Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.
In his book
"Why The Christian Right Is Wrong" Dr. Robin Meyers says:
"When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth, which is God's gift to us all, so the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton."
I recently had the privilege of listening to a sermon about climate change called "God's Taunt" given by Bill McKibben, founder of
350.org at
Riverside Church in New York. That sermon is the topic for tonight's Brothers & Sisters diary.
I encourage people to listen to the full 22 minute sermon, or listen to everything after the 5 minute mark. For those who may have time constraints, I'll offer a recap and summary below.
At around the 5:00 mark, Bill McKibben talks about physicist Jay Oppenheimer's reaction when he witnessed the atom bomb explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico. He cited the Gita Hindu scripture saying "We are become God's; destroyers of the world." He notes because we were able to imagine the horrors of nuclear war, so far we have not gone further down that path.
At the 5:30 mark, Bill McKibben says:
So far, we have not been able to adequately imagine the horrors of the effects of the explosion of billions of pistons and billions of cylinders every minute of every hour of every day but those explosions are wrecking the earth just as surely and almost as fast as nuclear war.
That's very true. Despite all the warnings of climate scientists and environmentalists, despite Hurricane Sandy and other climate change related weather disasters, still too many people consider climate change a hoax or a non-urgent matter that can be addressed later.
At the 8:20 mark, he says climate change is not an act of God, but an act by us and it is "an act carried out against the least among us." He also calls climate change "the largest social justice issue we have ever faced."
At the 9:50 mark, he says when he started this work, he heard environmentalism was for rich white people who had taken care of their other problems. His experience has been the exact opposite. The rich usually feel they are immune to climate changes. If you are poor, the impact of climate change bears down on you harder.
At the 10:55 mark, he talks about how we've already raised the earth's temperature by 1 degree Celsius, and if we don't act quickly to get off fossil fuel's scientists say we will raise it 4 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
He noted (and its been noted in Daily Kos diaries) that Germany now generates half its power from solar energy, yet is geographically north of Montreal. What could we do with a Florida or a Nevada or a Texas or an Arizona?
At the 11:45 mark, he talks about why we don't act. He says:
"Our richest people don't want us to act because it would reduce their wealth somewhat. The fossil fuel industry is the 1% of the 1% the richest enterprise in human history"
They have bought a 25 year bipartisan effort to accomplish nothing
At the 12:45 mark, Bill McKibben says this reminds him of the parable of the rich young ruler in
Matthew 19:16-22 who asked Jesus what he must do to get eternal life. Jesus told him sell his possessions and give it to the poor and he would have treasure in heaven. He went away sorrowful because he was very wealthy.
Bill McKibben draws a connection between this parable of Jesus and the fossil fuel industry. He says:
In this case, the story is about our 'rich rulers' the addicts are the folks who run the fossil fuel empire who are addicted to profits so great they turn around sorrowful they are wrecking the future
At the 14:25 mark, he talks about how the CEO of Exxon finally admitted the climate change was real but that it was an engineering problem we could solve by moving our crop production of all things. In other words, move the cornfields of Iowa elsewhere? In a 2nd interview with Charlie Rose he was asked what his philosophy was. He simply looked at the camera and said "My philosophy is to make money." Again, maximizing shareholder value takes priority over everything.
In the sermon, Bill McKibben says:
Our goal must be to make real the Gospel with its injection to love our neighbors not to drown them, not to sicken them, not to make it impossible for them to grow crops but to love them
He also says:
If it is wrong to wreck the climate, it is wrong to profit from it
The last part of the sermon is about divestment and how important that is. I would encourage everyone to listen to the 22 minute sermon in full!
In closing, I know people sometimes just want to post prayer requests or get support for a hard time they are going through in this diary series. Please feel free to do so! It is not necessary to discuss the diary content. This is a very informal!