The Unity of the World Is Not An Option But Now Is A Condition.
In widening, deepening chorus these past 18 months climate deniers expressing opinions and complaints loudly and repeatedly with vociferous demands have been touting a phenomenon dubbed the global warming “hiatus” allegedly operating since 1998.
above, 6-4-15 NOAA-NCEI no slow down in global warming; Karl, et al.
A nine-investigator team led by Thomas R. Karl in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and LMI used the latest global surface temperature data to show No Slowdown in Global Warming. The latest corrected analysis shows that the rate of global warming has continued, and there has been no slow down. It's steaming along just as fast as it has been moving for the last 20 or even 30 years.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report revealed in piecemeal fashion between September 2013 and November 2014 started this mistaken analysis summarily dubbed "hiatus" of global warming.
Arctic Ice Thaws faster and more completely each year now than it did in 2006 when Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew wrote
The use of atomic and nuclear forces of nature for war is an insult to creation and Creator, as is over-consumption of any kind, which burdens the natural environment with pollutants, which leads to climate change and global warming and an imbalance in the natural order, with all that implies. The immense consumption of energy for purposes of war and the excessive consumption of contemporary humanity far beyond its needs are two areas where the responsibilities of political leaders and common citizens are interwoven in such a way so that each of us has the power to contribute to the betterment of the general condition.
above, 8-23-15 Arctic Sea Ice Cover -
NOAA Goddard Space Flight Center ~~ Color-coded map of the daily sea ice concentration in the Northern Hemisphere for the indicated recent date along with the contours of the 15% edge during the years with the least extent of ice (in red) and the greatest extent of ice (in yellow) during the period from November 1978 to the present. The extents in km2 for the current and for the years of minimum and maximum extents are provided below the image. The different shades of gray over land indicate the land elevation with the lightest gray being the highest elevation.
Interactive site: NASA Study Shows Global Sea Ice Diminishing, Despite Antarctic Gains Sea ice increases in Antarctica do not make up for the accelerated Arctic sea ice loss ... the planet has been shedding sea ice at an average annual rate of 13,500 square miles (35,000 square kilometers) since 1979, the equivalent of losing an area of sea ice larger than the state of Maryland every year.
Well known feedback is from melting snow and ice in the Northern Hemisphere: warmer temperature melts a growing percentage of Arctic sea ice, exposing dark ocean water during the 24-hour summer sun. Land snow cover vanishes. If snow and ice vanish, then areas go from having bright, sunlight-reflecting surfaces that cool the planet to having dark, sunlight-absorbing surfaces bringing more energy into the Earth system causing more warming. We're ready for a fire!
Fire Burns --- As sun on warmer land dries soil and heats air above it, fire becomes more likely. 1/1/15~8/29/15: 43,396 Fires burnt 7,825,559 acres. That's 2,000,000 acres> the 10-year average through mid-August.
above, 8-22-15 Mad River Complex, Cal. Six Rivers Nat'l. Forest;
NASA Earth Observatory Mad River Complex
Fire Perimeter Map 8-30-25, Shasta-Trinity & Six Rivers National Forest:
River Complex 8-29-15 (68,946 Acres)
Fork Complex 8-26-15 (36,498 Acres)
South Complex 8-30-15 (29,275 Acres)
Route Complex 8-27-15 (35,673 Acres)
Mad River Complex 8-27-15 (37,260 Acres)
total 207,652 acre/640 acre/square mile = 324.5 square mile =18 mile X 18 mile square
Here is a satellite view nicely labeled showing in one good image the several Washington complexes of Cougar Creek, Wolverine, Okanogan, Grizzly Bear, Clearwater, Eagle, Cornet-Windy Ridge, Canyon Creek, and County Line.
meet Now: Grange Hall, Prairie City, Canyon Creek Complex, Aug. 30th 5:30 PM
Pope Francis on 6th August 2015, Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, announced World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation to be celebrated on September 1st, annually, in his letter to Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah TURKSON, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and to Cardinal Kurt KOCH, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Radio Vatican audio news & letter in English here.
Pope Francis has taken this action in solidarity with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to share Bartholomew's concerns for the future of creation (cf./cfr. Encyclical Letter. Laudato Si', ¶ 7-9) at the the suggestion of his representative, the Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamum who took part in the presentation of the Encyclical Laudato Si’ on the care of our common home.
The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation will coincide with beginning the Orthodox liturgical year during which Bartholomew annually releases an encyclical on the environment in a tradition established September 1, 1989 by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I who's pastoral letter (encyclical) asked “the entire Christian world to offer together ... every year on this date prayers and supplications to the Maker of all, both as thanksgiving for the great gift of creation and as petitions for its protection and salvation.” Dimitrios continued,
“At the same time we paternally urge, on the one hand, the faithful in the world to admonish themselves and their children to respect and protect the natural environment and, on the other hand, those who are entrusted with the responsibility of governing the nations to act without delay, taking all necessary measures for the protection and preservation of natural creation.”
Arising from the Ecumenical Patriarch’s 1989 encyclical, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has adopted in the church year a “Time for Creation” running from the Eastern Orthodox liturgical new year Sept. 1 to the Oct. 4 feast-day of Saint Francis of Assisi observed in Roman Catholic Churches. The WCC theme for this year is
Joining the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, written to help prepare and equip congregations, churches and parishes to ready themselves for
COP21 in Paris Nov. 30~Dec. 11.
There are now less than 100 days until the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11), otherwise known as “Paris 2015” is from November 30th to December 11th. COP21 will be a crucial conference, as it needs to achieve a new international agreement on the climate, applicable to all countries, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
U.S. Republicans lead U.S. opposition to placing emissions reductions under legal sanction. Therefore, EU’s top climate official, EU Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, says ‘painfully slow’ negotiations must be accelerated to seal a meaningful global emissions pact at Paris summit.
India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey are all refusing to submit their ‘INDCs’ (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions). Climate pledges are in from only 56 countries collectively representing 61% of global emissions. But these INDCs are not strong enough to plot a path that limits global warming to the UN target of 2°C. To reach that goal, INDCs in now would have to double by 2030 to stand only a 50% chance of meeting the U.N. target. Most climate scientists agree the target is too high and the timelines to hit it is too long. There are limits to the heat stress to which mammals (humans included) can adapt.
Desmond Tutu, Vivienne Westwood, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and 100 other notables call for mass action at COP21. They say this
We are at a crossroads. We do not want to be compelled to survive in a world that has been made barely livable for us. From South Pacific Islands to the shores of Louisiana, from the Maldives to the Sahel, from Greenland to the Alps, the daily lives of millions of us are already being disrupted by the consequences of climate change. Through ocean acidification, the submersion of South Pacific Islands, forced migration in the Indian Subcontinent and Africa, frequent storms and hurricanes, the current ecocide affects all species and ecosystems, threatening the rights of future generations. And we are not equally impacted by climate change: Indigenous and peasant communities, poor communities in the global South and in the global North are at the frontlines and most affected by these and other impacts of climate disruption.
Bartholomew's 2013 environmental encyclical said
Inasmuch as it is well known and proven, that “the laws of nature are neither dissolved nor disturbed, but always remain constant” (St. John Chrysostom, On Lazarus VI PG 48. 1042), we are today obliged to focus our attention on the unseen human interventions impacting the ecological balance, which is disturbed not only by visible destructive actions – such as deforestation, depletion of water resources, the overall exploitation of natural and energy resources, together with the pollution of immense land or marine regions by means of spilling or depositing toxic and chemical materials – but also by activities invisible to the naked eye.
Significant in its request to the world’s population to act,
Laudato Si’ is a fundamental encyclical on climate change, on the loss of nature and on the growing global inequality as the greatest threats to the world.
See: Laudato Si' (24 May 2015) Encyclical Letter by Pope Francis “
On Care for Our Common Home”.
Since 1972 "The Green Partriarch", H.H. Bartholomew I, has been working on our ecological crisis and our cultural crisis. With over 300 million Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Southern New Hampshire University just hosted (June 2015) the "Environmental Summit", Halki Summit II. On the quaint island of Halki, a site greatly important to the Orthodox Church the theme was “Theology, Ecology, and the Word: a conversation on environment, literature and the arts.”Links to resources are here to “awaken the global conscience to the particular and specific importance of the ethical and spiritual dimension of the ecological crisis – with special reference to the arts and literature – in order that it may be returned to its 'original beauty,' which is the natural, hole and sacred purpose for which it was fashioned by the creative hands of the divine Word”.
Of the Halki Summit II, George B. Handley (a man working in the job of Professor of Humanities at Brigham Young University) wrote, in part
I wish more of my fellow Mormons understood stewardship as a natural extension of their belief rather than as some political agenda you either like or don’t like.
I grow tired of being considered an “environmentalist” or of being seen as someone with a pet theme that I am trying to impose on others. I certainly don’t relish such a role. I guess I have a hard time understanding why it is not more obvious to everyone that the environment is not some specialized interest or concern ... It concerns every single one of us, and it pertains to our most deeply held beliefs, whatever they might be. ...(continues)...