Beginning the Climate Change Journey

Yesterday, in the car on our way to church, Jenny and I talked about our participation in the interracial book club and what we and our fellow readers will be doing next. This would not be a difficult decision if the climate crisis were not screaming at us to wake up and make changes.

This morning I read in the Guardian Jonathan Watt’s, “Human Society Under Urgent Threat from Loss of Earth’s Natural Life.” Citing last year’s alarming United Nations report on climate change, Watts paints an alarming picture of the numbers of plant and animal species that are dying out.

Several days ago, I viewed “The True Cost,” which is about the pile-up of cast-off clothing in land fills around the world. It seems that the clothing industry is second only to the oil and gas in producing pollution. The documentary makes me, and others it seems, want to curb any future clothing purchases. I’ve been in mall clothing stores that are jammed with new clothes and empty of shoppers. The impression I get is that our society has carried fashion and throw-away clothing to absurd excess.

Last evening we binge-watched three climate change documentaries: “Smoke and Fumes:”

“The Next Great Extinction Event,” and the first episode of Showtime’s series, “Years of Living Dangerously.”

“Smoke and Fumes” is about efforts by oil and gas corporations, notably Exxon Mobil, to squelch scientific studies about the climate impact of hydrocarbon release that happens when oil is burned. The documentary claims oil companies knew about the impact of fossil fuels on climate as far back as the 1940’s. They have managed to have a hand in the “narrative” about their own environmental impact ever since.

The next great extinction event is a macro view of five devastating events over the course of Planet Earth’s existence that whipped out most life forms. Now, humans have only been around for roughly a million years and these cataclysmic events happened hundreds of millions of years ago. What the documentary proposes is that we may be on the threshold of the 6th mega-extinction event. These insights appear to me to have exploded into public consciousness and follow the popular book, The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen.

What Can I Do About Climate Change?

It feels to me as if I’m launching on a new journey down the path of learning about and hopefully doing something about the climate crisis. I have no idea where the path will lead.

I believe that climate change is real, though I certainly hope that Planet Earth’s is not as urgent as climate alarmists say it is. But I have no reason to doubt their science and insights. Climate deniers, on the other hand, especially when they’re reasons for doubting the urgency of our present situation is driven by shabby theology strike me as exceedingly naive.

I tend to welcome changes to lessen climate change because those changes usually are ones that I want to make anyway–reducing beef and meat in my meals, curbing my addiction to consumer goods, and moving to non-gasoline transportation, like bicycling, electric and self-driving cars.

So I’m belatedly getting on board with a growing and potentially apocalyptic concern.

I’ll keep track of my progress here.