My Wager on Carbon

 After reading some glowing reviews, I snapped up a copy of author and environmentalist Paul Hawken’s new Carbon: The Book of Life, which eloquently demonstrates what we should already know: carbon feels nowadays like a problem (“carbon emissions,” “carbon footprint,” etc.), but carbon is the stuff that animates all of life, mine as I type, yours as you read, the world’s.

While praising carbon, and while dazzling us with the marvel that carbon is, Hawken is like a vigilant, protective parent as he frets over what humanity has done and persists in doing to this carbon-enlivened world we delight in. I am sure a high percentage of the American population will rush to politicize and thus dismiss his concerns. But count me in the camp of those in my neighborhood whose yard-signs say “Science is real.” And I am glad that there are scientists who knows things and are way smarter than I am.

Let me share a few of Hawken’s thoughts – and ask (even if you think worrying about the environment is only for the politically naïve) if we might be wise to take seriously and heed all the warning flares. A wager (the wager, really): Supposing all the educated scientists are wrong about the impending peril. If we conserve, if we protect this beautiful earth, no harm will be done – and wouldn’t we rather risk believing climate change will be catastrophic, doing something, and turning out to be wrong? than dismissing climate change as a fake problem, doing nothing (or adding to the problem), but turning out to be wrong? What moves so many people to bet the future of the world on science being a hoax?

Okay. Some of Hawken’s warnings: “If human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed, civilization will be.” “The current lifestyle of the world is maintained at the cost of a terrifying future.” “Commerce is eliminating life on earth to pay shareholder dividends.” Ouch. “We are trying to design life on our own terms even while we are killing life on its terms.” “There is a tacit assumption that the current fossil fuel-based energy system can be swapped out for renewables and the privileged can continue to live the way they do; this is magical thinking.”

As a Christian theologian, I can only say that the Bible quite clearly implies we are to be careful stewards of the beautiful earth God has entrusted to us. St. Francis of Assisi is something of the patron saint of conservation - and rightly so. He wasn’t scared of a future, though. He was so enraptured by the glories God crafted that he did not wish for a single voice in that great chorus to be silenced. Creation isn’t ours for the taking. It is God’s, and ours is to glorify, and cherish.

At the end (don’t be anxious about a spoiler alert!), Hawken underestimates things by saying “The cascade of troubling information about the future is staggering and dispiriting.” Then he wisely reminds us that “Without fail, meaningful change begins with one person, one idea, one aspiration, one audacious dream. Uniqueness is your birthright… Plant it and see what happens. Pessimism and gloom are cobwebs; brush them aside.” Indeed, “You can’t be both cautious and courageous, we must choose…Where you are is where you are most effective. The power to act does not lie elsewhere. Everyone on Earth comes first; there is no second.”

Cruelty and Compassion: "I am like you. This troubles me."

  On Wednesday I had a great conversation with friend, author and inspiring merchant of love and hope Julie Wood. You can watch! Her book, Changing the Message, narrates the cruelty inflicted on her beautiful son Ben – in the church, his happy, safe place – which sent him into a downward spiral, eventually taking his own life. A youth pastor, spewing vile condemnation at a vulnerable kid for being – although still too young to have had a romantic relationship – gay.

   I admire Julie’s courage and resilience, and her determination to save even one life, or one more person being treated as any less than a lovely child of God, when she sits in front of people and bares her soul, her deep woundedness. And yet she has a vast heart overflowing with love – even daring to understand mean people. No small feat, this daring to understand.

   In our conversation, I read some lyrics from Craig Hella Johnson’s moving, mind-boggling “Considering Matthew Shepard,” a profound setting to music of the story of the young man brutally murdered for being gay in Wyoming. The most poignant moment comes when gays and lesbians reflect on Matthew’s killers:

   “When I think of you, and honestly I don’t like to think about you. But sometimes I do. I am so angry and confused. Late one night I had a glimpse of something, I don’t even like to say this out loud, it isn’t even all that true, but I wondered for a moment, am I like you in any way? I pray the answer is no. I bet you once had hopes and dreams too. Some things we love get lost along the way. That’s just like me. I am like you, I get confused, I’m afraid, I’ve been reckless, unthinking, intoxicated, I’ve come unhinged and made mistakes and hurt people very much. I am like you; this troubles me.”

   Julie resonated to this thought, pondering how we are all broken, and how if we hurl rage toward those who seem so evil, we become like them. She asks What happened, what trauma happened to the youth minister who scathingly condemned Ben to hell that twisted his created goodness into monstrous meanness?

   Mind you, there’s forgiveness and there’s forgiveness. Finding a space of understanding, and letting go of understandable, natural recoiling against someone who did something horrible to you and yours never can imply that it was all right. We demand this never happen on earth, ever again, and then meander toward a place of compassion, even for the one who is so terribly wrong, and hope.

   In our agonizingly divided world, with so much toxic rancor, I wonder if Julie might be showing us a way forward. We get confused. We’ve made mistakes and hurt others, including ourselves. I am like you. This can be, albeit with the conviction that the standard for Christians, and for all people of goodwill (and this isn’t optional) is that we resist as zealously as we can any who do harm. We stand with those who are adversely impacted by what’s going on. That’s not partisan. That’s not even exclusively Christian. That’s just human.