Climate Change

The Weekly Wrap: June 7-13

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The Weekly Wrap: June 7-13

Reading Until the Lights Go Out

In one of the articles I selected for this week, the writer recounts noted historian Gordon Wood speaking of recently accomplishing, in his nineties, the goal of reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Sadly, the life of this bibliophile was interrupted this week when at 92, he was struck by a car.

But the article captures one of my personal aspirations. I want to keep reading, and reading challenging works, until the lights go out, in one way or another.

I recently picked up an edition of the works of Aristotle that runs to 1500 pages. His thought profoundly shaped our civilization, including Christian theology. In reading a work about his influence, I realized that I had never read him.

Then there are several systematic theologies, all long tomes, sitting on my shelves. As one who believes that our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy God forever, this is certainly one way to get a head start on that project!

This year, I have a goal of reading the six major novels of Jane Austen. I’ve finished three. I also have a couple thick books by historian Paul Horgan, highly recommended by David McCullough that I’d love to dig into. And I think I would like to read The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia once more.

Then, as for Proust? I actually have Remembrance of Things Past on my Kindle. I understand it is a challenging read and I’ve not yet seen a compelling reason why I should. Maybe for now, I’ll settle for reading the Thomas Pynchon on my TBR pile.

Of course, none of us knows how long we have, or how long our minds will comprehend the words. All I know is that I want to be like Gordon Wood.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Some of us wonder how far American democracy will make it past our 250th birthday. However, Gordon Wood had reasons to be hopeful. Johann N. Neem discusses these in “What I Learned from Gordon Wood.”

Then there is the article I mentioned, Nic Rowan’s “Gordon Wood’s Proust.” Wood was in conversation with George Will who asked him what book in American history he was reading. His reply? “I’m not reading American history right now,” Wood laughed. “I just finished Proust! I said I would do it before I die, and well . . .” He did.

Susannah Crockford argues in “Against Climate Grief” that Christian-influenced societies often approach climate change in apocalyptic, millenarian terms, leading to unproductive inaction and grief. She argues that this is helpful and hope remains our strongest resource. But the article left me wondering “whence hope?” as well as whether Christian belief might offer in its future hope greater substance for faithful action that anticipates creation’s renewal.

I am a music lover. Though never formally trained, I’ve sung in choirs and enjoy a diversity of music. So “What to Read to Really Understand Music” caught my attention!

Finally, in This Dark Night, Deborah Lutz explores the enigmatic life of Emily Brontë, who like Emily Dickenson, led a secluded life. In “Who Was Emily Brontë? We’ll Never Know” Sadie Stein reviews the book.

Quote of the Week

Charles Kingsley was a novelist, poet, and clergyman, born June 12, 1819, who made this perceptive comment about freedom:

“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.“

Miscellaneous Musings

We also lost Jane Yolen on June 11 at age 87. She wrote over 400 children’s books. We will always be grateful for one in particular, Owl Moon, describing the special bond and wonder of a father and son who go out “owling” on a cold winter’s night. It was one of our favorite read aloud books when our son was young, I think, because it evoked something of the same bond and wonder in us.

A friend of mine has often sung the praises of Maestro John Demain, the long-time director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, in Wisconsin. The other day, that friend offered to send me a memoir co-written by him and Greg Hettmansberger titled Working with My Heroes. I was thrilled. Demain grew up in my hometown of Youngstown. I did an online interview with him in 2024 for a blog post I wrote about him and it was an utterly delightful hour.

I’ve spent the past week enthralled with Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse. It is one of those novels set in a dystopian, climate-changed world. It is the story of a wife, Lark, who runs a used bookstore in a world where no new books are published, and the sailing journey Rainy, her husband takes fleeing Lark’s killers, joined by an abused but resourceful nine-year old, Sol.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Robert Letham, The Eternal Son

Tuesday: Louis Bromfield, Early Autumn

Wednesday: G.G. Renee Hill, Story Work

Thursday: Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

Friday: Kyle Strobel and John Coe, When God Seems Distant

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for June 7-13.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: Love in a Time of Climate Change

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Cover image of "Love in a Time of Climate Change" by Sharon Delgado

Love in a Time of Climate Change

Love in a Time of Climate Change (Revised edition), Sharon Delgado. Fortress Press (ISBN: 9798889837206) 2026, first edition 2017.

Summary: Uses the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to discern a faithful Christian response to the realities of climate change.

Sharon Delgado is a United Methodist pastor who seeks to help those with whom she ministers to connect their personal faith with their advocacy, including advocacy around concerns of climate change and climate justice. Delgado provides an overview of the facts about climate change and its impacts. But what is unique about this book is how she draws on John Wesley’s use of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience as tools for discerning and acting upon Christian truth. These four elements are sometimes known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. What is delightful is to see how she follows Wesley in walking readers through this process. She focuses on two ideas, creation and justice, and then ties these together with the love of God and neighbor.

In Part I of the book, she offers an overview of information about climate change. Then she turns to Wesley use of the Quadrilateral and explains each aspect.

Part II is on the theme of “Honoring Creation.” First, in looking at scripture, she looks at God’s love for the groaning creation as well as our role in it. Then, under tradition, she summarizes Wesley’s teaching and that of contemporary Wesleyan theologians. She focuses on his theology of grace and how people nurtured in grace join God in nurturing his creation. But science and scripture have sometimes been seen in conflict about creation. Under reason, she focuses on the use of reason to draw from both in common sense action. Finally, under experience, she discusses a sacramental approach to the world that practices God’s presence as we care for creation.

Part III turns to the theme of “Establishing Justice.” Much of the focus on scripture is an extended reflection on the Jericho road. She explores what it means to move beyond individual acts of compassion (i.e. “the Good Samaritan”) to recognizing systemic injustices and the need for transformation. Then, on tradition, she begins with Wesley’s ideas on social holiness which led him to address the slave trade and relates it to contemporary theologies of liberation. Under reason, she challenges climate denialism and “cap and trade” strategies as traditional market strategies and argues for alternatives to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Finally, under experience, she profiles those working on the front lines where climate change is deeply impacting lives, such as extraction zones, those affected by extreme weather, and on the lands of indigenous peoples.

The final chapter pulls thinking about creation and justice together around love of God and neighbor. She reminds people of the spiritual nature of the work and urges people to work in community. This community extends to others around the world working to protect creation.

I wrestle with the hopefulness that reason and right action will save the day. Apart from a radical transformation, I think we are determined to go down the path of destruction. Honestly, I don’t think we will act apart from catastrophic consequences, and maybe not even then, in a united fashion. That does not mean that Christians don’t pursue the care of creation and justice. We choose to pursue mercy and justice no matter the outcome. And perhaps in that context, the template of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral offers a good process to think Christianly about how we ought live faithfully. Delgado provides supplemental resources for study and action groups to use. I welcome this Wesleyan perspective on creation care.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: We Are Eating the Earth

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Cover image for "We Are Eating the Earth" by Michael Grunwald

We Are Eating the Earth

We Are Eating the Earth, Michael Grunwald. Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9781982160074) 2025.

Summary: The sustainability of our food system, feeding earth’s population, and the impact it has on our climate

You’ve probably heard this before. We can only live a few minutes without oxygen and fall unconscious in seconds. We can only live a few days without water. And we can only live a month more or less without food. This book is about the third of these. It is incredible, but with proper distribution, we are able to feed a global population of over 8 billion human beings as well as the other creatures with which we share the planet. To feed the Earth’s population, a land mass equivalent to all of Europe and Asia is already devoted to food production.

The rub in all this is that we are continuing to consume more of the Earth to accomplish this vital end. That means clearing forests and other uncultivated land. Not only does this remove the trees that absorb carbon dioxide and exude oxygen in far greater quantities than our crops. Our food production contributes a quarter of all greenhouse emissions. This includes tractors, fertilizers (that sustain high yields), and livestock burps and farts, a source of methane that is worse than CO2 . Decaying food waste generates additional emissions.

The author’s deep dive into this subject came when he called Tim Searchinger, a Princeton research scientist who began his career as a lawyer, to factcheck an article. Searchinger will feature prominently throughout this book. It had to do with quitting meat. He asked Searchinger if meat is really that bad. Searchinger’s answer boiled down to this. “It’s land….Meat uses too much land. just like ethanol.” Livestock currently use the equivalent of fifty Texases and pound for pound, emit fifty times more greenhouse gasses than coal.

And the ethanol remark leads to an account of how Searchinger fought a battle to convince governments that ethanol made from corn would result did not come free. Land is not free and land is needed for food as well as fuel production, and is far more efficient at the first of these. If land is taken out of food production, other land would be put into food production. For example, forests, bogs, previously “marginal” lands.

Subsequent chapters look at other examples of flawed reasoning that didn’t take land into account. For example, he chronicles the biomass loophole European nations fell into in their plans to convert to woodburning, that actually resulted in net increases in carbon emissions. He looks at “carbon farming,” the problem being that it actually removed land from food production.

He considers what we eat. Basically we need to eat food that uses less land. And we need to produce more food on that land. He shows that at least some forms of sustainable agriculture result both in lower yields and use more land.

Then he turns efforts to create meat alternatives and the failures to come up with marketable products. He looks at ways to reduce the land use and emissions of livestock as well as new developments in producing more on less land. One point Grunwald makes is that the amount of research money devoted to this sector is still a pittance.

At the end of the book, he summarizes the actions Searchinger recommends to reform our food system in four statements. Produce more food per acre. Protect key habitats and keep them off limits to food production. Reduce our demand for meat, biofuels, and other land consuming products. Restore unproductive lands to nature.

In conclusion, he advocates both systemic change and personal action. Each of us is eating the earth and how we eat matters. I’ve seen how concerned citizens can protect key habitats. Several years ago, local residents fought off an effort to develop a wetland that was supposed to be set aside “in perpetuity.” It continues to do all the good things wetland do. At very least, this book is making me look, as the new year approaches, how we might change our own patterns of consumption and food waste. As the author notes, even drops fill buckets.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.

Review: Cheaper, Faster, Better

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Cover image of "Cheaper, Faster, Better" by Tom Steyer

Cheaper, Faster, Better. Tom Steyer. Spiegel & Grau (ISBN: 9781954118645) 2024.

Summary: A climate activist and investor argues we can win the climate war through clean tech and free market capitalism.

Tom Steyer walked away from a highly successful investment fund he managed to focus on climate issues. Since then, he has advocated for clean-energy ballot measures and invested in clean technology firms. He even pursued a brief run for president on a climate platform. Reading Steyer is metaphorically, and perhaps literally, a breath of fresh air. Steyer moves past the standard binary of either climate action that is costly and government regulated and the fossil fuel industry arguments that we need to keep digging and drilling. From his work, he is convinced that mobilizing capital to invest in clean energy can be profitable, create jobs, and can be ramped up to reach climate goals. And we can do this without climate-shaming people.

He begins by describing his personal pivot to climate activism and investing. He became convinced of the real threat to life on our planet from climate change. And he discovered that the fossil fuel industry is also convinced of this. It has orchestrated campaigns to protect their industry, including the huge government handouts they receive each year. As a capitalist, he argues that this just doesn’t make sense, comparing it to the whaling industry, that tried to hang on as oil discoveries threatened to supplant them. Doesn’t it make more sense to shift our investment to new sources of energy, especially as these become cheaper to implement and scale up? Rather than get into the weeds of all the fossil fuel industry arguments, he applies “the Jane Austen test.” He asks “Are these guys trustworthy?”

He outlines the major areas where technology innovation is needed: electricity generation, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and building. The point is for each of us to assess to understand our choices and what we can do in each area. He argues against climate doomsayers and urges people to stop rooting for the end of the world, contending that we’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do. Instead, he argues for embracing a “walk-on” mentality. You accept you are an outsider, enjoy the game you can play as a JV and don’t relinquish your judgement to the insiders. It means doing what needs to be done even if you are not on “the first team.” This includes refusing to accept conventional wisdom and thinking smart. An example is the cattlemen who figured out you could grow beef and sequester carbon.

He argues against carbon-footprint shaming. Of course we should do what we can personally. But it can be more important to join collective actions like ballot initiatives that have the potential to be carbon-negative on a large scale. Steyer also believes it is time to take calculated risks to “go big.” We can timidly ask “what is right?” when we need to think about whether we are doing enough. This means winning in the marketplace by doing things that are not only cleaner but better and cheaper. And he offer examples of clean technologies that are doing just that.

Steyer believes the rules need to change so that fossil fuels don’t have an unfair advantage. He believes the best way to do this is to set standards but give lots of flexibility to industries as to how they meet them. He also proposes that getting better at measurements helps us better target interventions. Finally, messaging is more important than being right. What we call things is important.

Steyer compares this generation to the Greatest Generation of World War Two. Just as it was common to ask someone “what did you do during the war?” in an effort to which everyone was all in. He argues that we have this opportunity once again. One way or another, our children and grand-children will ask, “what did you do?”

I write this review on the night a president who opposes what Steyer advocates has taken office. I suspect this is especially a time for that “walk-on” mentality. It doesn’t look like the “rules” are going to favor clean tech. It’s going to take scrappy entrepreneurs who succeed because they are doing something better and cheaper. It would be great if they do this in America. But they might be more successful in other places more open to clean tech. The world needs this, even if the U.S. falls behind.

I like Steyer’s approach which argues that we can both walk and chew gum. We can be clean and profitable. We can invent in ways good for both people and the planet. Steyer impresses me because he has put his money and his life where his mouth is. The question is, will we jump in, or give over to despair? Will we believe lies that even those telling them don’t believe, or will we act on what we know is true while there is time?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.

Review: Fire Weather

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Fire Weather, John Vaillant. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

Summary: An account of the Fort McMurray fire of 2016, when a forest fire consumed a town and became a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier world.

I never wore face masks outdoors during all of the COVID epidemic. I did several days last summer when a smoky haze that had traveled a thousand miles settled over the Midwest and other parts of the eastern United States. For much of the summer, vast tracts of forest were on fire in Canada. News just today indicates there are zombie fires burning underground and dry conditions in western Canada portend another fire summer.

John Vaillant tells the story of what happened when a raging wilderness fire intersected with an oil industry town, Fort McMurray in Alberta. Fort McMurray grew to a city of 90,000 people because of our insatiable thirst for oil. The tar sands nearby are rich in bitumen, which can be converted through energy intensive processes to the petroleum products helping to warm our atmosphere. Fort McMurray also exists in the heart of the boreal forests that stretch across the north of Canada.

Conditions in the spring of 2016 were exceptionally warm and dry. A high pressure system yielded blue skies unseasonably high temperatures and low humidity, further drying out the forest around the town. On May 1, a small fire known as Fire 009, the ninth fire around Fort McMurray, was sited southwest of the town, on the other side of the river. By May 2, officials began to worry, even as they projected calm. But those in the know knew May 3 would be hard. No one knew how hard. Another hot, dry day, with winds coming around to blow out of the southwest and freshening. All the ingredients were present for the fire to explode…and it did. The morning began with brilliant blue skies. Suddenly, at 12:15, everyone discovered that a monster was among them. In rapid order, neighborhoods were consumed. While people got up expecting a normal day, suddenly they needed to evacuate–immediately–90,000 of them.

The amazing story is that none of them died. But much of the town did. Firefighters tore down rows of houses and were able to save others. What they discovered however was that when a fire became this intense, rivers were not a barrier, that fire tornados and other freak meteorological occurrences could cast the fire over firebreaks and natural obstacles. The fire would seek fuel.

That’s one of the interesting things the emerges from Vaillant’s rendering of the many eyewitness accounts–that the fire was a kind of living thing–akin to the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings. He describes the flammability of the boreal forest, particularly the black spruces, dripping with sap, exploding into flame as the wall of heat of the fire approaches. They are like bombs, containing all this stored energy. Vaillant describes another kind of bomb–the residential houses in the fire’s path. Made of vinyl siding, kiln dried wood framing, shingled roofs, polyurethane, polyester in furniture, curtains and clothes, and all sorts of other petroleum based plastics throughout as well as gas cans, propane tanks, and other flammables. Houses went from livable structures to holes in the ground in less than five minutes.

Vaillant describes the stunning awakening from “this is no big deal” to “the apocalypse has come” of the residents. He goes on to describe the slower, more insidious burn as our atmosphere warms. He retells the story of what we know and when we knew it about greenhouse gasses and anthropogenic global warming. The basic physics was demonstrated in 1856. By 1956, scientists were testifying before Congress. Their predictions, even back then are startlingly accurate. There was no partisan debate. But nothing was done. As early as the 1970’s, the oil companies own scientists knew. And there was a window of time when something could be done to avert the dramatic climate changes we are seeing. Now we may be facing a rapidly closing window to avert changes on such a scale that they result in a mass extinction of much of life.

Vaillant is one of many voices describing the future on our doorstep. Year round fire seasons in many parts of the world is the impact on which he focuses. Fuel, dry conditions, wind, and a spark are all that’s needed for another Fort McMurray at the wilderness-urban interfaces where many of us live. The irony is that we keep lighting the fire that fuels the fire everyday. Fort McMurray with its petrochemical industry, is in microcosm the story in which we all are implicated. Vaillant not only tells a riveting story about a monster fire. He tells a sobering story that demands we face the reality of the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren. It could very well be one where they are fighting, and maybe running, for their lives. But to where will they run?

A Foretaste of Earth’s Future

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Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

I discovered a new use for those left over face masks from the pandemic this summer. It began on an evening in June when I was working in my back yard and I kept coughing and my throat felt raspy. My eyes were burning. And I noticed the haze in the evening sky turning the sun deep crimson. Smoke. From fires in Canada. In the last few days, it has been back for the third time–a plume of smoke that had its origins in western Canada as unprecedented dry conditions have resulted in a summer of fires across Canada. This plume eventually covered all of the northern US, traveling more than 2500 miles just to reach us. Every time our winds come from the north, our air conditions deteriorate. At its worst, our Air Quality Index hit 233, considered very unhealthy for everyone. I go for evening walks. I wore a face mask on a few of the worst evenings. I delayed cutting my lawn to avoid making things any worse.

Until this year, this was something I heard about from friends in the west. Now I wonder if this will be a recurring problem.

My sister lives in Phoenix. They have just surpassed the record for consecutive days in excess of 110 degrees. The ten day forecast suggests there is no relief in sight. Her air conditioning runs constantly. Buying any refrigerated groceries is a challenge. The temperatures there are part of a heat dome that has covered much of the south and southwest this summer.

Triple digit heat domes have hit Europe and China as well. I just heard that the fifteen hottest days on record on Earth have all been in July 2023. And when this happens, people who don’t have access to adequate hydration and places to cool off begin dying. Cooling largely still relies on carbon-based fuels in many parts of the world, so increased cooling means increased emissions of greenhouse gases–a vicious cycle.

Meanwhile, locations as diverse as the Hudson Valley, Vermont, parts of the south, and even the Taj Mahal are facing flooding from record rains. Early this year, after years of drought, the western U.S. was inundated with an “atmospheric river” of repeated rainstorms. In the middle of the country, it has been an active tornado season and, to date, 74 people have died, three times the typical year.

The ocean is experiencing a heat wave as well with temperatures in the Atlantic off Florida in excess of 90 degrees, and similarly in parts of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane season hasn’t begun but ocean heat feeds super storms. Meanwhile, the danger is the destruction of coral reefs, and in turn, the aquatic populations that inhabit them.

All of this obscures ongoing processes of melting glaciers, Antarctic and Greenland ice and permafrost melting releasing methane, raising ocean and CO2 levels over the long term.

It feels to me that in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the planet was whispering to us about the changes occurring. In the last two decades, we’ve gone from a whisper to urgent speaking tones. We noticed the milder winters and longer frost-free seasons. This summer, it feels like Earth has begun to shout. Is it saying, “This is the new normal” or “You ain’t seen nothing yet”? I sense that it is probably the latter from all I have read.

It means several things to me. One is that we are going to see rising climate mitigation costs, in the forms of insurance, tax-funded government aid, food production costs and more. If we decide to seriously address carbon-emissions, this will mean rethinking life as we know it. We think tech will fix it but I don’t know any technology that doesn’t require energy. Relying only on wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear raises questions in my mind about whether these can generate enough unless we change the way we live. It makes me wonder about what a life not as reliant on combustion or electricity is like. Perhaps we need to study the Amish.

Earlier this year, I read Stephan Markley’s The Deluge, a prophetic book if there is one. It is a fictional account of the near future exploring the challenges posed to our public and political and international order by accelerating extreme weather events. It’s scary.

At one time I thought it would be our children who would face the consequences of our climate incontinence. Now it seem increasingly likely that we’ll face this with them, with the increased vulnerabilities of age. And so I think about what it will mean to lean into my faith as I face this. For me, Philippians 4:13 comes to mind: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Paul speaks of this in times of plenty or want. What it does suggest is that even if life is stripped down to the bare necessities of survival, the love empowered by Christ of God and neighbor and the peace of being in relationship with God remain. It seems to me that now is the time to ask what will spiritually sustain us for the time ahead. Rather than trying to maintain the illusions of normal, of the American dream, we need to ask what will sustain us if times get hard, and the core of our humanity is challenged.

It seems to me that this summer is the Earth’s wake up call, and it is too insistent to hit the snooze button. As we rub our burning eyes, we need to ask how now will we live? How will we live toward God, toward each other, and toward our changing planet? Whether we ask it or not, we are answering this question day by day.