Refugia Newsletter #38
Antarctic ice melt, hopeium vs. doomism, practical church refugia, and Holy Saturday prayers
Refugia News
Happy Earth Month! The official Earth Day is coming up on April 22, precisely 53 years after the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. These days, Earth Day has happily spread to the whole month. Meanwhile, over this weekend, Christians, Jews, and Muslims will all be observing our respective holy days. The calendars for Holy Week, Passover, and Ramadan don’t always overlap like this. So perhaps this is a time to ponder how our faith commitments compel us to care for this earth that God loves—and seeks ways to do this in partnership with other faith communities.
In my own church, we’ve been observing Good Friday in recent years by walking an adapted stations-of-the-cross practice outdoors. We have cultivated a nature walk on our church property featuring native trees and plants, and we have set up crosses and borrowed some traditional readings and prayers for Good Friday. Being outside, feeling the wind, walking among the dried grasses and un-leafed trees—our meditations on Christ’s suffering on this most somber day of the church year take on fresh resonance as we feel “not only the creation, but we ourselves … groan inwardly,” longing for the fulfillment of our redemption (as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8).
One of the stations on my church’s outdoor nature trail.
Today is Holy Saturday for Christians, and if you’re interested, I have put together some observances for this day. You’ll find the link under The Wayback Machine, below. Whatever your faith observance this weekend, may you experience peace and hope. More on hope in a minute.
This Week in Climate News
One new story this week and two follow-ups.
A study appeared on March 29 in the journal Nature concluding that accelerating Antarctic ice melt is on track to slow down water circulation in the ocean. According to sophisticated predictive modeling, “abyssal ocean circulation” could slow down by 40% in thirty years, thus messing up the “global meridional overturning” of the ocean. So what? Well, here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Basically, the world’s oceans stir themselves. Currents of water on the surface and in various levels below the surface keep nutrients moving around and modulate water temperatures. That stirring is partly prompted by super-cold, salty water at the poles, which sinks down and gets “abyssal” water moving. Accelerating glacial melting, however, means that lots of fresh water slides into the ocean at the surface and, because it’s lighter than salty water, doesn’t sink. Thus, the stirring effect of those low currents slows down. Moreover, this phenomenon perpetuates itself to create feedback loops. This all means not only ocean rise from melting ice, but changes in weather patterns and even the collapsing of ocean ecosystems.
This video, from a helpful piece in the Guardian, is the best way to understand, plus it shows some of the super-cool modeling graphics the authors of the study have developed.
The study’s modeling assumes a business-as-usual scenario for carbon emissions. The good news is that if we severely cut carbon emissions driving the warming that drives the glacial melt, we can slow down the melt and thus slow down this slowing down. Slowing the slowing is the best we can do—it’s happening. The predictive models correspond with current observations. In fact, the current observed data looks a little worse than the models.
Two quick follow-ups on new stories from last time.
On the Willow Project, I found this episode of the podcast Climate One informative. The host, Greg Dalton, interviews White House climate advisor Ali Zaidi about the Willow Project and other White House climate decisions and initiatives. Listen skeptically: Zaidi is practiced at happy PR, and the podcast is funded in part by interests vested in fossil fuels (click around, you’ll see). But the questions asked and the way Zaidi responds offer a glimpse at how some insiders view the dilemmas of energy transition.
The IPCC AR6 report I mentioned last time—the big summary of the whole Sixth Assessment cycle—has raised hackles among climate activists for the way it was “watered down” by vested interests. I wrote about that last time, but here’s a good summary by Kristoffer Tigue in Inside Climate News. Watering down is happening, but we’re onto it, thanks to the reporters who chased down this story. Anyway, the AR6 report is grim enough to prompt concerted action, even with some softened language.
Deeper Dive
So how do we deal with all the grim news that just keeps coming? Let’s talk about hope—and doomism. Husband Ron tripped on a Twitter thread this week that we then foolishly followed down over dinner one night, leading to a real bummer of a dinner time. A little more investigation confirmed that the guy in question is a full-on doomer. I won’t share his name; it doesn’t matter.
Navigating between “hopeium” and “doomism” is a real challenge not only for people working in climate directly but for anyone who catches a whiff of the news. I’ve been following data cruncher Hannah Ritchie here on Substack, and I appreciated this March 21 article she wrote for Vox, “We Need the Right Kind of Climate Optimism.” She argues that doomism and hopeium are both harmful because they lead to inaction. The best posture is optimism combined with a conviction that our actions can change things. This is not only the most realistic but the most useful posture.
She writes, “I’ve found that pessimists look at the news, while optimists look at the data.”
Image credit: Hannah Ritchie/Vox
A changeable-optimistic posture, Ritchie argues, does not avoid criticism, bad news, or problems. On the contrary, recognizing problems is exactly what prompts the action:
Changeable optimists don’t shy away from criticism of the status quo. In fact, they’re often its fiercest critics. People often mistake pessimism for critical thought and optimism for pollyannaism. In reality, progress is built by those who can look critically at a suite of solutions, discard the bad ones, and find and sharpen the gems that remain. Pessimists use criticism as a wall, while optimists use it as a guiding door.
As I read Ritchie’s essay, I pondered how this posture comports with religious faith. From what does our hope derive: divine action or human effort—or both? I’m too Calvinistic to believe that humans on their own can “fix things” with enough optimism and oomph. Then what is the role of human action in relation to divine action? We know that some religious people shrug at climate change and say, “God is powerful. God will take care of it.” To which I respond, “Yes, but God works at least in part through people!” (And the earth itself, I would add.) In this sense, I agree with Ritchie’s proposal that active hope is the key. A passive posture seems to me a kind of misunderstanding of the doctrine of Providence. Sure, God acts, but that doesn’t mean we sit around. Do you want to be working with God, witnessing to God’s actions, or allow your passivity to uphold the status quo?
Ritchie quotes a colleague, Max Roser, who sums things up in a way I think I could put some theology behind. Roser reflects how much better the world is now than in the past (for humans) but also how far we have to go: “The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.”
Vox’s Bryan Walsh also wrote a piece last month arguing for a positive outlook. I felt less resonance with this one, partly because he evokes “progress” as a kind of abstraction, putting too much faith in it. I’m wary of trusting “progress” as a panacea. Every kind of progress brings further problems, he concedes. But this essay seemed to me to partake in at least a whiff of hopeium. What do you think?
Refugia Sighting
In my ongoing search for faith communities creating refugia spaces and engaging in climate action, I’ve been reading a recent scholarly book by Cybelle T. Shattuck of Western Michigan University. The book is called Faith, Hope, and Sustainability: The Greening of US Faith Communities, and it’s a researched analysis of 15 faith communities doing a variety of long-term projects. Shattuck’s research analyzes how and why these groups got involved in climate and how they managed to make it work.
Meanwhile, the good people in the Office of Social Justice in my home denomination have just released a fantastic resource. It’s called This Is Hunting Park. The Hunting Park neighborhood serves as a model of what’s possible when people of faith work together.
This vibrant and resilient community in Philadelphia, while plagued with the harsh realities of the climate crisis and environmental injustice, is stepping up and pursuing faithful climate action.
Lest anyone think climate action is only for rich, suburban congregations, Hunting Park proves that urban communities hold plenty of possibility. The resource includes a cool map with videos describing all the projects Hunting Park is working on, a study guide for church groups, and lots of additional resources. My friend Andrew Oppong at the OSJ tells me the resource has been a year in the making. Good job, team!
Image credit: crcna.org
The Wayback Machine
Holy Saturday, between the somber observances of Good Friday and the joy of Easter, is sometimes called the “Great Silence.” Christians are left mostly to their own devices for observing this day in the liturgical calendar—until Easter Vigil in the evening, if you’re lucky. Wanting something to do, devotionally speaking, on Holy Saturday, I came up with some ideas. This piece from 2018 begins with a reflection on a Maundy Thursday service before offering readings, prayers, and reflections for the day.
No lights were on, not even a candle. The dusk of the day through the opaque glass ceiling over our chancel area yielded just enough light to see, but all the color had drained from this familiar worship space, leaving nothing but grays.
Blessings to you this week, and until next time, be well.
