Refugia Newsletter #83

Good news from 2024, LNG report, US climate goals, insurance troubles, religious voters, watershed ecology, church divestment, and flying beavers

Refugia News

Thank goodness today is the winter solstice. It has been SO DARK in Michigan these last few weeks. The sun comes up at 8 am, sets by 5 pm, and spends the daylight hours hiding behind a dense wash of pearly gray clouds. If you have a tendency to feel morose and gloomy (um, guilty as charged), Michigan in December provides ideal conditions.

I fired up the Happy Light on my desk to keep me from dipping too low into gloom, which helps. And thankfully, this season also brings music and twinkly lights, beautiful worship services and, in Christian observance, consoling Advent texts. Last time I referred to the altogether too-relevant scary apocalyptic texts of Advent, but this week, I’ve been dwelling on John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Starting today, the earth’s orbit and tilt will provide its annual geophysical demonstration of this promise.

Now you know what my desk looks like. Not exactly tidy or organized. Note student paper still in need of grading. Note mug of tea (probably the fourth of the morning).

Today will be the last newsletter edition until January 10. I take a little breather this time of year, partly to rest, and partly in order to get my writing schedule back in sync with my other writing deadlines.

Meanwhile, however you celebrate during this time of year, I wish you laughter with good friends, quiet and meaningful moments, good food and drink, and a sense of connection to all that is life-giving. May the Light shine for you.

I have been enjoying how these coneflowers still look cool in winter, especially with little tufts of snow on them. Also, the dark-eyed juncos still adore them for winter food supplies. Photo taken early afternoon—see what I mean? So GRAY.

This Week in Climate News

It’s been a rough year. And yet… honestly, there is so much good climate news. I’ll do a few good news stories today to top off our year. (Deeper Dive will be crappier, but you’ll be ready.)

I’m grateful to the good folks at Fix the News, based in Australia. They gather good news stories from around the world all year, but they also do an end-of-year round up. You can read their 86 good news stories from 2024 here, or you can listen to the podcast version to keep you cheerful while you drive around in holiday traffic.

Scanning through these 86 stories felt overwhelming to me in the best way, especially because they come from all over the world—so important to keep this perspective while we fret over the US. I’m also happy to report that if you’ve been reading this newsletter, a lot of these stories will sound familiar!

The Fix the News people cover global health, conservation, energy transition, human rights, and more. I’ll just mention a couple highlights here. Amazon deforestation levels continue to drop significantly. Whale populations are making an encouraging comeback. Many, many countries are protecting more land and waters. And here’s how the Fix the News folks sum up energy transition news from the past year:

2024 was the year of solar and batteries – a double act that reshaped global energy systems. While political discourse remained heated, the economic reality of cheap renewables became undeniable, with installations shattering all forecasts. China stunned observers by reaching its solar and wind targets six years early, the United States experienced its largest manufacturing boom since World War II, and in Europe, fossil fuels fell to historic lows.

For all the legitimate worries over climate change, progress has been made - the world is at least ten gigatonnes of emissions below the worst case scenarios of a decade ago. Clean energy is now eating into fossil fuel’s share not only in the power sector but also in transport, industry and beyond. From China’s falling oil demand, to geothermal’s surprise emergence, to breakthrough steel and shipping technologies, this year confirmed that despite headwinds, the energy transition has become unstoppable.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration delivered two important statements in the past two weeks. Yes, they’re kind of only symbolic for the moment. But they plant seeds for the future.

First, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the words. Remember the pause on new LNG (liquid natural gas) export terminal permits about a year ago, the one that thrilled climate activists and infuriated the oil and gas industry? Well, the point of the pause was for the Department of Energy to write a report examining whether more LNG development (for export) was a good idea. The just-released, 600-page report says: it’s not. In her cover letter, Granholm wrote that continuing LNG development for export was “neither sustainable nor advisable.” Why? Well, lots of reasons. Because of increased methane emissions, for one thing. In a New York Times article covering the story, Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport write:

The gas industry frequently claims that American exports of natural gas help the climate by displacing coal, which produces more carbon dioxide when burned. But Ms. Granholm noted that the study found increased L.N.G. exports would displace more wind, solar and other renewable energy than coal. The study modeled five scenarios and in every one, global greenhouse gases were projected to rise, even when researchers assumed aggressive use of technologies to capture and store carbon emissions.

But that’s not all. The report also found that these potential projects would wind up increasing gas costs for Americans, increase the pollution burden on Gulf Coast communities, and—on top of all that—the overseas market for gas is projected to experience a supply glut.

Will the report make a difference? Well, the report itself is not a ban on new development. But it will give evidence-based support to those who are poised to delay these developments further through congressional resistance, legal action, and other means. It’s a big deal that this message comes from the DOE. (For more good coverage of this story, see Jeremy Symons’s newsletter.)

Second symbolic gesture. President Biden has set a new, ambitious goal for US carbon emission reductions. Marianne Lavelle and Phil McKenna report in Inside Climate News:

The administration announced Thursday that it is racing ahead of most other countries and submitting the U.S. goal for the next phase of the Paris climate agreement: A target of reducing the nation’s net carbon emissions by 61 to 66 percent below 2005 levels by 2035.

The goal is an “NDC,” a Nationally Determined Contribution. These are the official statements nations make as part of the Paris Agreement. The idea is “OK, here’s what we promise to do!” As a professor, I appreciate that President Biden was a very good doobie by submitting the US goal before the official deadline early next year.

What’s the point of such a goal, you might wonder, when the next president scorns the Paris Agreement and everything it entails? Well, here’s the interesting part to me. The goal is partly a signal to states and localities to keep moving forward on carbon reductions despite federal resistance:

The White House said part of the reason the Biden administration decided to release the NDC now was to show state and local governments of the need to increase their efforts.

“It’s important to signal to sub-national actors what we think ambition looks like, and what people need to work and strive for and to set off that virtuous cycle of an investment and enhanced ambition,” said one senior administration official. “And it’s important to do that across the globe, to show that the United States has the means and the will, at least at the sub-national level, to continue to be constructive players in the system and to move the world forward.”

“Sub-national actors” is a new term for me, but it’s going to be an important one. So yeah, these two stories are both about symbolic gestures for now, but we can think of them as seeds planted for the future.

Continued progress on clean energy transition in the US will depend on “sub-national actors” and on preserving the bulk of the Inflation Reduction Act. I’ve seen many stories of Republican congresspeople, auto industry execs, and other perhaps unlikely suspects begging to keep the tax credits and subsidies in place. Here’s a fun little video along those lines on a very local level. It’s a representative of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum insisting that senators and congressional reps from conservative rural districts are not going want IRA funding to be cut or eliminated: they want the money that’s been flowing to their districts!

One more big story. I always say that despite climate denial and fear, sometimes what keeps us grounded in the facts is just… money. The New York Times this week reported on how the insurance industry has been dropping homeowner policies because they recognize climate risk. Insurance companies, after all, specialize in the quantification of risk. They have every motivation to believe the actual science on increasing flooding, wildfire, hurricane, and sea level risks. So they do. However, they don’t necessarily like to explain what they’re up to. Which is why the Senate Budget Committee demanded a report from the big companies on where, exactly, they are dropping coverage. Here’s the result:

Since 2018, more than 1.9 million home insurance contracts nationwide have been dropped — “nonrenewed,” in the parlance of the industry. In more than 200 counties, the nonrenewal rate has tripled or more, according to the findings of a congressional investigation released Wednesday.

Obviously, this is terrible news for a lot of homeowners. You can’t get a mortgage without insurance. And you can’t sell your home to someone else if insurers won’t insure it. So… what happens to your investment? This is going to be an ongoing crisis.

Source: U.S. Senate Budget Committee. Note: The state average is shown in counties with few policies reported.

Deeper Dive

Time for that crappy deep dive I promised. Last week, religion and culture research outfit PRRI came out with a post-election survey analyzing who voted for each candidate in the US presidential election. Unsurprisingly, White evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump, at 85%. Majorities of White Catholics, Hispanic Protestants, and even White non-evangelical Protestants also voted for him.

Here’s an article by Bob Smietana from Religion News Service analyzing why White and Hispanic Christians would vote for Trump. The reasons are basically immigration for White Christians and economics and (to some degree) abortion for Hispanic Christians. In fact, the more White evangelicals and Catholics go to church, the more likely they were to vote for Trump. Meanwhile, the less non-evangelical Protestants go to church, the less likely they were to vote for him. So… what is happening at church, exactly?

From the PRRI summary:

Among white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics, higher church attendance is correlated with higher support for Trump.

· While solid majorities of white evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly supported Trump across all levels of church attendance, weekly church attenders reported voting for Trump at significantly higher levels (88%) than those who seldom or never attend church (77%).

· White Catholics who attend church weekly report voting for Trump at higher levels (64%) than those who attend monthly (58%) or seldom/never (56%).

· The opposite pattern appears among white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, however: those who attend weekly (52%) report voting for Trump at lower levels than those who attend church less often.

The whole summary is fascinating and doesn’t take long to read. A couple further insights from the survey results that kind of blew my mind: Republicans and “Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers” (PRRI’s term) aren’t particularly worried that Trump will do some of the things he has threatened to do, like not step down after four years, weaken democracy, use the federal government for retribution against his personal enemies, etc. I suppose not believing he truly means to do these things makes it easier to vote for him. On the other hand, “Republican voters and voters who score high on the authoritarianism scale are the most likely to agree that the U.S. military should put undocumented immigrants into internment camps until they can be deported.”

Well, you can guess where I stand on all this. In my view, American Christians are not being very well formed by Christianity—as evidenced by what a majority of them are willing to overlook and ignore, and by the cruel and draconian (and frankly logistically impossible or just ineffective) measures they seem to affirm for legitimate concerns. This is all relevant, of course, to climate concerns as well, in the sense for most American Christians, climate doesn’t even come into their political decision-making: a majority of American Christians voted for a climate denier.

My conclusion is that the prophetic edge of the church has work to do, preferably in cooperation with people of all faiths and good conscience.

Refugia Sightings

How about a couple pieces of good news about Christian groups, then? Not exactly refugia per se, maybe, but still indicators of good hope. First, the Episcopal church has completed their divestment from fossil fuels, a ten-year project involving a portfolio of about $500 million. This is only one pillar of an admirably comprehensive climate and creation care strategy for the Episcopal church.

Here’s more good news. Despite what we just learned about American evangelicals, the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Incheon, South Korea, just produced… a climate care statement. The Lausanne Congress is a global meeting of evangelicals (of the more conservative bent, too) to focus on missions. This year, a subcommittee of sorts appointed by the Congress produced the “Korean Invitation,” a call for Christians to work on climate issues and creation care:

We call for all Christians, in our personal lives, churches, workplaces, and societies, to be engaged actively in protecting, preserving and restoring habitats and ecosystems, declaring and displaying the lordship of Christ through the flourishing of creatures and places which were made for God’s glory.

It’s a good general statement, concise and somewhat comprehensive. Here’s another quote:

As a matter of biblical justice, it is important that the voices of those who suffer the worst impacts of nature’s destruction—marginalised communities, indigenous peoples, and those whose livelihoods depend directly on nature— be at the heart of discussions and solutions.

Well! Statements are great, but the question will be whether it infuses down into regular church-goer’s lives. We’ll see how it gets rolled out and used.

Finally, a lovely video about some very practical, literally on-the-ground(water) faith-based creation care. Students at my university recently made this lovely little video about the Plaster Creek Stewards project. I talk about Plaster Creek Stewards all the time, so you may already know that this is a long-term watershed restoration project that focuses on education, research, and actual work. The film describes “restoration ecology”—healing not only the water but also the social forces that cause pollution in the first place. Worth three minutes of your time!

Media Corner

I deeply regret that it is now too late to order this book for every young reader on your holiday gift list. However, I still have to tell you about When Beavers Flew: An Incredible True Story of Rescue and Relocation by Kristen Tracy, with illustrations by Luisa Uribe.

Here’s the book description: “This fascinating picture book tells the unique, quirky, and true story of how one man in Idaho saved 76 beavers from destroying a town by parachuting them into uninhabited wetlands.” This all happened in Idaho in 1948. I love that the fish and game warden who came up with the scheme actually used surplus parachutes from the World War II to pull off a massive beaver relocation project. I mean: genius.

OK, and then, as promised last time, here’s a link to my friend Colin Hoogerwerf’s article on what it was like to be at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, with the Christian Climate Observers Program.

Well, that wraps it up for the year. When I write to you next time, I will be coming to you from a very exciting location that I will not yet disclose. You’ll see!

Till then, I wish you beautiful and meaningful holidays and much grace and joy in the new year! I am grateful for you!

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