Susquehanna Morning

Susquehanna Morning

Thursday, June 13, 2019

On Terrifying Headlines, or, Crying Myself to Sleep Over Climate Change

The Lord God took the human and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ~Genesis 2:15


A little over a week ago, I started seeing an article popping up on FB, shared by numerous friends. It was the most dire headline about climate change I've ever seen:

HUMAN CIVILIZATION WILL CRUMBLE BY 2050 
IF WE DON'T STOP CLIMATE CHANGE NOW, NEW PAPER CLAIMS.*


I didn't read the article right away. I scanned it. The opening paragraphs seemed to support the headline. And there it was again, that old familiar sinking feeling.

This wasn't news to me.

In 2012 I was faced with the proposition of selling my parents' beautiful home at the Jersey shore, located along the inland waterway. I talked to my realtor frankly.

"How can I sell this in good conscience, seeing as I'm pretty sure it's likely to be underwater in 20 years?"

She replied, "All the buyers have access to the same newspapers you do."

I allowed that to be my ethical get-out-of-jail-free card, and sold my parents' house at market rate.

On the day of my closing, Superstorm Sandy made landfall, pretty much, right exactly on top of my parents' house.

I waited for the phone call from my realtor, telling me the buyer wanted out. The house had three feet of water in it. Sounds about right, I thought. Who in their right mind wants it now?

And I returned to an old fantasy of retiring there, and swimming in the bay in my dotage, and walking down to the beach for sunrise, and returning to watch the timbers decay around me.

A phone call came, but it was not the one I was expecting. The buyer wanted to send his contractor to have a look. Was that ok with me?

Sure! I said. I was hundreds of miles away, so I was grateful to at least have some sense of how bad the damage was.

The contractor went in on a Saturday. He called me from the house. The entire first floor had been flooded, of course, and the furnace, hot water heater, and central air unit were all destroyed.

He told me the buyer was still interested, but to keep the house viable, they had to start tearing out walls, gut the first floor bathroom, laundry room, and shower, and place fans all around, immediately, before mold took hold.

Would I be willing to let them do that, while they contemplated their revised offer?

As I hung up the phone, I remembered my realtor's words to me.

"They have access to the same newspapers you do."

And now, they'd had access to the violence and scope of the storm of the new era of accelerated climate change.

When it hit, Sandy was the second most expensive storm in US history, with damages eventually reckoned at about $70 billion.

Now, it is the fourth most expensive hurricane, having been surpassed by Harvey and Maria in 2017.

This is our reality. This is our future. Climate change is now.

But people with enough money are still going to buy homes on the water, because they can afford to.

Even after seeing that damage. Even after paying for it.

According to the new study out of the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Australia, climate change poses an existential threat to humanity if not addressed aggressively, right now. The authors take to task governments that refuse to recognize the national security risks as well as the potential loss of human life involved. They also scold scientists who are, in their view, erring on the side of "least drama."

If ever there was a moment for drama in the service of a call to action, this is probably it.

The second night after I read the paper I couldn't shake a feeling of dread as I got ready to go to sleep. I settled in and turned out the lights. I started to think of my children. I calculated how old they will be in 2050. I wondered whether either of them would have children. (I have always hoped they would. Now I am not so sure.)

I began to cry. This is not the future I want for my children, or anyone's children. I don't want either the people I love or people I've never met to face the nightmare scenario of the places they love underwater, the lives they create wiped away, and the complete disappearance of water and air clean enough to sustain life.

Something in me has shifted. I cannot shake this, cannot put it away in a safe place, cannot pretend everything's going to be ok. I know that action is the only possible response.

Scripture tells me that the earth-- and everything else-- is the creation of an infinitely inventive God, who commissions humans to care for it. Though the classic translation of Genesis 2:15 is that the human was placed in the garden to "till it and keep it," the Hebrew beneath the English translation is far stronger. The word translated "till" has the same root as "servant." The human is being told to serve the earth. And that word translated "keep" is just as often translated "guard" or "protect."

For people in the Jewish and Christian traditions, our mandate is to serve and protect the earth. Of course, indigenous peoples have been telling us this ever since Europeans got off their ships and looked around to see what they could mine, cut, and otherwise seize from the land.

But I digress.

I do most of the things people are supposed to do to try to ease their carbon footprint. I recycle. I carry re-usable tote bags to the grocery store. I drive a hybrid car.

I still fly, though, usually once or twice each year. I eat meat, the production of which is a huge source of carbon emissions. What I recycle includes a lot of plastics. And even though it's a hybrid, I still drive, every single day.

Scientists are telling us that individuals, on our own, cannot effect change on a large enough scale. What we do in our homes at at our jobs will not be enough. Governments have to take action. Policies have to change. In 2016, the earth was the warmest it had been in 120,000 years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere-- the thing that causes climate warming-- is the highest it's been in human history, and higher than it's been for millions of years.

Recycling is good. I won't be giving up my hybrid any time soon. And I'm not giving up on the notion that we can, somehow, turn this ship around.

The most important thing I can do to combat climate change -- that any of us can do-- is to vote.

I'm going to find the candidates at every level-- local, state, federal--who are the most committed to serving and protecting the earth, and I'm going to give them my complete support.

I'm going to find the ones who are committed to putting limits on carbon emissions and fighting back against those who are more interested in lining their pockets than in saving the planet.

I'm going to go to work for them, go door to door for them, show up at their campaign rallies, donate to them, and get people to the polls for them.

And I'm going to vote. I suggest you do, too. Vote, vote, vote.

That's the only thing that can save us now.







* You can find the article by putting the title above into a search engine,


Monday, June 3, 2019

Pride in the Face of Death

Yesterday a wonderful local friend posted something on Facebook that made my blood freeze in my veins--a screenshot of the following statement from a man in Watertown, NY:

Watertown is having
a LGBTQ
celebration. For the
love of God please
let someone go on a 
mass shooting.

The man's name is unusual enough that he was easy to find through the FB search engine. I spent about 10 minutes scrolling down his page, by which time, many LGBTQIA+ folks were already on the scene, trying, alternately, to reason with him, to infuriate him (by posting lots of rainbows and gifs of same gender people kissing one another), and just generally saying, You are a messed up human.

He responded defiantly, invoking Jesus (who, he believes, will show his LGBTQ appreciation through a gay-killing inferno on Judgement Day), and posting meme after meme about how he was waiting for the police to come to his door as a result of the original post (which, to be clear, had been removed by this time-- though, as I said, plenty of folks seem to have taken screenshots of it). 

And, yeah, more information having come out (heh) about the guy, it sounds like he's had a hard-knock life and responded with a lot of anger and at least some light arson. 

But, if I may, the attitude of this man-- that the world would be better if LGBTQ people were massacred-- is pretty much why Pride celebrations exist: in the face of threats of death, at some point, lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer folks, everyone in that alphabet soup that keeps expanding as people tell their truth... in the face of death threats, we say: but we, too, are entitled to our lives.

So, we have Pride.

The threats aren't always literally about death (though, for some, that is increasingly the case-- most notably our trans sibs, who are murdered at the highest rate of all of us, trans women of color especially).

Sometimes it is the death of the soul that is threatened--when families reject us, and tell us we are no longer welcome.

When churches say, "You are not right-- you sin in a way that is worse than any and every other sin."

Sometimes the threat is directed at our livelihoods... as is the case right now, as the current administration strips these protections from us, one at a time, a relentless assault on our dignity and personhood. For a full and detailed account of all the actions taken against us, I recommend this Twitter thread from Charlotte Clymer. Seeing it all together is sobering, terrifying-- a reminder that our lives, at least for this administration, do not count, do not matter, and are simply something to use to gain points with people filled with hate.

In the end, there's not a lot of difference between the guy in Watertown and a religious leader who tells their congregation that being gay is the worst kind of sin.

So, we have Pride.

We raise flags with rainbows on them-- the rainbow, in the bible, a symbol of a covenant of love and faithfulness. And we wear rainbow t-shirts, and jewelry, and kerchiefs, and baseball caps, because there just aren't enough rainbows in this world.

We have parades in which we show our most vibrant, joy-filled selves to the world.

We have festivals. This year, our local Pride Palooza will feature (among other things such as food, trucks, craft vendors, a kids' area, and a drag show) a table where attendees can get "Mom-hugs." Because, if you're gay, or bi, or trans, or queer, it's not a given that your own mom wants to hug you any more.

And so, we have Pride. We have a place where the message is: You are loved. You are worthy. You are welcome. Come and have some cotton candy and a hug. Come and know you are at home here, at least.

And to those who wonder why we don't have Straight Pride, here's what I say:

When people want to kill you just because of who you are and who you love, I'll come to your Pride event.

Until then, please respect and at least try to understand ours.

Image from Saturday's Binghamton Flag-Raising, borrowed-- with gratitude!-- from Patti Loves Bing.