?" Without some sense of the impossibilities of adapting to the changes that are possible, even likely, on our present trajectory, then the immediacy of the ethical response is dulled.

Let us be clear: taking into account presently agreed and aspirational emissions targets, we are still most likely on track for a four degrees plus world within the expected lifetime of my daughter. That is, a world that is on average at least four degrees Celsius warmer than it was in pre-industrial times. Over land, that means far more than four degrees (since land warms faster than oceans). The ecological, economic, social and political changes likely to be associated with such a pace and scale of climatic alteration "would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt" (IPCC, AR4, WG2 TS 5.2). That's putting it mildly.

Unless we acknowledge the full scale of the threats we face, we will continue to live in a fantasy - one with dire consequences for God's creation, our neighbours and the church's witness.

The sin that dare not speak its name

Guest post by anonymous
I have asked Byron for permission to remain anonymous since I fear the backlash (personal and official) that may occur if I put my name to this post.

There is a grave sin openly celebrated in our nation (perhaps especially in Sydney) that makes me feel queasy. At certain times of year - and this is one of them - its advocates feel they can come out of the closet and proudly flaunt their unfortunate condition. Criticism is difficult to raise in polite company, especially amongst educated people. To speak out is considered ignorant at best, hate-filled at worst. Yet the Bible is clear and so we must be too. It would be cruel to remain silent.

This perversion is aggressively defended by highly organised and well-funded lobby groups. Some political parties treat it as a normal and desirable pattern of life, and most teach it is necessary to at least tolerate it. I know that every political party has strengths and weaknesses and that no party is perfect, but I still struggle to understand how a Christian can in good conscience vote for any party that openly and brazenly supports a sin so roundly and straightforwardly condemned in the Bible.

Advocates want to teach our children to embrace it and indeed in many schools it is put forward as perfectly natural, even necessary for a well-functioning society. I personally know of parents who have had the courage to question the ideology being taught in our classrooms and who, as a result, have subsequently been slandered and ostracised - or perhaps worse, condescendingly patronised as backwards and ignorant.

From my study of history, I realise that this abomination has been tolerated by the elite of some societies, but I am not aware of any civilisation that has embraced it so wholeheartedly as ours.

It was not so long ago that the church's teaching of such things carried more weight and a man would have been ashamed to admit such desires in public. Parents would have warned their children against it with serious and hushed voices. The tables are now turned and it is those of us who still hold to the conservative position embraced by the church for centuries who are shunned. I was sickened to discover that is possible to buy children's books that celebrate what ought to be anathema.

And worst of all, many churches now overlook members who ought to be disciplined - preferring perhaps to avoid controversy - or even teach inclusion of this most egregious wrong, claiming that the cultural conditions of the biblical authors blinkered their vision, that they had not seen the great good that could result from accepting such desires as part of God's blessing upon humanity.

Don't get me wrong; there is such a thing as natural and healthy desire. But not every desire is healthy. Some are simply corruptions in which we mistake our true needs for manufactured false wants. Whether cursed with corrupt genes or seduced by an iniquitous lifestyle I cannot say, but those ensnared in wickedness are not to be despised. They are to be pitied and helped, not attacked. We must try, as the saying goes, to love the sinner while hating the sin. Let us remember that none of us are without fault. I am sure they make all kinds of positive contributions to society in other ways. And they are not beyond repentance. With the help of God's Spirit, they can begin afresh and discover healing.

What am I talking about? What is the sin that dare not speak its name? I am referring, of course, to the love of money, which is a root of all kinds of evil. Tolerance is cruelty. Repentance is possible. Healing is promised.

Dried up, drowned out

Climate change is a moral issue.

The lifestyles of (most of) the richest 10% or so of the globe comprise the vast majority of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. This includes anyone with an annual income above about £10,000. These extra emissions are raising CO₂ levels, thereby creating a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, legacy for countless generations to come. Carbon dioxide continues to affect climate for thousands of years. Our actions are significantly decreasing the habitability of the planet for humans and presently existing ecosystems. The ones who suffer the most are those who have done least to contribute: the poor, the young and unborn, and other species. Given that we've known about this issue for decades, there is really little excuse for continuing to pass the buck to those who come after or indulging in delay while we hope for a techno-fix to appear. The basic atmospheric chemistry was grasped in the 19th century; since the 1950s we've suspected a problem; since the 1970s we've had a pretty good idea that it was likely a problem; since the 1980s we've had solid evidence; since the 1990s, alarming evidence; and over the last decade the outlook has only grown bleaker.

We enjoy unnecessary luxuries at the cost of others' suffering, livelihoods and lives. That's a moral problem. Another way is possible. Let us embrace it with joy.

Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?

With all the discussion surrounding climate change and its causes, effects and responses, it has become common for people to speak of "carbon pollution". Some object to this phrase, for a variety of reasons.

First, some think that the failure to specific that we are talking about carbon dioxide makes "carbon" a highly ambiguous modifier of pollution, and so quip that if carbon is pollution, we should all be getting rid of our diamonds (not to mention the carbon in each of our body's cells). However, in the context of contemporary political debate, to speak of a "price on carbon" or "carbon pollution" is an entirely understandable and acceptable shorthand. The context makes clear that we are concerned with mitigating the deleterious effects of an enhanced greenhouse effect from rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Granted, in certain circumstances this needs to be spelt out carefully and fully to avoid confusion, but in the daily cut and thrust of political debate, "carbon" is sufficient (and also manages to include a couple of the other non-CO₂ GHGs, such as methane (CH₄), though I suspect this is more happy accident than by design).

Second, and more importantly, some reject the phrase because they do not believe carbon dioxide ought to be classified with other harmful substances. This may be (a) because they think carbon dioxide is natural and pollution is unnatural; (b) because they believe that only substances that are directly toxic to life ought to be called pollution; or (c) because they think that carbon dioxide is harmless.

Regarding (a), this common position is based on a couple of basic scientific and philosophical confusions about the nature of pollution. Many naturally-occurring substances are classified as pollutants: mercury, asbestos, arsenic, just to name a few of the better known ones. Furthermore, almost every substance can be harmful in certain doses. Pollution is a relative term. Nothing is a pollutant in itself, but substances pollute when too much of them is found in an inappropriate location. Remember, it is possible to die of water poisoning, or oxygen poisoning.

Regarding (b), critics say that calling CO₂ pollution implies that breathing ought to be regulated, as we exhale CO₂ with every breath. Defenders sometimes reply by pointing to the possibility of carbon dioxide poisoning (which has historically caused a number of deaths). Yet the direct physiological effects of elevated carbon dioxide levels can be overstated in an effort to justify the use of the term "pollutant". I have seen research (can't find the link at the moment) that suggested that there would be no observable direct effect upon human physiology until over 1,000 ppm. Pre-industrial levels were about 275ppm and we're currently at 390 ppm, with the most commonly-cited goal of aiming to stabilise at 450 ppm (though this is considered by many climate scientists to still be highly dangerous; the last time the earth had CO₂ concentrations above 400 ppm, sea levels were approximately 25 metres higher). So 1,000 ppm is a long way off and would mean we'd already burst through all kinds of very nasty threshholds (though remember that reaching 1,000 ppm by 2100 is not outside the realm of possibility if large positive feedbacks kick in). In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit (PEL) for CO₂ of 0.5% by volume, which equates to 5,000 ppm, a level of atmospheric CO2 so staggeringly high that the last time they were anywhere near there was over 400 million years ago (for reference, dinosaurs don't appear in the fossil record until 230 million years ago). Well before we got anywhere near 5,000 ppm other effects of carbon dioxide would have wiped us out, so worrying about shortness of breath from global CO₂ concentrations is a bit like worrying about how a bullet hole in your head might make it difficult to comb your hair. This is a red herring.

A better line of reply to those who believe the term "pollutant" ought to refer only to substances that are directly toxic to life is to speak of ocean acidification. Rising CO₂ levels are leading to falling oceanic pH levels as the oceans and atmosphere reach a new gas exchange equilibrium. These startlingly fast (from a geological or ecological viewpoint) changes in ocean pH are already having measurable detrimental effects on a wide variety of marine life and are projected to become much worse as concentrations rise. This is a direct physiological harm of carbon dioxide that does not rely on complex human social changes and so alone justifies calling this dangerous substance a form of pollution. Nonetheless, it is directly dangerous only to certain critical forms of marine life.

And so we reach (c), which is, I suspect, what really drives this discussion. The quibbles above are really just extra confusions muddying the waters. The truly vital issue is whether the climatic effects of rising levels of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases are on balance harmful or not. Considering all the likely indirect effects - increasing heat waves, droughts, floods, extinctions, sea level rise, habitat loss, surface ozone pollution, ocean acidification, public health problems, and so on (not to mention the likely knock-on effects of increased food stress, water stress, migration and conflict) - our present trajectory of substantially CO₂-driven climate change will almost certainly be disastrous on human health and well-being, indeed is potentially catatrophic. So I have no qualms about labelling CO₂ a pollutant when we are talking about the volumes of it currently being dumped into the atmosphere (and these enormous quantities mean it is facetious to reply with a comment about breathing or soft drinks, as some do in order to ridicule the idea of CO₂ as a pollutant). If you think these impacts are implausible, then you would obviously have a problem with calling CO₂ a pollutant. The physiological point becomes a distraction. But rather than having a conversation about definitions, it is far more honest and direct simply to have the debate about the impacts of climate change. This complex and evolving scientific debate continues with much energy in the peer-reviewed literature, though it must be acknowledged that, with the exception of a handful of fringe figures, the mainstream debate is not between those who think impacts will be bad and those who think they will be minor, but between those who think that impending climate changes spell human misery on a scale never before seen and those who think it is much worse than that. The debate is not between climate change being bad vs neutral (or even good); it is between disastrous and utterly catastrophic. There are many more publishing climatologists who are worried about the fall of civilisation and even the extinction of humanity than there are who believe the impacts will be minor or even beneficial. In this context, even if the outcomes resulting from complex causal chains involve other factors as well (not least human social, economic, political and cultural systems), nonetheless, calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is quite logical - as is taking action to slash our emissions as quickly as we can.

An excellent (and brief) theology of climate change

"Reading the Bible in the context of climate change gives a vision of hope in God’s faithfulness to creation, a call to practise love and justice to our human and other than-human neighbours, and a warning of God’s judgement of those who fail to do so. In this context, closing our ears to the voices of those most vulnerable to climate change would be nothing less than giving up our claim to be disciples of Christ."

- "Hope in God's future: Christian discipleship in the context of climate change".

This 2009 report from the Joint Public Issues Team of the UK Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches is probably the best brief theological treatment of climate change I have seen. I particularly appreciate its insightful discussion of hope in §2.2, as well as its handling of neighbour love in §2.4-5.

Regarding the former, the report affirms that God's faithfulness is greater than humanity's brokenness. Ultimately, there is nothing we can do to thwart God's redeeming purposes for his creatures. The wording in the report is carefully chosen, as I discovered when I pressed one of the authors in conversation. While the panel agreed that human failure has the capacity to cause us and the other creatures on our planet very serious and lasting harm, there was disagreement over this harm extended as far as the possibility of total self-destruction. Either way, when relating human responsibility and destructive capacity to divine promises of faithfulness, if the result is something other than a grace-filled sending into service of God and neighbour, then we're doing it wrong. Any theology that results in either frenetic desperation or apathetic passivity is thereby seriously deficient.

Regarding neighbourly love, the report very helpfully (though not uncontroversially) uses the category of neighbour to include a number of groups containing many members we have not met (and most likely never will prior to the resurrection). First, it includes our brothers and sisters in distant lands (Africa and Pacific island nations are highlighted), who are already being negatively affected by changing climates and sea levels, and for whom the future seems to hold the threat of far worse. Second, we are also neighbours to future generations, the young and as yet unborn. These begin with but extend well beyond our own children. In this context, our children are the symbol and most immediate instantiation of our obligations to the future, but our horizon must be lifted beyond one or two generations since our actions today will have major consequences for centuries and even millennia to come. Third, the report welcomes the community of creation as our neighbours and so implies that the sphere of our moral life extends beyond the human. Section §2.5 has a very useful summary of scriptural teaching concerning other creatures and whether we are comfortable with the application of the term "neighbour" or not, the underlying claim of their bearing moral significance ought to be entirely uncontroversial.

With these considerations in mind, the more one learns about the science of climate change, the more the commands to love our neighbour and seek justice invite us to see our present behaviour (personally and socially) as a gross violation of the responsibility to care for those in whom our Father delights.

The document emphasises the necessity of repentance in response to climate change. This is undoubtedly correct, yet let us remember that our climate predicament is not rooted in only greed and apathy, but also in a tragic failure of vision. In embracing an economy based on the combustion of fossil fuels, we exhibited a form of ignorance. We can debate the relative innocence of this ignorance in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, but it has been increasingly clear for at least five decades that our failure of foresight is culpable. Carbon-intensive energy production has shaped our habits, assumptions and aspirations in just a few short years to the point where living without them has become unthinkable. But unless we learn to think anew then they will make our planet unliveable.

Let me end with another sobering quote worth pondering.

"In encountering biblical warnings about the consequences of failing to love and deal justly with those in need, it is hard to escape the conclusion that in continuing to emit carbon at rates that threaten our neighbours, present and future, human and other than human, we are bringing God’s judgement upon us. Even here we should not despair: that God judges rather than abandons us is a sign of God’s grace and continuing love for us. But in our encounter with God’s word in the context of climate change we should be clear that, while we have grounds for hope in the future God will bring if we act in accordance with God’s love for all creation, we also have grounds for fear of God’s judgement if we continue to fail to respond to the urgent needs of our neighbour."

What is successful protest?

“Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success, namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”

- Wendell Berry.

If success means the preservation of the status quo (as it often implied by discourse surrounding the term "sustainability"), then this is both impossible (philosophically and pragmatically) and undesirable. Yet if success is feeling good amount myself while the world burns, then this is a failure to connect with the plight of my fellow creatures. Berry points to something else as success: the preservation of spiritual qualities that cannot otherwise be preserved. This implies a "push" rather than "pull" reading of protest; protest is not performed in order to pursue an as yet unrealised objective ahead of me, but is the expression of qualities of heart and spirit which cannot hope to be preserved without protest.

Protest is thus spiritually conservative.

Peak when? We've already passed it

ArsTechnica: When is peak oil? We've passed it. Welcome to the downslope.

CP: How much of recent global warming has been caused by human activities? Most likely more than 100%. How can we have caused more than 100% of something? Without human activity, it is likely that we would have experienced a slight cooling trend and so our activities are primarily responsible for both overcoming this natural trend and the observed warming.

NYT: A case study in overfishing - the collapse of jack mackerel in under a decade. A single super-trawler theoretically has the capacity to catch more jack mackerel annually than the most optimistic estimate of the global sustainable catch. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated (based on 1998 data, now hopelessly out of date) that global fishing fleets "are 2.5 times larger than needed." The latest estimate of total global subsidies for fishing fleets (back in 2003) was US$25 billion to $29 billion per annum (mainly in fuels). Let us therefore choose between fish and the fishing industry; we cannot save them both.

Physorg: Wheat can't stand the heat. A new study published in Nature Climate Change found that "a 2.0 Celsius increase above long-term averages shortened the growing season by a critical nine days, reducing total yield by up to 20 percent."

NASA: Greenland, the world's northern mirror, is rapidly growing dimmer, with some areas seeing a drop in reflectivity of almost 20% in a few years.

Stephen Leahy: Toxic pollution is a public health problem on a similar scale to malaria. A new study claims that more than 100 million people have their productive life span shortened by an average of 12.7 years. Some of the causes may be encircling your finger, resting in your pocket or illuminating your eyeballs right now, though the victims may well live on the other side of the world.

Onion: Scientists reveal how to achieve sustainability overnight, though wisely leave open the policy questions.

130 Years in 30 seconds

The changes displayed in this video represent average global surface temperatures warming by about 0.8ºC over a period of 130 years. On our current path (including current national and regional agreements to reduce emissions), we are heading towards something like five times that change in the next 90 years.

It doesn't have to be this way.
Original source with further commentary at NASA.

What do you really want?

Very effective visuals on this short clip contrasting consumerism with our true wants. I'm not sure I buy the tagline (you'll have to wait for the end), but I like the overall effect.

Does Jesus love religion?

A week or so ago, a spoken word video featuring a young man called Jefferson Bethke denouncing religion in the name of Jesus took the FaceTubes by storm, gathering over 15 million views in a matter of days. Here it is, for those remaining seven billion or so who may have missed it.

A mostly helpful analysis and response of the video by Kevin Deyoung can be found here (H/T Dominic). Deyoung says Bethke "perfectly captures the mood, and in my mind the confusion, of a lot of earnest, young Christians" who interpret the word religion to mean "self-righteousness, moral preening, and hypocrisy." Yet this is not what it means. Jesus did not come to abolish, but to fulfil. Deyoung's critique was read by Bethke, who subsequently contacted Deyoung and said "I agree 100%". The interaction is a good example of gracious constructive theological conversation.

And with a hat tip to Kyle, here is a very interesting Catholic response to the original video, also (I believe) done in a spirit of constructive dialogue.

Twenty-two reasons to love the earth

Why Christians take the extra-human creation seriously:

1. God declares all things good; he made them and blessed them. Even before the arrival of humanity, God declared his handiwork "good" and blessed it (Genesis 1).

2. God sustains and cares for all life, not just human life. Psalm 104 and Job 38-41 celebrate the created order in its bounty, complexity and divine providence outside of reference to human affairs. In Matthew 10.29 and Luke 12.6 Jesus teaches that not even a single sparrow escapes the caring notice of God. Why should we disparage or dismiss that which God cares for?

3. God's plan (intimated and initiated in the resurrection of Christ) is the renewal of all things through their liberation from bondage to decay. Why would redemption be of anything less than the scope of creation? We hope not for redemption from the world, but the redemption of the world.

4. "The earth is the LORD's and everything in it!" (Psalm 24.1). How we treat the creation is a reflection on what we think of the Creator. My parents built and own the house where I grew up; if I decided to ransack it to make a quick profit, that would reveal something deeply broken about my relationship with them.

5. Human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. We depend on natural ecosystems for every breath we take, every mouthful of food, every sip of clean water. The "environment" is not simply the background to our everyday activities, the earth is our home. Even if we thought our obligations ended with humans, we would have pressing reasons to care for life beyond humanity. This is basic prudence. (Proverbs 8.12)

6. Our livelihoods are a fraction of our current lifestyle. That is, we can easily thrive on far less than we presently consume, indicating that our culture generally accepts idolatry in the form of consumerism, where our purchases define our identity. We can easily repent of our idolatrous over-consumption without any threat to our livelihoods (though there may be some industries that need to shrink significantly or die altogether). Natural ecosystems are not a necessary victim of our flourishing; there is no ultimate competition between our well-being and that of the rest of the planet's living systems.

7. Human beings are not souls trapped in bodies, but embodied lives. Our future is resurrection like Christ's and any spirituality that ends up hating the body (and the natural world upon which it relies) is an expression of what Nietzsche correctly diagnoses as ressentiment. True spirituality is earthy. (Matthew 6.10)

8. We are members of the community of creation, not demi-gods without obligations towards our fellow creatures. Anthropocentric domination is a misreading of godly human authority as caring service. (Genesis 1-2)

9. We need the extra-human creation in order to fulfil our role (and they need us) in joining together in praise of the Creator (e.g. Pss 96; 148).

10. God has filled the world with beauty and only the hardhearted and blind ignore it.

11. God's saving purposes are not limited to humans. If God has not limited his gospel to one particular race, age, gender, culture or class, why would he limit it to one species? Jesus' death was for all creation (Colossians 1.15-20). In the archetypal salvation narrative of Genesis 6-9, Noah and his family are saved along with representatives of the rest of the community of creation.

12. Wisdom requires paying attention to the world beyond the human. Jesus enjoins us to consider the sparrows and lilies (Matthew 6.26, 28). Wise king Solomon spoke of trees (1 Kings 4.29-34) and Proverbs 12.10 points out that "The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel". Remember that the world's first animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA, was founded by William Wilberforce, the same man who helped lead the campaign to abolish modern slavery.

13. The journey of becoming a neighbour involves the ongoing expansion of our horizon of love. When we are gripped by God's love, we are freed from the echo-chamber of our own concerns into caring for our neighbour. But just who is our neighbour? The answer to that question can never be delimited in advance but must be discovered as we come across those in need. Are other creatures also (in some sense) our neighbours? In the end, I believe so. For instance, Deuteronomy 24-25 places concern for the needs of oxen amongst concern for poor labourers, the widowed, orphans and aliens. Compassion is not circumscribed by the human.

14. Our neglect is having dire consequences, but the freedom to repent is the first and most foundational freedom.

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

15. The earth is our mother. Remember, anthropomorphism is distinct from deification and this particular one is ancient and scriptural (Genesis 1.24; Romans 8.22).

16. God has promised to "destroy the destroyers of the earth" (Revelation 11.18). Divine justice is not limited to our mistreatment of him and one another. God's transformative evaluation (otherwise known as his judgement) embraces all the deeds done in the body (2 Corinthians 5.10), not just those that directly relate to human interactions.

17. Failure to attend to the needs of the more than human creation causes real and serious harms to our human neighbours. Ecological injustice is a major cause of human suffering. (Romans 13.10)

18. Throughout the holy scriptures are examples of idolatry (the worship of creatures rather than the Creator) leading to negative ecological consequences. (e.g. Leviticus 18)

19. Mistreating other animals is a failure of compassion. Wisdom embraces more than human needs. (Proverbs 12.10)

20. Greed, hubris and fear are major motives behind the systems, cultures, actions and inactions that are degrading the Earth. (Luke 12.15)

21. There are demonic powers that destroy life, oppress people and seek to deceive us all that are operative in the desecration of God's good world. (Ephesians 6.12)

22. And finally, because God calls humanity into the care of this place. Stewardship is a much-abused concept, but within a broader theological vision of creation and humanity, it has its place. (Genesis 1-2; Ps 8)

Which of these do you find most compelling? Least plausible? What have I missed?

Not with a bang but with a sustained leak

Real Climate: Why Arctic methane release is bad, not catastrophic. This is a very important post. Many have been deeply worried about the possibility of a so-called "methane gun" in which truly staggering volumes of frozen methane clathrates that sit on and under the ocean floor of the Siberian continental shelf are released in a runaway feedback as the Arctic Ocean warms. Since methane (CH₄) has something like 100 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a twenty year period, it has been hypothesized that a rapid release of large volumes of stored methane could cause a sudden and likely catastrophic surge in global temperatures. A variation or accompaniment to this scenario is the rapid release of methane from thawing permafrost in Siberia. In the linked post, a senior climatologist argues that it is far more likely that methane release will be chronic rather than acute, and given methane's relatively short atmospheric residency (about ten years), this will lead to a dangerous (though not immediately catastrophic) rise then stabilisation of methane levels, supplementing but not overwhelming warming from carbon dioxide. However, since atmospheric methane gradually degrades to carbon dioxide in the presence of oxygen, a slow release would not only give a bump to methane levels but would also see carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Unlike methane, carbon dioxide is basically forever, with about half of any increase in atmospheric concentration we experience likely to remain for centuries and about a quarter likely to remain for at least ten thousand years. So a relief (of sorts) for us. It's a bit like finding that the Nazis don't, as feared, have a nuclear weapon, but they do have twice as many conventional forces as was thought.

CD: A recent NASA study suggests that climate change may modify 40% the earth's surface from one biome (e.g. forest, savanna, tundra, etc.) to another.

ABC Religion and Ethics: The New Evangelicals: How Christians are rethinking Abortion and Gay marriage. Despite being published by the ABC, this piece (an extract from a new book) has its eyes on the US scene. How applicable are the trends it identifies elsewhere amongst evangelicals?

Guardian: More farmers needed. Feeding seven, eight, nine, ten billion without strip-mining the soil, using the atmosphere as a carbon dump, squeezing out biodiversity, depleting finite fuels or overloading rivers, lakes and oceans with nutrients requires more organic poly-cultural farming, which can often be more productive per unit of land overall than present industrial monocultural farming. However, it is less productive per unit of labour, meaning more people employed (again) in growing food, which probably means higher food prices and a greater share of incomes devoted to food. This in turn may help address obesity, though at the risk of increasing malnutrition associated with poverty. Hence, addressing inequality is also critical.

Peter preaches on the parable of the talents (Matthew 25.14-30). This passage is often used as a key plank in a justification of usury. There are elements in the narrative and context that suggest a very different reading. Peter highlights the key theological question lying behind this hermeneutical issue: which kind of God do we serve?

McKibben: On being hopefully naïve about getting corporate money out of US politics and why being cynical is hopeless.

Guardian: What have trees ever done for us?

NYT: My Guantánamo Nightmare. There are good reasons due process has come to be highly cherished in all civil societies.

Monbiot: The limits of vegetarianism, in which George changes his mind and shifts to ethical semi-vegetarianism. The Conversation publishes an even more provocative piece against ecological vegetarianism, and a very interesting discussion in the comments ensues.

SMH: Energy and water. In the 20thC, global energy use increased thirteen-fold and water use increased nine-fold. The two are related and any future has to consider our water habits, which might be less about having short showers than having cold ones, since energy production is one of the most water-intensive things we do (though conversely, where water is scarce, desalination is one of the most energy-intensive things we do).

Defending our Christian heritage in parliament

A conservative MP stands up in NZ Parliament to defend the Judaeo-Christian tradition as the basis of western society, politics and culture. It's not often you hear a parliamentarian retell the gospel narrative in order to ground an ethic of universal love which is then applied to social policy and sharing, economics and ecology. It's a stirring speech outlining the priority of justice over growth and the unconditionality of compassion.

Who is this conservative defender of the faith? Atheist and Green Party co-leader Russel Norman.
H/t Viv Benjamin.

The difficulties of climate ethics: space

Human societies have faced many threats throughout history: wars, epidemics, natural disasters, mass migrations, famines, revolutions and more. Very few of these threats were truly global in scope. Climate change is one of them (along with the ongoing potential for nuclear holocaust, pandemics and the climatic effects of the very largest volcanic eruptions). Climate damage embraces not simply human society, but the entire biosphere, since our actions are altering the basic chemistry of atmosphere and oceans.

Not only are the consequences global, but the causes are also widely distributed, making the coordination of responses complex. Unilateral actions by a single society considered in isolation are unlikely to have a significant direct impact on the danger represented by rising global average temperatures and the associated disruptions this brings. Responsibility for changing atmospheric chemistry is unevenly distributed, with some nations possessing a much larger per capita carbon footprint than others. And the persistence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and active carbon cycle (much of it for thousands or even tens of thousands of years) means that historical emissions further complicate the picture.

The necessity of international cooperation to address a serious threat is nothing particularly novel, though the mixing of atmospheric gases means that mitigation efforts by some subset of the globe brings no added climatic benefits to those bearing the costs of such action. Thus, the threat of freeloading is high. Every country hopes that other countries will do the heavy lifting.
This is the second in a series briefly outlining some of the distinctive features of climate change that makes ethical reflection upon our predicament more difficult. The first post can be found here.

And don't come back

This is the day that the LORD has made;
    Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

- Psalm 118.24.

This time five years ago, I was receiving weekly doses of poison and daily radiation burns to my chest after being diagnosed with a rapidly growing malignant tumour just above my heart and invading my left bronchial tube. Today, I went into an oncologist's office and was told not to return, as five years of follow up is enough.

Although it is still possible for me to experience relapse, the chances are that any cancer now found in my body is more likely to be a new growth than a renewal of the one that was well on its way to killing me in 2006/07. I am obviously delighted to reach this milestone and continue to receive each day as a gift. I did not deserve to live, did not earn my reprieve, did not qualify for healing through the quality of my faith. Faced with a very rare form of cancer (numerous specialists have given me the impression that I'm one in a million), medical science took its best (highly educated) guess as to treatment and it worked beyond all expectations.

And so praise God for life, for health, for wonderful support from family, friends and even strangers, for medical specialists and all the care I have received over five years from dozens of healthcare professionals both in Oz and the UK and for public healthcare that has meant my total out of pocket expenses have been AUD $0 + GBP £0 for treatments that probably cost tens of thousands (thanks fellow tax-payers!).

Yet the experience continues to have its shadows. Given that the first side-effect mentioned on the consent forms I signed for both chemotherapy and radiotherapy is that those treatments are themselves carcinogenic, cancer is still quite likely to be part of my future, as is reduced life-expectancy. I am also aware of the costs the illness and treatment have brought to my health in other ways; being poisoned and burned are not generally conducive to good health (I've always thought that Nietzsche's boast that whatever did not kill him could only make him stronger was one of his sillier ones).

And I am not the same man I was. Being gravely sick has reconfigured my emotional and spiritual life, not to mention shaping my academic interests. For much of this I am grateful (and this is undoubtedly the true referent of Nietzsche's comment), especially for the reminder of my own frail mortality and the liberating realisation that survival is not our highest priority. These are important lessons that I hope always to keep close to hand. Has the experience also made me more pessimistic about our future prospects? Given that being ill significantly overlapped with the period during which I began investigating ecological and resources predicaments in greater depth, it is hard to tell whether the chicken or the egg came first.

The significance of my reaching this milestone was brought home powerfully to me a day or two ago when I came across the story of Kristian Anderson, a Sydney Christian man in his 30s with a wife and young kids, and who died from cancer two days ago. Kristian recorded more than two years of his physical, emotional and spiritual journey since diagnosis on a blog called How the Light Gets In (H/t Andrew Paterson). I ran out of tissues while reading it. I never met him, but I thank God for his life and witness, even amidst great darkness, and I pray for his widow and little boys.

Life is a precious gift. Let us rejoice in each day we receive.

Is environmentalism failing?

Is Environmentalism Failing? from Australian Broadcasting Corporation on FORA.tv.
A fascinating debate held in Melbourne and broadcast by the ABC last year. It is 90 minutes long but worth watching in full as each speaker has important points to make. Speakers include: Clive Hamilton, David Suzuki, Christine Milne, Ian Lowe, Anna Rose and Philip Sutton. A number of the older speakers highlight just how far social attitudes, behaviours and policies have come in the last fifty years (i.e. since the birth of the modern environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring in 1962). All of them emphasise the size of the task ahead, particularly in the face of climate change.

Apologies for the ad at the start.

2011: Some reviews

At the end of last year, I posted links to the twelve doomiest stories of 2010 and fifty doomiest graphs and photos. Desdemona again offers his summary of 2011 with the fifty doomiest graphs and images and this time fifty doomiest stories of the year.

Not to be outdone, the ApocaDocs have compiled their 100 top news stories of 2011 relating to our global predicament.

The Conversation sums up the year in energy and environment news, containing links to dozens of interesting and significant stories throughout the year. They also summaries of their other major news headings.

And if all this is a little too bleak for your New Year's celebrations, then check out Charlie Brooker's take on 2011 available on BBC iPlayer (for UK residents only, I'm afraid). It's still somewhat bleak (it was that kind of year), but at least it has a few jokes.

Feel free to post links to other reviews of the year that are worth reading.

Mongabay: Top ten environmental stories of 2011.

May 2012 bring renewed hope, patience and illumination to face the gathering gloom.

The difficulties of climate ethics: time

"[There is] a pronounced temporal dispersion of causes and effects. In the case of climate change, this is caused mainly by the long atmospheric lifetime of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and by the fact that some of the basic physical systems influenced by the greenhouse effect (such as oceans) are subject to profound inertia, so that changes play out over centuries and even millennia. This is important because it suggests that whereas fossil fuel emissions have immediate and tangible benefits for present people, many of the most serious costs are likely to be substantially deferred to future generations."

- Stephen Gardiner, A Perfect Moral Storm:
The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 123.

This time lag is critical to grasping climate change (and, to a greater or lesser extent, many other ecological issues). Many people don't realise that the changes we are already experiencing (Arctic summer sea ice volume down by over 70%, shifts in timing of the seasons, more frequent heatwaves and intense precipitation events in some regions, poleward shift of ecosystems, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels and so on) are not the result of present greenhouse gas concentrations. We are merely reaping the start of the harvest of seeds sown decades ago. It will be decades more before the effects of today's levels begin to be visible, and centuries or even millennia before their full impact is known.

This temporal lag means that climate change occupies an intermediate position amongst future threats, too close to be safely ignored and too distant to avoid being perpetually trumped by the myopic focus on today's problem caused by the media and political cycle. Dangerous climate change is far more immediate than say, the heat death of the universe or even the death of our Sun (or the preceding gradual increase in solar radiation that will likely destroy all life on earth well before either of these), and yet not immediate enough to enter the horizon of political decision-making. That this is so can be seen in the frequent attempts to find proximate hooks of one disaster or another on which to hang the climate threat. Yet these are doomed to be of only ambiguous use since any single disaster always has multiple causes and climate change is about a shift in statistical distributions, rather than being the sole unambiguous "cause" of any given event. In this intermediate position, climate change is uncomfortably dangerous enough to be of real concern and yet always comfortably far enough away to ignore for one more day, lowering the chance that will anticipate with prudence such (slightly) distant futures.

Individually, we are frequently poor at responding to such delayed feedback. The causes of obesity, heart disease, lung disease, alcoholism and all kinds of other long term health problems are increasingly well-known and connected to various behaviours that are often deemed quite pleasant in the short term. Yet, despite the long term ill-effects frequently being catastrophic for our health, we continue to indulge.

And that is just for problems where the effects are on my own life a few decades in the future. But when we turn to issues where the worst effects are felt by others, separated from me by time, space, social distance and even species, then my ability to refrain from indulging in short-term pleasures becomes even more difficult.

And when we turn from individual responses to collective responses, yet another layer of complexity is added and the potential to pass the buck becomes even higher. And when these collective responses are required not only at communal, social and national levels, but also critically amongst all nations of any economic size, then the barriers can appear insurmountable. More on these issues in the days ahead as I begin this series looking at some of the reasons why climate change is a particularly knotty ethical issue.
As one illustration of the temporal lag, a new publication from NASA claims that, based on paleoclimate records, each degree Celsius of global temperature rise will, in the long run, be associated with something like a twenty metre sea level rise. For those who don't understand why it matters whether we rise two or three or four degrees, here is one example to clarify our thoughts. This is not saying that such rises will be immediate, but that we are committing our descendants to a very, very different world.