Catholics and climate change

As I drive streets of my area and elsewhere, I often see cars sporting bumper stickers bearing the legend "I'm Catholic and I Vote," and I often wonder not so much about what the cars' owners mean but what they could mean, for the Catholic Church's teachings on disparate political issues can easily carrying very different political messages for voters in the world of American politics.

I sort of assume that for many such drivers, the statement is more than anything else a coded phrase on abortion and abortion rights, which would imply a vote for right-wing Republicans and/or anti-choice conservative Democrats. But it could just as easily signify support for social welfare or economic justice, or against capital punishment or aggressive war, for the Church's teachings on these topics are very clear, and definitely don't favor the electoral interests of those conservatives and right-wingers.

With that in mind I read with great interest recent comments by Pope Francis that "We are the Custodians of Creation," a point expanded upon by a Vatican statement* that
  
The perspective given by this spiritual gift leads us to respect God’s gift of creation and to exercise wise stewardship of its resources for the benefit of the whole human family.

A recent editorial in the National Catholic Reporter on climate change expands upon that point.

The problem is enormous, but so is the opportunity for the church to use its resources, its access to some of the best experts in its academies and the attention of those in its parochial structures to begin to educate. This is a human life issue of enormous proportions, and one in which the young should be fully engaged. 

Finding a fix for climate change and its potentially disastrous consequences, particularly for the global poor, is not the work of a single discipline or a single group or a single political strategy. Its solution lies as much in people of faith as in scientific data, as much or more in a love for God's creation as it does in our instinct for self-preservation.

I tend to look at public policy and environmental issues from a secular persepctive, but this line of reasoning is extremely apt. For better or for worse, we are the stewards of our planet, and the message for those of us who see a divine purpose in that stewardship, the message is very, very clear. 

If those bumper-sticker Catholic voters mean to say that they are "Pro-Life," there should no bigger issue than the stewardship of our planet. For them, or for anybody else. 

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*  Andrew C. Revkin, "Pope Francis: 'We are Custodians of Creation'," New York Times, May 22, 2014

Marco Rubio and faith-based denial

Sen Marco Rubio (R-Fla) came close enough to underhand his hat into the ring today, and in so doing took the expected potshots at Secretary Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. 

But what is really striking is his strong assertion of the primacy of faith in determining environmental policy. “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” he said. 

"I do not believe."

What an inspiring approach for addressing a complex problem subject to empirical research; what a noble disdain for the scientific method.

"I do not believe."

Ignore the nearly unanimous voice of the scientific community finding that human activity is responsible for global climate change. Ignore the mountain of data and the flood of scientific papers supporting this understanding (see, for example, the 2011 repot of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the third National Climate Assessment of 2014.

It is enough that Sen. Rubio believes otherwise. And that he can do so without even giving lip service to any need to cite evidence refuting anthropogenic climate change,

Faith-based denial. Faith-based stupidity. Faith-based suicide.

And this is perhaps the best candidate the Republican Party can offer for the White House?

The special irony, of course, is that his state will be at the leading edge for testing the efficacy of establishing environmental policy on the basis of faith, and in the face of all evidence. I would say that it would take a miracle for him to retain the support of a Floridian majority ... except that I know his preference for faith over evidence is probably shared by a distressingly large chunk of Florida's electorate.

Robbed by the bulldozer

I live in an area now experiencing the emergence of Brood II of the mid-Atlantic's famed 17 year cicadas.

Or, to be more accurate, I live in an area that should be experiencing Brood II's emergence.

I hear them in the forest behind the school where I park my bus. I hear them in what's left of the forest near the local elementary school. I suspect I'll hear them if I go hiking this weekend. But I'm not hearing them where I live.

Why not? That's a good question, but I'll be it has a lot to do with the fact that this community (if I dare use that term) didn't exist in 1996, when they last emerged. This area was mostly farm and forest back then, but nearly all the farms are gone, and only vestiges of the forests remain. All else has been churned up by bulldozers, transformed into a landscape of cookie-cutter townhouses interspersed with variations on the McMansion theme.

Did the bulldozers wreak so much havoc that they annihilated Brood II? That's my guess.

Sad. I miss the beady-eyed little critters. Along with their incessant song. And the farms and fields that have disappeared, too.

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Update: A wayward cicada flew into an open window on my bus and landed near a first grader. She wavered between disgust and fascination, so I leaned overand asked her age. "Six." I mentioned that the next time she saw one, she'd be 23. She looked puzzled, as though the very idea of ever being that old was utterly incomprehensible. To me, that's fundamental to the sense of wonder these insects engender; they stretch our sense of time beyond the constraints of the ordinary.

Update: The photo above replaces the "borrowed" original; this one was shot in the forest remnant bordering the lot where I park my bus.

Good for the body, good for the planet

After I got the job driving a school bus and decided I liked it, I moved to be closer to work. Now, if I drive to work, I've got about a 7.1 mile round trip by car ... and since we get an enormous (unpaid!) break in the middle of the day, it's a round trip I usually make twice a day.

But I don't drive my commute; I bike it. Granted, the bike route saves about two miles on the round trip, since I can take a short cut that's not available to drivers. Thanks to that short cut, the elapsed time is about the same. But still, it saves 14 miles of driving every day I hop on the bike.

More to the point, biking puts me in better shape. Which is not an inconsiderable benefit, considering that I'm in training for yet another Grand Canyon hike. (see my other blog, ketches, yaks and hawks.)

But it also saves on gasoline. Assuming I bike both my commutes, morning and afternoon, every day of the week, I'm saving about 70 miles of driving. Which for me, would be about three gallons each week, which is three gallons of irreplaceable gasoline which isn't being pumped out of the ground, and three gallons of gasoline which isn't ending up as greenhouse gas emissions. Not a large amount in the scheme of things, but every bit saved really does help.

It also means I'm saving about ten dollars each week. Which isn't bad news for somebody who is still adjusting to being seriously underemployed.

So it's a win-win-win solution. I commend it to everybody who can find a way to get to work on a bike

Relections on Iceland's volcano

As all of Europe and probably most of the rest of the world now knows, ash spewed from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano has shut down much of Europe's airspace. It's obviously a tremendous inconvenience to would-be airline passengers, and a serious hit on the finances of a great many airlines and airports. Perhaps less obvious are three interesting implications of the eruption.












Iceland is comparatively far from Europe, but even western Russia and northern Italy are being affected, and flights from or to Europe have been canceled around the globe. Officials are sounding public health warnings about the ash, as well. We're four days into this phase of the eruption, with no indication of how much longer it will last; it's conceivable that ash in the atmosphere will come to affect air travel throughout the northern hemisphere. It is a very dramatic illustration of how weather events in one part of the world affect life and commerce quite remote from the event. We would do well to remember Eyjafjallajokull when we consider the effects of climate change!

This also highlights the extent to which modern economies and consumers have become dependent on high altitude jetliner travel. High altitude insertion of greenhouse gases is particularly pernicious. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that aviation is responsible for around 3.5% of anthropogenic climate change, and the impact is growing. It would be good if Eyjafjallajokull leads us to be more mindful of the need to reduce the impact of jet travel on the global climate.

One of the many impacts being felt in Europe is the impending loss of most fresh produce deliveries, as much of Europe's produce is flown in. I'll bet that is coming as a surprise to a great many shoppers! This should highlight how even such a simple act as eating a fresh fruit contributes to our greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps Eyjafjallajokull will encourage consumers to choose locally grown foods? One can hope.

Response to a response

I received a comment from Jon-Roy Sloan on a posting of mine which suggested that Congress enact an increase in the federal gasoline tax to encourage drivers to conserve fuel, and thereby mitigate several problems facing our nation. The original posting came almost a year ago, when gasoline prices had declined so far that an additional dollar per gallon would have left prices well below what they had been even a few months before. Since the comment goes far beyond that rather narrow topic, I thought it merited a separate discussion.

Here's Sloan's comment, in full, with its native grammatical blemishes:

Why do want the government to regulate every portion of our lives? Do you seriously believe what you are saying? You want government to take even more of my hard earned money and give a rebate to low-income earners? I worked hard, school, military, grad school, to get where I am and you want to take it away because you believe the sky is falling? The weatherman can't accurately predict the weather for more than 24 hours out, and they have only been able to that for the past 8-10 years and you expect me to believe in Al Gore. Apparently your not from Tennessee, there is a reason Tennesseans didn't vote for him in 2000, he is a LIAR and a CHEAT!

I find his comment of considerable interest, particularly because much of what he says isn't at all related to the posting. I'll take his comments point by point.

I was not advocating that government "regulate every portion of our lives." Indeed, quite the contrary. I feel very strongly, for instance, that government should not regulate private behavior which does not adversely affect the interests of other people. For instance, I favor the right of loving couples to marry, regardless of the race or gender(s) of the couple; I favor the right of people to hold and voice the political views they favor regardless of whether their views offend others or even call into question the political and economic policies of the nation at large, I favor the right of individuals to write and publish and read whatever they choose, and I favor the right of all of us to live free from bigotry regardless of our ethnicity, gender, religiosity, or sexual orientation. I may be making an enormously incorrect assumption about Sloan's ideology, but I wonder if he feels the same way?

Yes, I do seriously believe what I am saying. I would not have wanted to take the effort of writing if I didn't, and I think it does little for the sake of discourse to doubt the seriousness with which others propound their opinions.

I gather Sloan opposes the concept of either progressive taxation or government expenditures which do not favor the wealthy, or both. I disagree. The existence, let alone the growth, of substantial income disparities weakens the fibers holding our nation together, yet ever since the so-called "Reagan revolution" that is exactly what has been happening. Income disparities are at their greatest level since such records began to be kept over a century ago. I'm not going to go into the specifics here, as there is a lot of commentary and data supporting this assertion; highly readable collections of resources for those interested can be found in the writings of folks such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich. Indeed, I should think that even the very wealthy would be concerned, lest the disparities spark such political turmoil as could threaten their own privileged position. Reduction of those disparities would be of common interest for this reason, if no other. But there are other reasons. A broader sharing of the nation's wealth would promote the national interest by stimulating productivity, encouraging growth, and building a richer, stronger and more cohesive nation. (You'll notice I say nothing here about the ethical implications of such disparities, but I would argue that they are of even greater moment.)

In reply to Sloan's specific complaint about using federal tax policy to transfer some of the wealth of the very affluent to the very poor, I would say "yes." We saw during the Bush years how ineffective and unjust tax policies were when they served to transfer tax burden to the working poor and lower middle class from the very wealthy, and how little those policies did to benefit the nation at large (and here I am being generous). It is time to reverse that trend, and restore some economic justice to our tax system. Frankly, for starters, I'd be happy to see it revert to the level of progressivity we saw during the Reagan years.

What I'm guessing that Sloan is missing here is any understanding of how more equitable federal tax and expenditure policy can benefit the nation at large. Higher education provides one of the most obvious examples, as expenditure and tax policies which make college more affordable for students from less affluent families not only expand the horizons of those students, but enrich the nation at large by increasing our national intellectual capital. Or take the issue that seems to stir Sloan's ire. Higher gasoline prices encourage Americans to use less fuel, either by eliminating unnecessary driving, driving more fuel efficient vehicles, using mass transit more, or biking and walking more. Each of these alternatives provide multiple benefits, among them being a reduction of American reliance on foreign oil (which benefits the economy and national security), reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (which benefits our health, environment, and ability to deal with environmental degradation) and our quality of life (by leading to better exercise, less traffic congestion), while simultaneously providing motivation for our automobile manufacturers to become more globally competitive.

Sloan doesn't like the idea of tax rebates for the working poor, but he is ignoring (or is blind to) a basic question of equity. The working poor are the people least able to upgrade their automobile choices to more modern fuel efficient vehicles, and are most likely to be stuck with older, less efficient cars. A tax -- whether directly imposed by the government or indirectly imposed by the marketplace -- which has the effect of dissuading people from driving gas hogs hits them the hardest, but a rebate of the tax they paid can mitigate that impact, and do so in a very productive way by further encouraging them to switch to more fuel efficient transportation.

Sloan also misses a key aspect of a rebate: the rebate of gas taxes paid by poor consumers to those same consumers is not a transfer of tax revenues from the affluent driver Sloan seems to favor, but a return to the working poor of taxes the working poor have paid out of their own funds.

He also misses the sad fact that many of the working poor work hard too. They just don't have the advantages Sloan presumably has (e.g., college education, including a graduate education), so their hard work doesn't provide them with the income Sloan's hard work provides. That's testimony to a difference in opportunity, not in effort or virtue.

Despite his good education, Sloan then segues into an ignorant dismissal of issues relating to global warming, confusing the uncertainties of short-term weather forecasting with the causes, nature and consequences of global warming. And no, I don't expect Sloan to "believe in Al Gore" (whatever that means) but I do expect any educated and informed human being to be impressed by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community regarding global warming, and to participate in a serious discussion of the issues rather than retreat into silly ad hominem attacks on a single individual, especially ones based on personal anger over matters totally unrelated to the topic nominally at issue.

Read Krugman, think globally, act locally

As is usual, Paul Krugman's column today (use this link to read the original) about the sharply rising price of staple foods provides valuable insights into a vexing problem. Clearly, the problems he discusses are global. Yet it is possible for each of us to make changes which could prove very important collectively.

Krugman notes that raising meat is a lot less efficient means of producing food than raising crops for direct consumption. We don't need to become vegetarians to make a difference (although I do think it would be a great idea!), but by simply reducing the amount of meat we eat we can easily conserve arable land. Reduce demand for meat, and free land to feed others. Our dietary choices do matter globally.

Similarly, changes in our shopping behavior can make a real difference. To the extent that we increase the proportion of our food which is grown locally, we decrease the energy costs of its transportation. To the extent that we buy organically grown food, we decrease the demand for petroleum-based fertilizers. We don't need to be 100% pure to have an effect.

We can get smarter about our driving, combining errands and using alternative, more fuel efficient means of travel when feasible. Obviously we can move towards more fuel efficient cars, but perhaps just as important, we can keep cars longer and thereby reduce the resource costs of producing automobiles.

Do these things, we'll also save a good bit of money along the way. If enough of us do it, we may also redefine what living affluently means, making less wasteful practices more attractive to people around the world striving to become as affluent as we are.

We can also commit to voting for legislators and a president committed to energy conservation and intelligent usage of available resources, and also to pressuring them as candidates before their election and incumbents afterwards to work towards those goals. We can let them know that working to feed the poor of this world is a better use for our tax dollars than continuing a ruinous, illegal and counterproductive war in Iraq. It is disturbing that Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain seem so tightly wedded to ill-considered ethanol programs, but we can and should let them know that we think they're wrong on this issue, and that it matters to us.

Each of us can make a difference. Our choices matter, and if enough of us do it, our collective impact can be huge.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 8 April 2008

Weak coffee at the CAFE

Letter to the New York Times

submitted December 1, 2007 in response to an article (click for full article) reporting on legislation to increase auto efficiency standards

Contrary to the assertion reported in the Times, the automotive fuel efficiency standards wending their way through Congress would not "force wrenching changes on the American car companies." The handwriting has been on the petroleum wall ever since our existing standards were enacted nearly a quarter century ago. The technology to meet the proposed standards is not only proven, but available to consumers throughout the rest of the world. The proposed legislation calls for only a 27% increase in automobile efficiency over the 36 years since the existing standards were set, a rather paltry improvement considering that even China is already there, and the Europeans are already 14% better. The only real questions are why such belated action is even controversial, and why stronger efficiency standards aren't even on the table.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 1 December 2007

Liberal global warming denial

We're all pretty familiar with the conservative and neoconservative arguments against taking action to counter global warming, and even with their arguments denying the concept's validity. Until recently, however, I had been unaware of a liberal argument having the same effect. But I recently got into a discussion with a colleague at work who believes quite strongly that the threat of global warming is greatly over-rated and that action against such risks as it presents can be deferred indefinitely while more pressing problems demand our attention now -- problems such as famine, drought, and poverty in the Third World. In the course of our discussion, he sent along a link to "Spiked," a blog on the topic, which shall be the point of departure for this discussion, and which you might want to read.

It seems to me that this argument rests upon six major fallacies.

The first is the assumption that global warming has little or no current impact on the lives of the world's poor, and thus should be ignored while we address more pressing problems. There is bitter irony here, for the adverse effects of global warming will fall most heavily upon those least able to bear the burden, which are the same populations whose fates concern these liberal deniers of global warming's seriousness. Already, for example, we're seeing devastating droughts in many parts of the world -- linked by prominent climatologists to the effects of global warming -- which are making water for irrigation, human consumption and hygiene extremely difficult to obtain and are thereby imperiling the ability of some of the world's poorest people to survive. These droughts are contributing to desertification, further endangering the people in the affected regions. Some climatologists are also suggesting that global warming's effects are already making major storms more frequent and more severe, and their effects are being felt most heavily by very poor populations living in low-lying coastal areas. Working to ameliorate the suffering of the Third World without addressing a major root cause of that suffering seems altogether futile.

A second mistaken assumption is that the long-term effects of global warming will either be relatively minor or even benign, or will be amenable to correction by technological solutions not yet existent, or are so far distant that we need not worry about the problem now. Yet scientific study after scientific study tells us that the rate of change is increasing, that world climate systems will take a long time to respond to corrective action, and that we may already be at or near the tipping point of irreversible change. Further, the amount of change will, in fact, be major. For instance, even a five meter rise in sea levels -- which could well happen within this century -- will inundate vast amounts of land, and make even larger areas vulnerable to severe storms. Many of the world's poorest people live and farm in such areas; think of Bangladesh, for instance. (Many of the world's richest cities would also be affected; imagine the impact upon such American metropoli as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, New Orleans, Seattle and Honolulu.) As Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona notes, "Even with a small sea level rise, we're going to destroy whole nations and their cultures that have existed for thousands of years." The adverse effects aren't limited to humanity, either; a study published in Nature warms that nearly a million species could be driven towards extinction by mid-century.

A third argument posits the false dichotomy that we must choose between addressing long-term problems such as global warming and more immediate problems such as poverty, hunger and disease. Why cannot we do both?

Obviously implicit in this third argument is the assumption that we lack the resources to do both. Yet the estimates I've seen suggest that the direct cost is analogous to or even lower than cost of our disastrous war in Iraq. Surely we could afford to do a lot to ameliorate all sorts of human suffering while also addressing global warming, were we to stop pouring our national treasure into the Iraqi sand. Further, the costs of not doing anything are also high, and probably much higher than the costs of taking action.

A fourth fallacy is the inherent assumption that there will be no offsetting savings as we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. But there will be, at both the individual and national levels. For example, a family which chooses a 2007 Honda Civic over a 2007 Honda Pilot 4WD, for instance, will travel 70% farther on the same amount of fuel and will pay about half as much for the vehicle itself (the price reflecting, among other things, a lower resource cost to the planet), yet for nearly all purposes the Civic would provide perfectly adequate transportation. Improving energy efficiency standards for all sorts of consumer products will similarly provide long-term savings to consumers while lowering national carbon emissions. Learning to use our energy more wisely -- bundling errands, walking or biking for short trips, setting thermostats a few degrees cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer, installing energy-efficient lighting, increasing our use of recycling -- will produce further savings for the consumer. Yet many of these steps can be taken without economic pain or even inconvenience. And they can all be done with current technology.

The troubling foundation to these arguments against taking action to combat global warming is the failure to recognize the depth of the scientific consensus over the seriousness of the danger of global warming. Fifteen years ago, the consensus did not yet exist, but now it does. With very few exceptions, the relevant scientific community recognizes the problem, and recognizes it as serious. There is still -- and probably will always be -- debate over the extent of the danger, and the rapidity with which warming-related problems will emerge, but such debate should not distract us from the underlying consensus that global warming is a clear and present danger to us all.

One issue which I tried to raise with my colleague which has so far received little attention, but which I think should alarm us all, is its potential for sparking conflict. The historical record is clear; there has always been a strong linkage between resource scarcities -- real, potential or merely perceived -- and conflict. To the extent that global warming imperils the ability of nations to obtain the resources they need, be it arable land, water, food, or anything else, it will lead to conflict, and to war.

It seems to me that addressing the causes of global warming is not only imperative, but is also essential to ameliorating the suffering of the poorest among us. To focus solely upon the latter without working to solve the former will prove analogous to arranging a more equitable distribution of deck chairs on the Titanic.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 9 July 2007