Creation Care Corner
The United Church of Christ Earth Summit was convened for the second time in April 2024. The keynote speaker was Bill McKibben, who is well-known as one of the leading writers and speakers on climate change. He wrote his first book on the subject in 1989. He called the damage from carbon fuels the “greatest moral challenge” of our time.
In the moral category, for example, all of Africa produces only 3 percent of all greenhouse gases, yet suffers some of the worst effects, and has very little money to recover from disasters. In an extreme rainstorm in Libya, 10,000 people were swept out to sea and drowned in only one hour. By contrast, the US only has 3 percent of the world’s population, but produces 25 percent of greenhouse emissions. We have enough wealth that we can afford to spend billions on recovery of our climate change losses, but Libya does not. Poorer countries are finding that extreme heat, droughts and rains make it impossible to grow the food they need. Emigration is the result. The UN estimates this will create 1-3 Billion refugees worldwide.
As McKibben explained, the greenhouse gases produced by the cars we drove in the 1960’s are “all still up there”, trapping heat in our atmosphere. Because warmer air holds more moisture, we are seeing patterns of droughts in some areas and extreme rain in others. 2023 had the hottest days recorded on earth. As you know, in 2023 wildfires in western Canada caused awful air quality across the US, and there was terrible flooding in the Northeast US, washing away towns located in river valleys.
At this point, we have only five or six years to turn this around. Once the polar ice melts and the Amazon rainforest disappears, there will be no way to recover. The good news is that scientists and engineers have reduced the cost of wind and solar power by 90 percent. Solar is now the cheapest power source. The Inflation Reduction Act has finally begun to cause changes in US energy use. Energy from the sun and wind is essentially free. This is why the owners of coal and petroleum companies are blocking solar and wind with all their resources. Exxon has admitted they will not enter the solar or wind power business because they would not be able to give enough profits to their investors. They buy politicians’ votes and have become powerful in our politics and economy precisely because they control energy supplies; when they don’t, they will no longer have power over us. They want to hold on to their power for 10 or 20 more years, even at the cost of breaking the planet.
What can we do, as older members of a small church in northern Wisconsin? We can combine with other churches for a much larger voice. McKibben reminds us that non-violent social movements can force change quickly. As Seniors, we are part of a large group of 70 million people above age 60 in the US. We control 70 percent of the money in the country, and we (almost) ALL VOTE. Because we have resources, aren’t tied down to work, and have skills that make us effective, older people are actually better able to work on this change than the young.
Bill McKibben has started something called Third Act for seniors. There are chapters in all 50 states. If we sign up at thirdact.org, it will give us instructions on how we can make this change happen. REMEMBER, we only have five or six years to turn this around.
Sandy McKitrick, Climate Care Team