Refugia Newsletter #61

California mudslides, 1.5C goals, Lenten meat fasts, Solar Faithful, and refugia art.

Refugia News

I do believe I met all the loveliest people in the state of Georgia on February 3. They had gathered for the Georgia Interfaith Power and Light “Green Team Summit,” where I was honored to be the keynote speaker. What an amazing group! Christians, Jews, Muslims, Black and White, old and young—all determined to work together on climate in their communities, inspired by their faith and by the needs of the world. My fondest thanks go especially to the amazing “GIPL” team (pronounced “gipple”—which even they giggle about), a group of young, smart, kind, and determined organizers. They’re shaking up the world, and I’m so grateful I got to be a tiny part of their work.

Chatting after my talk with response panelists Avery Davis Lamb, Co-Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries, and Augusta pastor Rev. Brendolyn Jenkins Boseman, along with GIPL staffer and biomimicry expert Beth Remmes. Photo credit: Raj Tehani of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light.

In podcast news, I recorded an episode this past week for Brian McLaren’s Learning How to See podcast. My friend Melanie Griffin from Third Act Faith joined us, too, and we shared experiences inviting both older folks and young people into healing work. More Green Lectionary podcast episodes coming up too, including the one focused on the Easter Sunday text from John 20. Yikes! I’ll keep you posted on their release.

Speaking of keeping you posted, if you want to go back in time a couple weeks and join the good people at Deep Green Faith for the webinar I helped lead, you can watch the evening’s conversation on YouTube. The conversations at the end with the panel and the participants are the best part.

This Week in Climate News

My family lived in the Los Angeles area from 2004-2006, so I have a tiny bit of experience with Southern California’s tendency toward gorgeous weather much of the year, punctuated occasionally by apocalyptic disaster weather. Unfortunately, climate change is bringing on more of that disaster weather. Californians have been coping this month with the “Pineapple Express,” an atmospheric river phenomenon that dumped record rainfall on the region.

An atmospheric river is just what it sounds like: a whole bunch of moisture streaming along in the sky. The milder flows are fine—that’s how rain gets delivered to a thirsty California, for example. But when an atmospheric river gets super-powered, it dumps a lot of rain, sometimes very quickly. The Pineapple Express is the nickname for the atmospheric river that forms between Hawaii and the California coast, hence dragging the innocent pineapple into the name. (I imagine all the pineapples piping up in protest: “It’s not our fault!”)

By February 6, an atmospheric-river-powered storm had dumped so much rain that Los Angeles area experienced over 475 mudslides. Since people like to build their homes on hillsides in SoCal (the view!), mudslides do tend to send large structures and objects sliding down those hills, causing a lot of damage and heartbreak. This is an interesting case where wealthier people are extremely vulnerable precisely because they can afford expensive hillside real estate. They share vulnerability with the regular folk down below, who experience the damage caused by flooding and mudslides at the foot of the hills. At least nine people have died because of this month’s storms.

As I say, California has always been subject to wild weather, but climate change is making the wildness even wilder. This is just physics: warmer air holds more moisture. Thus, according to AP News:

The storm smashed or approached many rain and wind records across the state, with downtown Los Angeles recording its third-wettest two-day stretch since recordkeeping began in the 1870s. Between 6 and 12 inches (15.2 and 30.5 centimeters) of rain fell over the Los Angeles area.

Unfortunately, it’s not over yet. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that an already thoroughly soaked region can expect even more storms this weekend.

Let’s zoom out from California and note another piece of grim news which helps explain not only California’s storms but our “new normal” of more extreme weather events. You may have heard or read “we’re now over 1.5 degrees!” It’s true that this is serious news, but it’s important to put this in perspective.

This excellent article by Umair Irfan in Vox clearly explains the whole situation. Here’s the opening paragraph:

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported Thursday [Fe. 8] that the period between February 2023 and January 2024 is the hottest 12-month span ever measured. During this time, global average temperatures rose 1.52 degrees Celsius — 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit — above average temperatures at the start of the Industrial Revolution, as measured between 1850 and 1900.

You probably know that the Paris Agreement in 2015 set a goal to keep the average global temperature to 1.5C over pre-industrial. So have we blown it?

Required scary graphic. Source: World Meteorological Association.

Well, probably, but not because of last year alone. A few key things to keep in mind.

1. One year does not an ongoing climate average make. There are numerous reasons why last year was especially hot, including the El Nino pattern. Climatologists work with long-term averages, like over decades. Also, we’re not even sure quite how to figure out when we’ve surpassed the Paris goal. There’s no agreed-upon method.

2. The Paris goal was just that: a goal. There is no sudden cliff we tumble over when we surpass 1.5C. There is science behind that goal, but if it were up to the science alone, we would be aiming for zero degrees above pre-industrial! That goal was set rather as a “doable-though-barely” compromise with reality on the ground.

3. We already know we will blow past that goal. There just aren’t any scenarios at this point where we don’t reach 1.5C for at least a while—that’s called “overshoot”—before we can cool and stabilize temperatures. We are currently on track for something over 2C by 2100, though that could change with rapid and widespread action. I refer you to this great article published in late 2022 (with awesome graphics) in the Washington Post. Also see issue #35 of this newsletter.

Want to read the science? Here is the Copernicus report, and here is the Berkeley Earth report.

What we don’t want to do with this news is: freak out. Urgent determination without total freak-out is the response we’re going for.

Freak-outs cause problems: doomism/paralysis on the one hand or, on the other, denialism and doubling down on authoritarian responses. In this article from Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn explores the psychology of a goal: goals are good, but they can cause problems if people misunderstand reporting about them.

Berwyn interviews policy researcher Paul Hoggett, who warns how people tend to respond when they feel disaster is upon them:

When climate reality starts to get tough, you secure your borders, you secure your own sources of food and energy, and you keep out the rest of them. That’s the politics of the armed lifeboat.

Another interviewee, climate researcher Reinhard Streurer, worries that people don’t understand the 1.5C goal:

You always have to explain that 1.5 means a climate we can adapt to and manage the consequences, 2 degrees of heating is really dangerous, and 3 means collapse of civilization.

Despite all the careful climate models, what we can’t entirely predict are the so-called “tipping points.” There are many possible tipping points. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation was in the news in the past couple weeks. I won’t go into all that here, except to refer you to this excellent article and invite you to marvel at the incredible graphics. I’ll tempt you with this still capture of the NASA-generated video. To see it gloriously spinning, you’ll have to click through to the article:

On tipping points in general, I recommend this very helpful article in the New York Times newsletter on what climate tipping points are, including arctic ice melt, ocean current collapse, biodiversity collapse, permafrost melt, etc. Happily, there are good tipping points, too, like rapid electrification, public opinion shifts, and biodiversity restoration. Those are the tipping points we want to push for.

Deeper Dive

Christians have entered the season of Lent, so I thought we might talk about deprivation. I know, I know: Lent is not just about deprivation! But the faithful do often “give up” something for Lent in order to focus on prayer or otherwise reflect on our various addictions as well as our dependence on God. One traditional thing to fast from: meat.

I have been moving toward a plant-based diet myself for more than a year now. I would like to pretend that I’m doing it for the planet, but honestly it has more to do with my cholesterol levels. For me, giving up meat—except for occasional fish—has not been a big deal. I’ve also reduced my egg and cheese consumption, which has been a lot harder. I do allow myself pepperoni pizza every couple weeks. A girl’s gotta live! When it comes to my experience with a plant-forward diet, I am here to tell you: I feel a lot better. Also, I’ve lost ten pounds.

Besides personal health benefits, though, it turns out that giving up or reducing consumption of meat, especially beef and lamb, is one of the very best things you can do for the planet—if you are able. This is because raising beef (and lamb) is an extremely resource-intensive way to create calories. It requires loads of land and water, loads of feed (which is typically grain that requires resources to grow), tons of fuel to ship, labor to slaughter and process, etc. Also, cows release methane in their… gaseous emissions, shall we say. Some producers are working toward less problematic cattle raising, but even “sustainable” beef is going to come up short against plant-based proteins.

As I mentioned a couple issues ago, I’m reading data analyst Hannah Ritchie’s new book, Not the End of the World. Ritchie’s premise is that we need to move forward on climate work encouraged by the momentum of the impressive strides we’ve already made. She’s a good one for optimism. And she has a whole section in the book on stuff we shouldn’t stress so much about. But when it comes to meat-eating, she frequently notes that we really do need to reduce our meat consumption.

Here’s a graphic from Our World in Data, Ritchie’s research hub.

You get the point. Since agriculture is responsible for about a quarter of all carbon emissions, we can use our appetites to shift our food systems toward less resource-intensive production. Animal ag is responsible for about 15% of our carbon emissions. (Ritchie’s data comes from this often-cited journal article in Science.)

What would happen if we all gave up meat immediately? Well, depends on where you are in the world, but of course it would be extremely disruptive to people’s livelihoods and diets if we all went cold turkey (sorry). A great article by Max Graham in Grist suggests, however, that a sudden global meat fast is not necessary:

Many researchers agree that phasing out meat entirely, let alone immediately, isn’t an ideal solution to the climate crisis. It would be plenty, they say, to reduce consumption methodically and to focus on the countries that eat the most, particularly wealthy ones like the United States that have no shortage of alternatives.  

Here’s another fun article, this one by Peter Singer in The Atlantic. Singer asks the question: If we know meat is so ethically problematic, why aren’t we all vegetarians? The answer is basically: peer pressure. Or peer permission, in this case; we do what other people give us permission to do.

Another potential tipping point, then: the more of us who reduce our meat consumption, the more natural it will seem to others.

Refugia Sighting

I love this recent story by Izzy Ross (also in Grist!) about churches putting solar panels on their buildings. I especially love that the article features churches in Michigan, including one up in Charlevoix called Greensky Hill Indian United Methodist. The article notes that “Greensky Hill has a long history of environmental care and stewardship, grounded in Anishinaabe culture, with a majority Native congregation.”

The church worked with a Michigan-based consortium called Solar Faithful that helps churches figure out how to go solar. Churches don’t often have a lot of up-front capital and they don’t pay taxes, so the IRA’s tax credits haven’t helped—until recently. Churches can use a “power purchase agreement,” but the IRA rules have also been adjusted to help through a direct pay program:

The federal Inflation Reduction Act has made it possible for governments and tax-exempt entities, including houses of worship, to get tax credits for renewable projects. Called direct pay, the program provides them with a tax credit worth up to 30 percent of the installation cost. That can help cover some expenses, and advocates say it’s critical to getting more congregations to consider solar.

Greensky Hill is also moving from propane to heat pumps, further reducing their expenses. Becoming early adopters in the renewable energy transition not only helps reduce churches’ utility costs, it also provides inspiration to members and to the community. It’s refugia work.

The Not-So-Wayback Machine

Something different today. I received a beautiful email a couple weeks ago from a seminary professor, Deacon Betsy Bennett of the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry in Topeka, Kansas. Betsy had used Refugia Faith in her Environmental Missions course, and one of the students in the class, Jory Mertens, decided to focus a creative project on refugia! He produced a series of art works and accompanying prayers. The whole project is lovely, so I asked Jory for permission to share a few images with you, and he kindly agreed. To see more of his art (and even order prints), you can check out his website. Here are two of the images for your enjoyment. Thank you, Jory!

Rooftop Garden (copyright Jory Mertens, used by permission)

Meadow Restoration (copyright Jory Mertens, used by permission)

That’s all for this week. Till next time, be well.

As always, bold type in quotations is added unless otherwise indicated.