[TheClimate.Vote] February 13, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 13, 2020*/

[Do you know where your CO2 is now?]
*'The Saddest Thing Is That This Won't Be Breaking News': Concentration 
of CO2 Hits Record High of 416 ppm*
"Emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation need to be reduced to 
ZERO to stop this trend!"

    "The success of our previous forecasts has shown that the
    year-to-year variability in the rate of rise of CO2 in the
    atmosphere is affected more by the strength of ecosystem carbon
    sinks and sources than year-to-year changes in human-induced
    emissions," he added. "Nevertheless, the anthropogenic emissions are
    still the overall driver of the long-term rise in concentrations."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/12/saddest-thing-wont-be-breaking-news-concentration-co2-hits-record-high-416-ppm



[More from Sierra]
*So Your Kids Are Stressed Out About the Climate Crisis*
BY MARY DEMOCKER | JAN 25 2020
When my nephew, Sam, was four years old, he said to his mother one night 
before bed, "Mom, I don't want to be alive anymore."

His mother pulled him onto her lap and asked, "Why?"

"The animals are all going to die, and I don't want to be here when 
everything's dead," he answered. Mind you, this scene played out in 
2005, long before the world watched as 1 billion animals died in 
Australia's bushfires.

I've been thinking about this incident a lot lately as I read media 
reports about children suffering from eco-anxiety. For their whole 
lives, our kids have absorbed terrifying stories about what's happening 
to our planet and the creatures that inhabit it. Worse, more and more of 
them understand that when it comes to doing what it takes to avoid 
future hell-on-Earth scenarios, adults are, on the whole, failing them. 
No wonder so many of them, from preschoolers to college students, are 
freaking out. How might we help our kids deal with their feelings in 
ways that are age-appropriate, empowering--and honest?

I started pondering this question long ago when my own children, now 20 
and 23, began showing signs of anxiety about the climate crisis. The 
following suggestions grew from my observations of what helped them, 
what helped other families I've interviewed, and what professionals have 
to say about a problem that's not going away any time soon

*Listen *
"First, it's important to validate the young person's experience and 
emotions," says Dr. Patricia H. Hasbach, a psychotherapist who 
specializes in Eco-therapy. "Find out what it is they're worried about." 
Some, like Sam, may grieve the generalized--and very real--extinctions 
happening worldwide. Others fear their own demise in hurricanes, floods, 
or wildfires. One 12-year-old survivor of California's 2018 fires panics 
now every time the Santa Ana winds kick up. My own kids describe an 
"always there, back-of-the-mind type fear of the future."

In Sam's case, his mother didn't dismiss his worries. After her son's 
stark pronouncement, she told him, "Wow, that's a big feeling. Tell me 
more." Then she stated other things that are also true, like, "The earth 
is strong. Lots of people are working to protect animals, and we can 
help them."

"OK," he said. Then he rolled over, fell asleep, and didn't raise the 
issue again.

*Tell the Truth (Carefully)*
In climate discussions with children, parents are tasked with balancing 
age-appropriateness with honesty. My husband and I didn't offer climate 
tutorials to our preschoolers, but we did talk about protecting the 
earth and animals, and we showed them what that looks like: rescuing 
worms from puddles, composting food waste, and advocating for 
environmental protections.

As our kids matured and encountered more information, often frightening 
and overwhelming, we listened and--after acknowledging bad news and 
processing their feelings--reminded our kids of the bigger story, just 
as Sam's mom had done: "Yes, it's a time of peril. It's also a time of 
incredible energy and innovation." We assured them that apocalypse isn't 
inevitable and that scientists say we have the time and the technology 
to avert catastrophe.

"There's so much bad and overwhelming odds all the time that it's hard 
not to just get defeated," says Sam, who is now 19 and an environmental 
studies major and activist. "But if you look at it another way, we have 
an opportunity to influence the outcome of humanity and civilization, 
and be righteous warriors in the fight of our lives."

This may be the most helpful truth to share, if kids don't already know 
it: Youths worldwide are using their moral authority to demand bolder 
climate action from leaders. Adults are starting to listen, and that's 
helping alleviate some anxiety. Greta Thunberg's father recently told 
BBC News that his daughter, who suffered severe climate anxiety and 
depression before beginning her climate strikes, has become "very happy" 
because of her activism.

*Get Kids Outside *
Dr. Hasbach also asks parents to consider whether a child's anxiety may 
stem from disconnection from nature. "Young people spend an average of 
four to seven minutes a day in unstructured outdoor play, and nine hours 
in front of a screen. That's a problem."

Getting an anxious child of any age outside to garden, skip stones, or 
play in the park may reduce anxiety of any kind. Nature immersion, says 
Hasbach, also helps kids love nature "before they have to do the hard 
work of trying to save it." They need a "deep, sincere connection to 
that part of themselves, recognizing that they are the natural world."

*Facilitate Agency **
*Dr. Hasbach says that it's important for parents to help children feel 
a sense of agency in the climate crisis, but that few parents actually 
do this.

"Remind children, 'Here's what some people are doing to help address it. 
Here's what we're doing in our family and why. Here's what else needs to 
be addressed.'" Then, brainstorm together. What sounds fun or 
interesting? An easy first step might be a family challenge to reduce 
food waste by 20 percent. Or, students could do school research projects 
about the kind of energy their local utility uses, and who gets to make 
that decision.

Families could explore what's happening locally with forest restoration 
or fossil fuel resistance, and decide how to support those efforts. Our 
family helped launch a youth climate action club at our kids' high 
school, with parents providing logistical support and pizza.

And of course, the 2020 election cycle offers everyone a chance to make 
big changes at the highest levels of our government. Families can 
research candidates together: Who supports a Green New Deal? Who 
supports fracking? Teens can volunteer at candidates' offices or join 
Get Out the Vote campaigns.

"Help teens get involved in social activism," Dr. Hasbach says. "Doing 
research, letter-writing campaigns, protests, or clean-ups in group 
settings is particularly impactful, because the peer group is primary at 
that age."

Sam, who volunteered on a 2018 congressional campaign and recently 
joined the Sunrise Movement, agrees. "It's really exciting, working with 
all of these young people doing all these amazing things. It's really 
high energy because the stakes are so high."

*Be a Role Model *
But Serena Orsinger, an 18-year-old climate leader in my community with 
whom I spoke last year, warns that adults shouldn't leave young people 
holding the bag, climate-wise.

"If we're not seeing the urgency and, quite honestly, the fear from the 
older generations that we're feeling, that can be upsetting, because 
it's such a big weight to carry. And if it's not spread throughout the 
generations, it can be discouraging. But when we're all bearing the load 
that is climate change, it's more empowering and doesn't feel like as 
big a burden."

In his BBC interview, Greta Thunberg's father reported that Thunberg got 
"energy" when her parents, at her urging, changed their own behavior.

It's important to recognize that some lifestyle changes might mean more 
to your kids than others. As Sam puts it, "When I say 'change your 
life,' I mean 'think about giving up some--or a lot--of your time. If 
you have the financial stability, maybe work a couple of days less a 
week and volunteer for a congressional campaign, or some activist group 
like Sunrise or 350.org."

He recently asked his mom to trade one work day for activism. "She said 
'that's a lot to ask,' and I said, 'This problem demands a lot. Think 
about my children and what kind of life they'll have.' That really 
resonated with her. She said she's going to try to get more involved 
politically now, and my dad is thinking of early retirement so he can too."

When I asked how he felt hearing that from his parents, he said, "I feel 
better whenever I see people actually weighing the facts about what 
we're up against and making conscious decisions to do more."

Then he grinned. "It's inspiring."
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/so-your-kids-are-stressed-out-about-climate-crisis



[Global Sisters Report]
*God can emerge in new ways through Teilhard's 'troubled worship'*
Feb 11, 2020
by Ilia Delio
It is almost five years since the inception of Pope Francis's encyclical 
"Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" and, unfortunately, nothing 
has changed with regard to global warming. The statistics continue to 
show rising temperatures, and this trend is predicted to have dramatic 
consequences on future Earth life. Even the prophetic voice of Greta 
Thunberg has done little to change the state of affairs. Climate change 
activists continue to protest against the present policies (or lack of) 
but these actions too are ignored. The pope's plea and Greta's cry for a 
sustainable future fall on deaf ears. Statistics do not move us to 
change and prophets go unheard.

The church continues to issue documents on global warming, as well as 
immigration, economics and other current issues, but few people are 
reading these documents. It is sad to think that if the church died 
tomorrow, the world would likely express its sympathy but not attend the 
funeral.

In past ages, Christianity was a creative force for change; in the 12th 
century the Vatican was the closest thing to Silicon Valley, initiating 
social reforms and economic policies that shaped western Europe. Today 
the church has apparently lost its power to persuade. It continues to 
issue insightful writings, but they are dead letters falling on blind 
eyes and deaf ears. The glory days are past and Christians are breathing 
the fumes of history. In fact, much of Christianity lives on the laurels 
of history and nostalgia. We talk and preach as if we are still the 
noble center of the universe and special creatures of God, not the most 
recent arrival of a 13.8 billion year old universe.
- - -
In a provocative essay entitled "Salvation by algorithm: God, technology 
and the new 21st-century religions," Yuval Harari outlines the new 
religion of technology. Harari is an Israeli historian and professor of 
history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Homo 
Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and Sapiens: A Brief History of 
Humankind, and his ideas have been widely discussed. His secularist and 
agnostic view shows a cursory understanding of religion and 
spirituality, and yet his insights are poignant.

Harari begins his essay by saying that "the most interesting place in 
the world from a religious perspective is not Syria or the Bible Belt, 
but Silicon Valley." He says that is "where hi-tech gurus are brewing 
for us amazing new religions that have little to do with God, and 
everything to do with technology. They promise all the old prizes -- 
happiness, peace, justice and eternal life in paradise -- but here on 
Earth with the help of technology, rather than after death and with the 
help of supernatural beings."

The established religions may boast of a divine mandate, he indicates, 
giving them a fixed essence of eternal and unchanging truth … but they 
"have no fixed essence. They have survived for centuries and millennia 
not by clinging to some eternal values, but by repeatedly pouring heady 
new wine into very old skins."

"Heady new wine" is a very interesting term, for it highlights a lot of 
Catholic doctrine and preaching; Greek terms explained in long homiletic 
drones. While Catholics may claim allegiance in the millions, strength 
is not in numbers, according to Harari, but in bold, new creative ideas. 
In his view the train of Homo sapiens is leaving the station driven by 
the engineers of Silicon Valley:

"Whereas during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century human 
beings learned to produce vehicles, weapons, textiles and food, in the 
new industrial revolution of the 21st century human beings are learning 
to produce themselves. The main products of the coming decades will be 
bodies, brains and minds."
- - -
Do we really believe that "God is present in matter"? Is matter the same 
as God? This would be pantheism, and while Teilhard leans in this 
direction, he is clear that God and matter are not equivalent. Rather, 
the preposition "in" is key: God is in matter meaning that God is the 
ultimate horizon, the depth and breadth of matter, other than matter 
(transcendent) yet intimately present to matter (immanent). When 
everything can be said about a particular form of matter, for example, a 
leaf (green, veined, and its other properties), we have not exhausted 
that which really draws us to it, such as its beauty or light. The 
ultimacy of this experience, which cannot be adequately spoken or 
described, is the presence of God.

So when Teilhard speaks of a power in matter, he is speaking of the 
ultimate power that eludes our ability to grasp or measure it. Yet it is 
a power that is deeply experienced and draws us into it, expressed in 
the many ways humans invent, create and transcend themselves. Science, 
technology, art, music, study, writing, all are forms of engaging this 
divine power in matter by which we transcend ourselves.

Unless we grapple with matter -- not only in scientific research but all 
aspects of world-unfolding life -- we are missing out on the power of 
life itself, the power we name as God. Twentieth century science and 
technology have discovered dark adoration, the unknown hidden God of 
matter; and because religion is so far behind in its theological 
doctrines, there is simply no opportunity to bring this hidden God to 
light. Hence it is not surprising that people spend more time on social 
media than in church, or look to Google for answers to prayers. The 
church has its head in the sand, imploding from power struggles rooted 
in fourth century Roman imperialism, while Google is building a new church.

People today are searching for something to believe in, a power that 
vitalizes and dynamizes life. If the God of Jesus Christ "fills all 
things," as St. Paul writes, then God must be found in all things. 
Teilhard thought that the church does not present Christ as filling all 
things but a Christ who is more gnostic (known only by way of knowledge) 
or docetic (only in appearance) than incarnate. If faced with the 
Pauline cosmic Christ, he thought, many scientists (and engineers) would 
recognize this immanent power and presence as the God whom they had been 
finding in their work and worshipping with a "dark adoration."

However, this could only happen if the church embraces modern science 
and evolution as the very stuff out of which God is born. Then the 
unknown God would no longer be faceless, and dark adoration could become 
luminous, and the need to become gods or superhuman would be met in the 
very act of worship, the Christification of the universe. God is 
becoming flesh by coming to light in human consciousness and shaping the 
world with a new power.

The church is missing out on the most vital opportunity to reinvent 
itself for a world in evolution. Paradigms change because the universe 
is unfinished. Science and technology show us that when the level of our 
awareness changes, we start attracting a new reality. Can the church be 
part of a new reality? There will no greening of the Earth unless we are 
inspired to belong to the Earth and to realize the body of Christ is 
here, groaning aloud in the pangs of new birth (cf. Romans 8:22).

[Ilia Delio, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Washington, D.C., is 
the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova 
University. She is the author of 16 books, including Making All Things 
New: Catholicity, Cosmology and Consciousness (Orbis Books 2015), and 
the general editor of the series Catholicity in an Evolving Universe.]
https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/god-can-emerge-new-ways-through-teilhards-troubled-worship
- - -
-Teilhard de Chardin]
*SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH **AS ADORATION *
Thomas M. King
Towards the end of The Phenomenon of Man,Teilhard wrote, 'Religion
and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the
same complete act of knowledge'. In science, the first phase, we do
the synthesizing; in religion and adoration, the second phase, we find
our own selves being given their place within a higher synthesis.
'Adoration's real name … is research.'
https://www.theway.org.uk/back/443King.pdf



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 13, 2008 *

In his "Bushed" segment, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann observes:

"Number two: Global warming denier-gate. Singer Sheryl Crow reveals that 
her new album, 'Detours,' filled with political protest songs, was 
inspired by her visit last year to the White House Correspondents Dinner 
and the rage she felt after her encounter with Karl Rove.  She tried to 
talk to him about global warming and she says his response was: 'I don't 
work for you, I work for the American people.'  No, you worked for 
George Bush and now you work for Rupert Murdoch.  That is two American 
people, not THE American people."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWBqPh1lrt0


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