Climate Change

For decades now the scourge of climate change has been in our headlines.   Since the beginning of the industrial revolution over two hundred years ago, human activity has caused the release of carbon dioxide and other chemicals into the environment, leading to increasingly dramatic changes in the global climate.   Unsubstantiated claims of hoax and overstatement notwithstanding,  the changing climate of the planet is  an irrefutable reality.   From increasingly intense storms to extended drought and shrinking ice caps the evidence is there.    Pacific Island peoples are watching their homes disappear beneath the waves and coastal cities around the world are making plans for how to cope with rising sea levels.   Many species of animals and plants face extinction and are migrating in ways never witnessed before.  For humans and other creatures occupying the planet, the news is  not good.  

The painful piece of this is that we could have done something about it.   At so many turns in the road there were options.   National legislative action, global climate conferences, local action and more have been brought to bear on this most critical of concerns but the truth is we were lazy.   The truth is that the profits of oil companies and the comfort of our automobiles were more important than our children’s future.     

Is it too late?     I’m not a scientist and wouldn’t venture a guess.   However, it’s clear that we are at best, making a late start as ice fields melt and wholesale extinction becomes a probability.    No matter what we do now, it’s clear.  The climate has changed and continues to do so.

There is another kind of climate change taking place in our nation as well.    This is the change in political climate.    In the 2016 elections 46% of the population did not elect Donald Trump.  His opponent won the popular vote by more than two million votes.    Yet in spite of that Donald Trump Tweets on in narcissistic wonder as President Elect.    In positioning himself for this almost inconceivable upset, this businessman of questionable ethics pulled out the playbook of Adolf Hitler and used it masterfully.   I know.  Some will shake their heads and say this is a bridge too far.   But it’s not.

Hitler rose to power saying he would make Germany great again.   He rode the tide of economic stagnation, and turned to Jews to blame it on them.    Hitler also systematically erased truth, obfuscating any critical observation of his actions, first with propaganda, or as the media so euphemistically calls it, “fake news,”  and then with jack-booted thugs.    And finally, he furiously accused his critics of the very things he was doing.   

Does that sound familiar?   Donald Trump has been screaming for more than a year now about making America great again.   He rode to prominence, in part, by repeating over and over the absurd notion that President Barak Obama was not born in the United States.   He has turned his eire on many ethnic groups, but particularly on Muslims, calling to register them, which is exactly what Hitler did to the Jews.   Trump also erases truth, shouting out a putrid stream of lies, each one more blatantly astonishing than the next and all of them repeated by a media drunk with the ratings gained by covering the outrageous buffoon.    

There can be no denying it.  A climate change is taking place in our nation along-side the environmental one created by carbon emissions.    This change  has to do with the creation of a climate of fear.     Donald Trump and his minions have successfully tuned in to the fear of  white Americans who feel their privilege and economic power slipping.   He has tapped into the frustrations of racists, misogynists and homophobes who have for several decades been kept under control by a growing surge of acceptance and tolerance in our land.    But the President-Elect,derides this acceptance and openness as “political correctness” and glibly offers tacit  permission  to attack gay men and shoot Arabs on the street.   The social  progress won by blood and determination in the struggle for  justice and human rights is being eroded by the corrosive acid  of fear.   

The climate change we are experiencing is dramatic.   From an environment characterized by an expanding circle of inclusion in our culture, to a pall of hatred of the other;  from a fresh wind of hope and possibility to poisonous rants of “Lock her up!  Lock her up,”    the America being ushered in by a Trump Presidency is the herald angel of fear.     

As the Trump regime takes shape, we have seen an avalanche of cabinet appointments that indicate where he intends to take the nation.    A climate change denier is in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.   The head of one of the world’s biggest oil companies will be the Secretary of State, and the interests of his oil company are clearly not aligned with the interests of the nation.    A quasi-literate former Texas governor will be the head of the Department of Energy.    A person who never has had any engagement with public education is in charge of the Department of Education.    The list is long, and articulates a clear agenda.    We are looking at a regime that will remove health care from more than 20 million people.   We are about to experience the privatization of public education and of social security.     And, we are looking at state sponsored persecution of Muslims and other communities as well.   

The intent to dismantle America with the apparent assistance of a foreign power seems clear.   What is not clear, at least to this writer,  is how people of faith and integrity will respond.     What is not clear is what faithfulness and resistance look like in this time of burgeoning tyranny.    As the number of victims of this non-elected regime continues to grow, what are the choices before us?   

The first thing that occurs is that there needs to be a refusal to accept the normalization of the present circumstance.     This is not just another governmental transition.  This is not just an administration which sees things differently.   This is not merely a shift in point of view.       These people intend harm.  They are poised to hurt and destroy.    In the words of the infamous Koche Brothers, they intend to “destroy the dominant paradigm.”    They are glaringly clear about this intent, and we need not wait to see what they will do.      And we certainly do not, as some have said, hope for their success.   In the success of this coming government we will discover our mutual destruction.

So this is a call to resistance.   

This is not a time for whining or complaining or going numb in the chill waters of imminent totalitarianism.    This is a moment for decisive, clear opposition to what St. Paul calls “the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil…..   (Eph. 6:10). ”      It is an urging  to insist with our lives on love when hate strives to be in charge.     It is a  It is a prophetic shout to each one of us to do a fearless moral inventory of who we are and what we are willing to do to counter this literal tide of evil.    

The question before us is this.   What sacrifices are we willing to make?   For sacrifice will be required.   This is not a reality that will dissolve before impotent ranting on social media.   For this climate change to be halted and reversed, people of good will and compassion will have to rise up, not just with voices but with action.    From engaging in local politics, such as town councils and school boards to participating in state and national campaigns, our energy, time and yes….sacrifice are required.    From openly sabotaging attempts to register Muslims to building alternative communities of safety for all people, the hope for the future begs our engagement.  

The work before us is an unpainted canvas, requiring imagination, creativity and courage.   Will we provide sanctuary for the dispossessed?  The time to draw is now.   Will we organize for non-violent resistance across the nation?  Will we sit on the doorsteps of elected officials?   This is the moment to dip our brushes into the colors of justice and hope.    From placing our bodies in the path of the machinery of hate to “driving a spike into the wheel of injustice (Dietrich Bohnhoeffer),”   today is the day we come together to create a masterpiece of equity and compassion.  

The Climate of hate and greed that has arisen can be turned back, but it will take the best and ultimate efforts of each one of us.   It will take commitment.  It will take perseverance.   Our common goal is to halt the pollution of hatred and lies, to put a stop to the toxic waste of social disintegration and to pour our lives into the creation of a new and and life-giving climate that will sustain and nourish all people, a world where all are safe and “none shall make them afraid.”

So let us abandon our cynicism and our despair.   Let us lay down our defeatism and claim together the joy of being in the struggle for the healing of the world.     Make today the day that we begin.  Make today the first day of a new era of wonder and power for all people.