What an amazing weekend! Barbara, Peter, and I had the privilege of hosting more than forty students from Christian colleges who traveled to New York for the People’s Climate March. On Sunday, we joined with other Christians for a morning prayer service in Central Park, and then squeezed in with an estimated 311,000 people for what is hands-down the biggest climate demonstration ever.
We had our choice of groupings on the march. Leading the way were those already affected by climate disruption, followed by students, youth, and elders. Fifteen blocks back stood those working for solutions, such as renewable energy and environmental justice advocates. Another ten blocks and the scientists and faith groups stood shoulder-to-shoulder. And in the rear was an assortment of cities, states and countries from virtually everywhere.
We chose the Science and Faith section. There we were, beneath an enormous blackboard prepared by scientists declaring “The ‘Debate’ is Over!”
Its chalk markings depicted the trends in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 400,000 years, with the unprecedented and terrifying spike in the last half-century; a pie-chart of the 97 percent of climate scientists who agree on the consensus science of manmade global warming; a line graph showing the precipitous decline in Arctic sea ice cover; and the Keeling Curve demonstrating the inexorable growth in greenhouse gases every single year. Around us stood technicians in white lab coats, research scientists of every stripe, Christian college students, university professors, grandmothers demanding climate action, and young parents pushing strollers—including our own kids, Lindsey and Brad, with our beautiful granddaughters.
The debate is over. Right?
One scientist carried a sign depicting several politicians with their now-infamous escape clause: “I am not a scientist.” On the flip side, his own declaration: “I AM a scientist!”
11:30 arrived, and we expected the march to begin. But there we stood. One hour. Two hours. Finally, at 2:00, our cohort began to slowly inch forward. It seems the entire protest route was crammed full, with at least double the expected turnout.
And so, by the time we made it down to 42nd Street, it was suppertime, our feet blistered and our joints aching. Eventually, we yielded to temptation, ducked underneath the police cordon, and slipped into a Starbucks for some sustenance.
And there, on the Starbucks news rack, was Rupert Murdoch's weekend Wall Street Journal, declaring on the front page: “Climate Science Is Not Settled.”
Ugh. Oh, please.
We were exhausted, and put off reading it for the following day. But now that I have read it, I’m surprised to find that the author admitted much that is not remotely hinted at in the headline, and contradicted most of what we’ve heard on the climate-denial news outlets. The climate ischanging. The worldis getting hotter. CO2is an earth-warming gas. Burning fossil fuels iscontributing to the problem. There is no hoax.
So why, then, is “the science not settled?”
Well, because projections for the future cover a wide range of outcomes, the article says. Is this true? Well, yes — the range runs from really awful to downright apocalyptic. Of course, the WSJ doesn’t mention this.
Anything else? Sure, but the Journal here reverts to silliness. There’s the implication that scientific uncertainty has been covered up. That’s simply false.
There’s the idea that while humans are in fact changing the climate, it’s probably no more influential than natural variation. In fact, almost all the heating of the last several decades can be only explained by human influence.
There’s the claim that the UN IPCC report should have focused on all the uncertainties that exist, rather than the facts that have been uncovered by research. That’s also silly.
And of course, there’s the “pause” — the last ten years in which global surface temperatures have stayed right around the record high, rather than continuing to shoot higher and higher still. That’s a fact which means something to you mainly if you ignore heating of the deep oceans, or take comfort in a decade of merely-record surface heat while CO2 concentrations have jumped from 380 to 401 parts per million — faster than any decade known to science.
Rather than attempting to debunk the WSJ “lets-do-nothing” article myself, let me recommend a succinct analysis written for Climate Science Watch. In it, Penn State’s Dr. Michael Mann sums up his response to the WSJ’s weekend bomb this way:
“It is the RATE of warming that presents such risk to human civilization and our environment. There is no doubt that there were geological periods that were warmer than today due to long-term changes in greenhouse gas concentrations driven by natural factors like plate tectonics. But consider the early Cretaceous 100 million years ago when CO2 concentrations were even higher than today, and there were dinosaurs roaming the ice-free poles. Over the last 100 million years, nature slowly buried all of that additional CO2 beneath Earth’s surface in the form of fossil fuels. We are now unburying that carbon a *MILLION* times faster than it was buried, leading to unprecedented rates of increase in greenhouse concentrations and resulting climate changes.
“To claim that this is just part of a natural cycle is to be either deeply naive or disingenuous.”
Whatever the facts may be, the WSJ has done its damage. In the climate debate, just like the tobacco debate of an earlier generation, you don’t need to win anything. You only need to be able to suggest that there’s enough doubt so that it’s okay to do nothing, while the “debate” rages on. The “merchants of doubt” proved this over decades, while tobacco cancer deaths piled up.
And so this morning, I was not remotely surprised to receive links to the WSJ article from perfectly intelligent friends of mine not deeply engaged in the climate discussion. Hundreds of thousands of people taking to New York’s streets to demand climate action? But wait! The country’s biggest business journal says that the debate is not over! Maybe we can wait for a while longer, and continue to burn tobacco oil just like we’ve always done. Maybe? After all, there is a debate…. right?
During our prayer service before the march, the Christians gathered for worship in Central Park sang these beautiful words: “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears all nature sings….”
I love that verse, but only now notice the adjective: Listening. Listening ears.
Creation is speaking. Its researchers are helping us to understand what it’s saying. We have ears. But are we listening?
John Elwood edits BelovedPlanet.com, a voice for creation care from within the Evangelical Christian community; owns Good Hand Farm, which supports more than 700 organic CSA produce memberships in New Jersey; and serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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