CLIMATE
CHANGE
An Essay written by forward thinker Rev. Vigesh Marcus / CSI Coimbatore Diocese
According
to Oxford Dictionary Climate change generally means “Climate change is the variation in global or regional
climates over time. It reflects changes in the variability or average state of
the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years.
These changes can be caused by processes internal to the Earth, external forces
(e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human
activities”. Climate change is a significant and lasting change in
the statistical distribution of weather patterns over
periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in
average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the
average conditions. Climate
change is caused by factors that include oceanic processes such as oceanic circulation, variations in radiation
received by Earth, plate
tectonics and volcanic
eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the
natural world; these latter effects are currently causing global warming, and "climate change" is often used to describe
human-specific impacts.
Terms and definitions:
There has been a rise in the ecological
consciousness among the humans in the recent years. Even the education system
teaches the students about the harm of deforestation. With the precise
measurement of carbon dioxide from 1958 onwards, the scientists have begun to
observe the steady increase in temperature, and to analyze the possible
correlation between excessive emissions of greenhouse gases and the increase in
temperature. It was in the year 1975 that the term Climate Change was used for
the first time to indicate the global warming. By the second half of the year
1980 the term climate change rose up to its peak. A 2nd report made
by Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) stated that “the balance of
evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. A 3rd
report made by the IPCC said that “there is new and stronger evidence that most
of the warming, observed over the last 50years is attributable to human
activities”. This report by the IPCC was made in 2001. Finally the 4th report by IPCC
pronounced that “human induced warming of the climate system is widespread”. A
basic knowledge of different terms related to climate change. Weather refers to
meteorological conditions at a particular time, whereas climate refers to
average meteorological conditions. To be more clear, we can say that weather
represents day to day temperature whereas climate refers to atmospheric
conditions for a longer period. Climate change can also be stated as
fluctuations in temperature of the earth. In the last 2 decades there are
different definitions concerning climate change. The IPCC defines climate
change as “A change in the state of the climate that can be identified by
changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists
for an extended period, typically decades or much longer. Climate change may be
due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent
anthropogenic changes in the composition of the global atmosphere or in land
use”. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
proposed a different definition which is stated as follows “a change of climate
which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the
composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural
climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. All these
definition points climate change as human interventions in one way or the
other.
Climate Change: A Human Induced Tragedy
As seen by the definitions above
which says that Climate changes are primarily due to anthropogenic emissions.
In1824 a French physicist named Jean Fourier coined a term known as green house
effect. According to him, “the earth’s atmosphere acted similarly to a green
house, with certain gases in the atmosphere trapping, some of the heat from the
sun’s radiation rather than allowing all of the radiation to bounce back into
space.” The greenhouse effect enables the earth to have a warmer temperature
which is indispensible for the survival of life an earth. In other words,
greenhouse gases keep the earth inhabitable for the community of creation, by
making it warmer. However if we increase the emission of green house gases,
that will make the planet more hot and disrupt the climatic equilibrium. The
emission rate of greenhouse gases like Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Methane
(CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) s emission rate are increasingly steadily. This
is because of the excessive consumption of fuel for transportation and other
purposes, coolers, refrigerators, manufacturing cements etc. Apart from the
emission of anthropogenic gases, there are also several natural causes for
global warming such as tectonic activity, volcanic eruption, orbital
variations, solar variability. However, the striving to shift the blame to
nature has been contested by scientists and other experts. For them, this is a
clever political strategy of the ruling elite class to absolve their carbon
sins.
Climate
Change and its Impact on Nature
The steady increase in the rise of temperature is
not good for the lives of God’s creation. The planet is dying due to the
climate change. If this same condition continues then this climate change will
be a great threat to our mother earth. But there are some scientists who argue
that, “The atmosphere is not warming; and if it is, then it’s due to natural
variation; and even if it’s not due to natural variation, then the amount of
warming is insignificant; and if it becomes significant, then the benefits will
outweigh the problems; and even if they don’t, technology will come to the rescue;
and even if it doesn’t, we shouldn’t wreck the economy to fix the problem when
many of the science are uncertain.”
If we let the emission level go unchecked, planet
earth will soon become uninhabitable for living beings. And it calls forth
radical changes in our economic policies and social relations. With global warming,
extreme heat has become day to day reality. Not only heat is being produced at
a larger rate, but there are some countries were because of these climate
changes it even generates more chillness than the normal rate. But we are yet
to be aware of human cost of heat. Europe witnessed the suffering of 20,000
people during the summer of 2003 owing too extreme heat. The number of deaths
due to heat was increased upto 50000 during 2005. This unnoticed problem of
climate change not only affects the humankind at large but it really affects
the poor, marginalized, beggars, homeless, aged etc. Along with the enormous
heat, floods and droughts caused by the impact of climate change on
precipitation can also create havoc on the life of the community of creation.
Robert Henson calls floods and droughts as two sides of a coin. The 24 hour
continuous rainfall of 944mm in Mumbai in July 2005 is still fresh in our
memories. When seasons are disrupted, rains arrive at unexpected times that
destroy our lives and livelihoods. Too much rains causes that area flooded and
can also make the fertile lands unproductive. Agriculture is greatly destroyed
by the floods and the local community and farmers are affected.
The unprecedented increase in the melting of
permanent ice and glaciers may not seem to be a threat to people in the Indian
sub-continent. But that is a myth.
According to many scientists “the 21st Century will likely
bring a summer when the Arctic Ocean is entirely free of ice for the first time
in nearly a million years.” Some historical value peaks like Kilimanjaro and
some other peaks also experience the erosion of ice from its peak. One of the
most beautiful animals in the earth named Polar bears are facing extinction due
to this erosion problems. Thus melting of
ice and glaciers seems to be a threat to different species of animals,
fishes and birds. Melting of glaciers will also result in the rise of sea
levels endangering the very existence of low lying islands and other coastal
communities. Climate change affects the oceans in diverse ways. Along with the
sea level rise, climate change will also cause the disturbance to oceanic
currents. Climate change has already strengthened the ocean driven storms such
as tropical cyclones. Addressing the United Nations, the prime Minister of
Tuvalu has accused the developed nations for purposely committing “a slow and
insidious form of terrorism against us.”
The Spell of Climate Change on India :
India
as a developing country has been experiencing the impact of climate change in a
severe manner for quite some time. But we have not taken any initiatives to
guard our livelihood. Extreme weather conditions such as heat waves, floods and droughts have become
frequent in recent times all over India. As a result of this both the surfaces
namely air temperature and sea levels have been rising steadily in the last two
decades. Sunderbans, world’s largest mangrove wetland, in Eastern India will
soon become a memory if climate change continues unchecked.
India
being an agrarian country, even a marginal increase of 2 degree C in
temperature would totally affect the agriculture and also the food security and
other communities. Shortage of water- drinking and irrigation purposes is also
not possible which leads to many kind of diseases. Water Scarcity can also generate
Sanitation problems which can give birth to live taking diseases. Climate
change in India will have ruthless impacts on water resources. Many parts of
the country are witnessing high problems due to water. Conservative statistics
says that 50% of India’s Flora and Fauna is in danger due to climate
change. If this same condition prevails
in the nation then India would soon become world’s largest country of internally
displaced people.
Climate Change and Economic Injustice:
A deeper engagement with the symptoms of climate
change, sketched by the subaltern communities, provokes us to problematize the
issue in a different way. Climate change is more than “any other change in
climate overtime, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human
activity.” Global warming is the consequence of the colonization of the life
world by imperial, capitalistic, and neo-liberal projects and their systematic
interventions. Automobiles throw in a major part of the green house gas emissions
in India. Chennai is considered as the 1st state which produces
largest smoke polluted state in India. In the backdrop of food crisis, the
conversion of agricultural land into bio-fuel plantations exhibits a shift in
the government policy from feeding the communities to feeding the cars. Quick
fix solutions do not addresses climate injustice but offer painless solutions.
While plantations have their own ecological consequences such as loss of
bio-diversity, water table disruption, pollution through pesticides, and
herbicides, it does also have social impacts which devastate local communities.
All these add up to new exoduses of climate refugees, and it takes away the
food sovereignty of the communities.
Until
we recognize that global warming is capitalism’s greatest failure, that it is
the deepest crisis ever faced by humanity and innumerable other species, and
that real solution to this disaster is not possible from within capitalism, we
will not be able to come out of it. We must focus on an entirely different
trajectory of development, one that has equity, sustainability, reverence for
nature, and a fair space for other species to its core. This calls for a
radical shift from the prevailing dominant analysis to problematize climate
changes as a problem of climate injustice.
Climate Injustice and Gender Injustice:
The
Global warming and climate injustice also paves a way for Gender Injustice.
Gender sensitivity in such cases does not stem from a political commitment to
gender justice; rather it reveals the diplomacy to be politically correct. The
Climate justice is interrelated with gender justice. Climate justice is not
possible without gender injustice. The current statistics says that 70% of the
people who suffer due to climate change are the Women. 85% of the people who
die due to natural calamities or natural disasters are also women. 75% of
environmental refugees all over the world are also women. Moreover women are also susceptible to be
unseen victims of resource wars and conflicts as a result of climate change.
What are the reasons for such gender discriminations? The widespread social
inequalities which legitimate and perpetuate the disabling of moral agency by
means of the lack of education opportunities, employment, property rights,
access to information, and physical and sexual abuse and violence and the like
make the women more vulnerable to the climate change. There are different ways through
which women are affected by the climate change. One of the way is through their
profession or occupation. Some women only know the occupation which is closely
related to their tradition such as paddy cultivation, cotton, and tea
plantations and prevailing gender relations ns, fishing etc. The women are
forced to confront a situation where their ability to adapt is low due to
gender constructions and prevailing gender relations, asking them to bear the
burden of adaption disproportionately.
Women are the mainly affected than men due to
climate change-related risks due to existing gender discriminations,
inequality, and inhibiting gender roles which plays a major role in our society
and many parts of the world. Some cases say that elderly women and girls are
more affected than the normal womanhood. The death rate of women is markedly
higher than that of men by the natural disasters (because women would be
guarding their children, houses, etc where as men flee away, EX: Lot’s wife in
Bible). This is particularly the case in disaster-affected societies in which
the economic status of women is low. Women are inclined to gender based
violence during natural disasters. Rural women are the ones who are affected by
the climate change because the agriculture which they depend sees a back seat
which completely destroys their living. Some other resources like financial
resources, unequal rights to property, and difficulties in decision making make
the women affected mentally.
Adaptation
is a means to reduce the vulnerabilities caused by global warming and other
ecological disasters so that the communities which bear the brunt of the
problem disproportionately can be protected by enabling their moral agency.
Adaptation does not come all the way normally, but it is dependent on one’s
wealth, technological power, access to information and social standing. Thus
gender plays a major role. It calls for a new perspective on climate change
which recognizes the integral connection between gender justice and climate
justice.
Climate Injustice and Social Injustice:
“Upper
caste farmers and much richer farmers use tractors, modern technological
machines to plough their land, heightening the climate crisis with fertilizers
and other kind of manures. Our impact on the climate change is much smaller.
Larger farmers grow money, we grow food.” This was an observation by Mrs.
Narsamman Managari, one of the Dalit women of Andhra Pradesh, who attended UN
conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. She clearly exposed the correlation
between climate injustice and social injustice. Caste System which is
considered to be as the sin of our land and it is deeply ingrained in our
social fabric. Hence the victims and the refugees of climate change and other
ecological, environmental disasters are not the people who belong to the upper
caste but the people who are predominantly dalits, adivasis, tribals and the
poor whose voices and faces are been hidden and silenced. The discernment is
totally absent in the official and dominant climate change discourses. It urges
a greater engagement from the part of these communities and their movements to
re-study the problem of global warming from the vantage point of their living
experiences.
Climate
change is more than the variations in temperature. It is an environmental
crisis which is disproportionately shared by the indigenous communities and the
people of color. These communities who constitute the new ethnicity called
climate refugees are not the culprits of the crisis. Their carbon footprint is
insignificant when compared to the dominant class. But when it comes for
suffering due to the climate change it is not the rich and strong who suffer
but the poor and weak who struggle to make their living.
Ecological insolvency of our Spirituality:
There
are lot of hymns and songs written by many theologians and persons of God. But
not any of the song talks about the creation of God and its destruction by
human. Most of the songs proclaim the majesty of God. Many songs proclaim the
salvation of God, but many times we forget that salvation comes to us if we
protect the Mother Nature that God has gifted us.
Along
with the hymns, our liturgies and sacraments play a significant role in our
theological formation. A closer examination of our traditional liturgies
provides us with the Church’s theological perspectives on God, human beings,
sin and salvation. From an ecological point of view, the two sacraments that
are rich with nature are the Baptism and Eucharist because Baptism deals with
water and water is one of the gifts give by God for human survival. The other
is Eucharist where it celebrated the bounty of creation and human labor in the
bread and wine. But unfortunately these two sacraments neither theologically
tells us about God’s plan and purposes for the community of creation nor
inspire us to engage in the mission of redeeming God’s creation. But we wrongly
understand the Gospel as that, we are called to live a life apart from the
world to live a sacred life. But the truth is that we are not called to make
ourselves excluded from the world but rather we are called to be a part of the
world and use it for God. We think that
we will be contaminated if we are a part of the world. But the truth is that we
are contaminating ourselves by being away from the world and shame God by not
using his natural resources in a proper way.
The
Eucharist liturgy celebrates the passion of Christ as a new covenant for the
forgiveness of sin. But this experience of salvation is limited to human
beings, and hence, the rest of the saving grace of Christ. The prayers of
confession that we recite in our traditional prayers do not help us to discern
our ecological sins that are caused by the structural sins of unjust economic
systems and social practices of exclusion. As a result our worship does not
lead us to the experiences of genuine introspection and repentance.
The
creeds that we use in the church that is the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed
occupy a prominent space in our faith formation and Christian life. Both these
creeds teach us about the Doctrines of Christian life. A critical reading of
these creeds from the perspective of the earth reveals the disturbing fact that
communion of creation created and founded good by God does not find any room in
the creeds in the church except in the Affirmation of God as the creator. These
critical analyses of different elements that we use in the church clearly
describes that there is an ecological insolvency in our Spirituality. Thus
there can be creeds, prayers that can be taught to the children at root levels
so that they would know the value of God’s creation and their responsibility to
guard it safe.
Theological Legitimization of the Ecological
Crisis:
In
spite of the ecological insolvency in our spirit there also remains an attempt
to reclaim the ecological vision of Bible and also to engage in ministries of
creation care. “Go into the world and preach…” is the ultimate command of Jesus
and thus this command is inspired by many Christian faith and there are many
communities that take up this task as their mission of going into the world and
proclaiming the importance of Ecology and the disasters of Climate change.
These communities have the Bible as their base and start their Evangelization on
ecology and these are known as Eco-Justice ministries.
“The
environmental movement is consumed with trying to preserve the planet forever,
and we know this is not God’s plan.” But the day of the Lord will come like a
thief … and God will create a new heaven and earth. Thus the Scripture clearly
tells us that the person who does not serve the nature are Evil persons.
Therefore, as Christians, we must recognize that environmentalism is a doctrine
of devils. Moreover we know that the “wrath of God” is against those who
practice wicked environmentalism. God has driven these God haters into insanity
and madness. Since religious environmentalism is a mental disease, it must be
treated like one. These persons require counseling, drug therapy, shock
treatments, or whatever is necessary to restore their sanity and return them to
be productive members of the society. This should be one of the basic action
that every Christian must do. This is known as conversion. This is what Jesus
Christ expects from us. This is building up God’s glory on the earth. Environmentalism
is not only proclaiming false teachings but it is also anti Christ, anti God
and anti Biblical, because it teaches that man can destroy the earth and
dominate it. But it is not that what the Bible teaches. Bible clearly teaches
that mankind should NOT destroy the earth, but it also teaches that he couldn’t
destroy it even if he desired to. Satan is the one who is behind the radical
environmental movement of today. Even the phrase “mother earth” is taken from
Satanic religions. In spite of all these, Go is still on his throne, and he
will only allow Satan to go so far before he intervenes. These are those
Christians who actually believe that the church is going to set up the kingdom
on the earth before Christ returns to the earth. That is not only false
doctrine, but it is blasphemy and heresy.
“The
Bible clearly promises that Jesus Christ will definitely return to the Earth,
not only to judge the nations, but to set up His Millennial kingdom. Since this
is the true doctrine of the bible, thus Humankind cannot destroy the earth in
any form for his survival and pleasure. We may not take these theological and
Biblical arguments so seriously. But the very fact is that these arguments are
posed by heavily funded and learned Christian leaders and theologians with
large number of followers indicate that several of our Christian brothers and
sisters are yet to recognize care of creation as a mission imperative. There is
a close relation between “Evangelists” and “Liberals”. A hard core Christian
fundamentalist named Pat Robertson says hat global warming has converted him.
Yet, as Christians, it is our responsibility to discern the crises of our
present day crises and contexts, and enable the faith communities to respond to
climate change. Before we say that we have a Christian Scripture we should introspect
and think that the Scripture has made us to destroy the land in many ways. That
means, the crisis that we face today is primarily a theological problem; a
problem that emerges from our perception of God, ourselves, and the rest of
creation that sanctions our abusive relationship with nature.
Critical Engagement with Bible and Christian
Theology:
According
to me the main reason for humans to destroy the mother earth is that the wrong
understanding of the Scripture, because the scripture says that 1)Humans can
have dominion over nature and 2) we are created in the image of God which means
all other creations does not resemble God. Other creations also have Soul and
thus they are not inferior to us.
The
first creation story says that Man can subdue the earth which means that God
has created the earth as a super market where man can do / chooses whatever he
wants to quench his thirst. According to Lynn White, subdue doesn’t mean
destroying the earth but to be a “Good Stewardship” of the Mother Nature. Some
scholars also say that the Climate change, floods, droughts are God’s anger
because humankind has forgotten to protect the Nature. In the Book of
Revelation we see many Apocalyptic texts of God’s wrath and judgment. There are
lots of verses in this book which clearly says that God’s wrath will definitely
come on the people who would destroy the nature. There are many plagues,
diseases that are prevailing in our community at present. These are due to God’s
anger and his cure upon the people of the earth because we failed to protect
his nature. God has determined to destroy the earth and thus he sends plagues.
The Bible clearly explains about the intimate relationship between God and
Natural world (Is6:3). This is the Global Vision that should guide us in our
public witness. Thus this should be our commitment that we as a church, as a
faith community to protect the nature that belongs to GOD almighty. Let us all Join hands in protecting JESUS THE
NATURE.
Conclusion:
As Cornel West rightly puts it, “To be inspired
by ordinary human beings made by God who undergo suffering but who have the
courage to imagine a different future and are willing to fight for it, and to
decide to fight along with them.” A theological and biblical engagement with
climate change and global warming begins with the discernment of the problem.
Discernment of the problem is to go beyond the prevailing dominant versions of
truth. Discernment involves courage to critically evaluate the dominant
knowledge of our times, and to re-problematize the problem from the
perspectives of the victims of climate change. This discernment leads us to
introspection. Such introspection will expose the metaphorical ice-bergs in out
theologies and biblical interpretations that continue to perpetuate ecological
destructions. Thus let us develop Theology, Biblical Insights of the Nature by
protecting it and discover its miracles and wonders.
Bibliography:
ü Zachariah, George. Gospel in
a Groaning world: Climate Injustice and Public Witness. Tiruvilla:
CSS,2012.
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