Sister Jean-Delores Schmidt is a 98 year old nun who serves as a chaplain for the Loyola University basketball team and travels with them. Defying odds and expectations, the team earned a spot in the final four of the men’s basketball tournament. During the celebration, a reporter asked Sister Jean, “What did you give up for lent?” “Losing” she replied with a smile. Think about that for a moment. Continue reading Let’s start winning
Tag Archives: climate change
A Republican Plan for Climate Change?
A group of conservative Republican leaders has published a credible sounding proposal for slowing climate change, a goal previously championed mostly by liberal Democrats. The proposal, if scientifically and economically valid, could unite those who care about our climate across partisan and culture war divides. We face an increasingly urgent threat to mankind’s future. This proposal deserves immediate objective study and all the collaboration we can muster.
The idea is called a “Carbon Dividends Plan”. They have organized as “The Climate Council“. You can click the link to see their work and hear them discuss it. Here are the basics: Continue reading A Republican Plan for Climate Change?
A CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER
Instead of a Christmas column from me, I tried to imagine a message from someone far wiser.
Dear American Friends:
I’ve noticed that many of you send newsy letters about your families as part of your celebration of my birthday. This year I decided to try it myself by writing to all of you. Christians often call me Father, Son, or Holy Ghost – three different ways to see me. Today I’m writing as Son.
It’s been a disappointing year for Dad and me. H.G., my spirit partner, is sad because so few of you welcome her into your thinking and conversations. Many of you don’t seem to hear her.
Your wars in the Middle East have killed about four million people in the last 25 years. Most of them are Dad’s Muslim children. He loves them as much as he loves you and he wants you to quit killing each other.
You’ve been writing “In God we trust” on your buildings. Dad’s not impressed. If you trusted him, you’d be taking his advice about which things are most important. I explained that to you once when I said that all of Dad’s laws are based on just two things. Love him; and love your neighbor as yourself. Everything that his prophets said, the laws they gave, and all that I taught comes from those two instructions. Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. I know that’s sometimes difficult for you to do but it isn’t complicated.
Did you notice that when I lived on your planet, I tried to be a respectful friend of people regardless of their station in life or whether they agreed with me? I enjoyed time with Roman soldiers that invaded my country, tax collectors, prostitutes, and lepers. I ignored nationality and welcomed whoever came to me. When I saw injustice, I spoke up about it. Think about that when you’re deciding whether to deport people who came into your nation hungry, needy, and looking for work. You must love and respect people of all races and cultures, whether straight or LGBTQ. There are no exceptions to “love your neighbor”.
Back at the beginning of time, Dad put you in charge. In one of the books that your ancestors wrote about him, they called it “having dominion” over the whole earth. You sometimes call it “free will”. Dad lets you make your own decisions and then he lets you live with the consequences – good ones and bad ones.
You’ve learned a lot from your science. You can produce food, shelter, clothing and other things that you need. You know how to cure some of the illnesses that killed your ancestors. Those are great things and you should be proud of what you’ve achieved. You should apply my “love your neighbor” teaching to those things too. You have brothers and sisters who are starving. Here in your wealthy nation you often reserve your nearly miraculous health care for those who have money or insurance.
You’ve written your laws so that individuals and businesses get to own knowledge. Anyone who wants to use the knowledge to save a life has to pay whoever owns the knowledge. Such greed makes some of you angry at others. You need to do something about that.
You’re making a mess of the planet that Dad gave you. It’s getting warmer and you’re about to flood a lot of it. You already know that from your science but you’re not doing much about it. Is that because it would cost money? But won’t it cost more when the floods come? And wouldn’t the work to clean up the planet create jobs for people who don’t have a way to support themselves today?
Even though Dad and I are sad and disappointed we still want to help. When I tried really hard about 2000 years ago, people like you crucified me for my trouble. We’re not going to do that again, but Dad did send H.G. to help you find your way. Listen to her. Look inside yourself. She’s there and if you pay close attention to her you’ll discover how to love your neighbor; and then you will know what to do.
Thanks for reading this. Dad, H.G. and I will be thinking of you and wishing you a Happy 2017.
Your friend,
Jesus
Cleaning Up North Carolina Energy Laws
North Carolina’s Republican legislators have passed energy and environmental laws that impede innovation and economic competition by clean energy entrepreneurs. They show little regard for the interests of individual citizens and ignore twenty-first century science. Consider these examples.
In order to build a solar or wind energy installation, the company must own or lease the property where it will be built, comply with local zoning and land use rules, and acquire right of way for transmission of the energy that they produce to customers without use of eminent domain powers or other government authority. A bill (S-843) recently passed by the State Senate’s “small government” Republicans would add a maze of new regulations and barriers including a 1.5 mile setback from the property line and a 35 decibel (human whisper) noise limit at the property line for wind farms. Solar farms would have to be invisible from adjoining property. The bill removes corporate protections for stockholders in wind and solar farms, making them individually liable for damages caused by the corporation. And it requires the corporation to set aside sufficient money to return the land to its original state after the renewable energy site is closed.
State Law is starkly different for production of natural gas or oil via fracking. Corporations do not have to own or lease the property under which they drill. They are allowed to drill horizontally under private property without agreement by the landowner and to put wells on someone else’s land without permission. Payments to the landowner will be set by a government agency and the landowner can’t refuse the arrangement. Local governments are not allowed to regulate fracking via zoning, or in any other way. A government agency can force land owners to accept a pipeline for delivery of oil or gas to market. Executives who violate laws or rules governing fracking can not be prosecuted for anything more than a misdemeanor. Owners of corporations are not personally liable for damages that their companies cause. There is no requirement to return the land and water to it’s original condition after the fracking is completed or set aside money for potential damages.
There is no evidence of substantial or long-term environmental damage by wind or solar farms. Fracking, on the other hand, is a proven cause of well contamination, air pollution, and earthquakes. The energy produced by solar and wind farms is as clean as any that is available. Gas and oil consumption contribute heavily to climate change by putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
North Carolina has few earthquakes but we do have inactive geologic faults. Two decades ago those statements were true of Oklahoma but that state experienced 581 earthquakes in 2014. In that year frackers injected over 64 billion gallons of wastewater under Oklahoma and that is clearly the cause of the earthquakes. (Scientific American, July 2016) It appears that frackers will not be required to pay for Oklahoma’s earthquake damage. It is clear, however that Oklahoma property owners will need earthquake insurance. The price of that coverage is bound to rise along with the number of quakes.
Why would a state legislature allow local zoning and regulation of wind and solar while denying it for gas and oil? Why make individual stockholders of clean energy companies responsible for damages caused by the corporation while immunizing frackers from similar claims? Why is government’s power used to enable environment-damaging industries while discouraging clean energy development?
The success of clean energy producers is visible in the form of solar and wind farms that produce electricity without pollution. Not everyone likes the changed landscape. Huge petroleum, gas, coal, and utility companies have a lot of influence with legislators and they don’t like competition from clean energy.
We need to let the market work by applying the same standards across all energy sectors. If they pollute, they should pay to clean it up. If they need a right of way to get energy to the market, the same laws and regulations should apply to all forms of energy. If they violate safety and environmental standards, criminal and civil penalties should be the same for all businesses.
Legislators who espouse free market principles should be able to collaborate with environmentally conscious colleagues to create fair competition and a cleaner state for all of us. They will if voters demand it.
IS POPE FRANCIS ALSO A PROPHET?
On June 13 of this year, Papa Franciscus (Better known as Pope Francis) sent a letter (encyclical) asking each of us who share Planet Earth to attend to its deteriorating condition; discuss it among ourselves; and make decisions about how to maintain it. Acknowledging that only about a third of humans claim to be Christians and about half of Christians are Catholic; he crafted his letter to speak to all of us about caring for the Earth – and ultimately about caring for each other.
Francis described Creation – our planet and our universe – as a gift to mankind that we will pass on to successive generations. Using biblical language, he pointed out that, “…the Genesis account which grants man ‘dominion over the earth’…” does not warrant “the unbridled exploitation of nature…” Continue reading IS POPE FRANCIS ALSO A PROPHET?
ADDICTION TO FOSSIL FUEL
Two major reports on climate change have been published in recent weeks, adding to the already imposing evidence that we humans are changing our planet in ways that threaten our own livelihoods and interests. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (United Nations) and the American Climate Assessment are available in both summary and detailed form. They include historic trends, predictions for the future, and suggested courses of action. The reports leave no doubt about some basic conclusions. Climate change is under way. Burning fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and that is a major cause of climate change. Deforestation reduces the environment’s ability to remove the CO2. It is clear that human actions are the major causes of climate change. The changes on their way include extreme variance in weather – droughts in some places, floods in others, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and gradual death of coral reefs. We can slow them down, but it is too late to prevent them. Continue reading ADDICTION TO FOSSIL FUEL