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Exploring the Oil Sands: A Class Trip

by Jeremiah Baťuric

Many Aboriginals criticise the Euro-Canadian system of education, saying that such a system further distances students from their environment and diminishes the form of learning through direct observation and experience. Indeed, the 2012 Fall Semester’s Special Topics Course on the Alberta Oilsands attempted to engage the complex and convoluted issue of the oilsands from an isolated classroom in the King’s University College. In an attempt to push the bounds of the educational system (as is the habit of this little university), Professor John Hiemstra and the class organized a field trip to the very place they had been learning about. At approximately 7:00 in the morning the eight of us, layered with the necessities of an overnight’s visit, boarded a 15 passenger van heading first for MEG Energy. MEG Energy is a very successful SAGD in-situ (that is, oil extraction without ugly open-pit mining) operation outside of Conklin, Alberta.

We all knew that the oilsands create employment for Albertans, Canadians and temporary foreign workers. Stepping into MEG Energy, however, exposed the individuals and families behind those jobs. After a generous helping of shepherds’ pie, a succinct PowerPoint presentation and the arduous task of gearing up, we were given a grand tour. Most impactful for me was our conversations with our guides while riding in the company trucks. These employees truly loved working here. It was like a family and they considered it to be the best place they had ever worked. Unlike what may have been expected, the company was not all about the bottom-line or hard and fast economic growth. We even criticised that line of thinking together.

Hopping back upon that infamous Highway 63, we made our way to the city of Fort McMurray. While we had heard of the traffic congestion in the city, we were still unprepared for it as we crept along to our destination at a snail-like pace. After a long haul, we finally reached our destination: the Evergreen Christian Reformed Church. Here was to be our abode for the night and, conveniently, our next learning experience would meet us there. Two graduates from King’s came to the church to discuss the social aspects of the oilsands. One represented the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo while the other represented the Christian Labour Association of Canada. Again both of them loved to live in Fort McMurray. This was evident as the representative from Wood Buffalo unveiled a sneak peak into some of the new ideas for revitalizing the city, especially the downtown. One exciting idea was the goal of zero waste between the city and oilsands development. They were looking into ways Fort McMurray could utilize excess energy made in oilsands development. One of their challenges is the transient nature of the residents of Fort McMurray. It is their hope to make Fort McMurray a place people desire to build a home and family. The both of them did not engage with the issue of the oilsands uncritically, but were passionate about preserving the people connected to development. One piece that did seem to be lacking was initiatives and ideas for other communities in the region of Wood Buffalo.

After a quiet night at the church, we were picked up in a little shuttle bus which would take us to our next stop: the Suncor Oilsands Operation. We were entering the heart of the oilsands. Stopping at an office just outside of the city, we were entertained by our tour guide and a few unexpected guests. Together we turned east off the highway and were entranced upon the horizon which held a figure of civilization – a portrait of steel and smoke – a contrast to the empty white of the natural landscape. Entering upon this figure, one is first taken aback by the size of the operation. We noticed the huge towers used to process the bitumen and the intricate design of pipes which stretched even across the river. As we also crossed the river, a certain disappointment crept in as we realized that the snow veiled the vastness of the place, and we were only able to see so a glimpse of Suncor’s reality. We could not see the tailings ponds and the mining operation was barley visible from the point we had stopped to overlook. The monster-size of the famous mining trucks was not noticed until regular trucks, like toy cars, drove beside and between them on the road below our lookout. We ended the tour by looking at Suncor’s reclaimed area just outside the main operations. Although it was still bare and white, nothing like it once was, it was still a proud achievement for the company.

After having a sandwich, courtesy of Suncor, we just had enough time to be hosted by Mikisew Cree First Nation Government Industry Relations back in Fort McMurray. This is one of the First Nations directly affected by the oilsands. As an Environmental Studies Student, I had the privilege of doing my required Internship with the Government Industry Relations department the previous summer. Instead of a standard PowerPoint presentation and one-liners we had encountered earlier in the trip, Mikisew hosted a natural and organic conversation. We experienced their perspective and also that recurrent tension found in the oilsands, specifically between preserving their traditional way of life and economic benefits. This tension is intensified by their concern that their voices and rights are not sufficiently considered by both government and industry. We left the conversation changed as another perspective was added to our understanding of the oilsands.

Dr. Hiemstra’s Oilsands course was first a fly-over the oilsands looking at all these different perspectives – economic, social, environmental, political, Aboriginal – and discerning the tension and conflict each area produces within itself and between the others. Following this, was a stepping back from the issues in critical engagement and to investigate the reasons why we are so obsessed with oilsands. It has been a challenging class and our direct experience with the oilsands through this field trip has further spurred in us a desire to learn even more, to graciously engage others from different perspectives, to unveil and newly direct idolatries, to find a new vision to articulate and decide on the public good, and to draw upon our own narrative and ultimate faith commitment for guidance amidst the tensions and conflicts of competing interests. It is Christ who compels us to follow him faithfully in the context of the oilsands.

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Idle no More as a Call to Shalom

image by Aaron Paquette
Notice the image is of feathers, not fists.

Randy Haluza-Delay

The times are interesting for those who pay attention to movement toward “a world where basic needs are met, people flourish, and peace (shalom) reigns.” (http://www2.crcna.org/pages/osj_socialjustice.cfm).   I consider this definition a building block of sustainability; justice is a crucial part of “making peace with all creation” (http://www.academia.edu/1622009/Making_Peace_with_all_Creation).

If you are wondering about “Idle No More” and what this movement is about or what it wants, I encourage you to read a few resources. The name comes from Aboriginal peoples saying “let’s be less-idle about the important issues and really start pushing against a broken system.”

Idle No More is a movement. Social movements are not organizations; they always have a diverse set of actors, and not one concentrated voice with clear, negotiable demands (think of the Jesus movement of the 1st century, with Paul and James and Peter, having to hash out their differences at the first church council – Acts 15).

A very good viewpoint  from a Cree activist is at http://apihtawikosisan.com/. She rightly points out that the main finding of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was:  “Our central conclusion can be summarized simply: The main policy direction, pursued for more than 150 years, first by colonial then by Canadian governments, has been wrong.”

Despite 395 recommendations, less than half have been acted upon even in part, and the direction is still going the same way (that wrong direction).

Note that there was more cultural diversity in North America than in all of Europe, so we should never expect all Aboriginal peoples to agree, anymore than we should expect Finns and Italians and Brits and Ukrainians to have fundamentally similar ways of being (or political philosophy). The relevant issues differ among B.C. Coastal First Nations (who have no treaty) and Newfoundland Mi’kmaq (who were just recognized as indigenous in 2009), and Haudenosaunee and Cree (who have different treaty agreements, and a different history of encounter and engagement with the British Crown and then Canadian government). But all agree, the relationship with the federal and provincial governments are a mess, and it’s a constant fight to get what was seemingly agreed upon in previous agreements.

All Canadians are “treaty people.” These aren’t “special rights” for one side. Treaties gave non-Aboriginals the right to “share the land.” That exchange required some conditions for us, such as providing education, and resources to live. As an Aboriginal leader has said, “Sure, we’ll give up our treaty rights, and they can give us back the land.” “We are all Treaty People” (http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/news/releases/2009/06/Release04.htm).

Lastly, see the post by the Centre for Race and Culture here in Edmonton: Idle No More: A Learning Opportunity (http://foraninclusivesociety.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/idle-no-more-a-learning-opportunity).

For meeting basic needs, flourishing, and shalom – we need to understand Idle No More, and engage with sincerity and faithfulness. It’s about “living well TOGETHER in the land.”

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The Good News (!?) of American Energy Growth

Randy Haluza-Delay

menrec.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

The International Energy Association came out with a report last week that made all the news (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/).   Apparently, the World Energy Outlook 2012 puts the US on track to be an “energy superpower”.   If, like me, you’ve been trying to understand the news on “Saudi America,” make sure you read the actual IEA report and other analyses.

Be careful of the news reporting. (To avoid histrionics, I’m blandly stating that rather than: omigosh! Can they sugarcoat it or what!)

For example, the report also says:

 · It is based on an “Efficient World” Scenario (projections based on maximizing energy efficiency).

 ¡ Overall shrinking supply compared to demand.

 ¡ 2/3 of all oil reserves must stay in the ground or there will be run-away climate change.

Even if governments take vigorous steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the report concluded, the continuing increase in fossil fuel consumption will result in “a long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees C.” To put this in context, human activity has already warmed the planet by about 0.8 degrees C, with slowly accelerating effects.

· The report also has an “interesting” (possibly erroneous) set of predictions of national rises and falls of production. (IEA has been wrong before, and these numbers don’t square with other projections, such as the U.S. Department of Energy).

· The US (and most global increase) increase is in “unconventional” petro reserves (e.g., fracking), with environmentally unknown effects (increasingly seemingly dangerous, but I’ll err on the side of the non-histrionic, er, scientist-talk hedging on inconclusive data).

Conclusion: IF these reserves are used, we get ,

1) runaway climate change, and

2) still have insufficient oil in the 2020s and 2030s to meet anticipated world demand.

Good summary at:

World Energy Report 2012: The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Truly Ugly (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/27-6) by a well-known scholar. Michael Klare writes: “In a report that leads with the “good news” of impending U.S. oil supremacy, to calmly suggest that the world is headed for that 3.6 degree C mark is like placing a thermonuclear bomb in a gaudily-wrapped Christmas present. In fact, the “good news” is really the bad news: the energy industry’s ability to boost production of oil, coal, and natural gas in North America is feeding a global surge in demand for these commodities…”

Just a week ago, the World Bank – that radical bastion of eco-doom – released its own report on climate change. The greenies at the World Bank warn “the world is on track to a 4°C world, marked by extreme heat-waves and life-threatening sea level rise.”  Read all about it here: http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-century

So, what to think? Part of me wants to do my own sugarcoating. I think it is bad practice to tell the bad news – people stop listening, even if the news is correct.  Plus, as a Christian, I’m probably supposed to repeat nice platitudes like, “God is a God of hope.”

But a big part of me, buttressed by the knowledge from professional study of these things, says, “Ohmigosh! WE REALLY HAVE TO GET ON WITH MAKING CHANGES!” And the Christian part of me is reminded that plenty of Israelites heard warnings from their prophets, and news from the East about the approaching Assyrians, then Babylonians (those pagans – certainly God will protect?)

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“Being Caribou:” Living a New Relationship with Creation

by Teresa Looy

This past weekend at the “Under Western Skies” environmental conference in Calgary, I had the immense pleasure of hearing Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison. This husband-and-wife team combine art, academics, and what some might call publicity stunts to influence our knowledge and thinking about the human relationship with the non-human world.

Karsten hiked from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon by foot, horse, canoe, and ski. Through snow and bad weather he traveled, stopping at towns along the way to present his message of the importance of wilderness connectivity and preservation to often hostile audiences. He started the journey with one girlfriend, and ended it with another, his only constant companion his dog. The trip spanned 3400 kilometers and lasted from June of one year until September of the next, hiked in two six-month sections. This trip is known as the Y2Y hike, and is commemorated in Karsten’s book “Walking the Big Wild”.

His wife Leanne is no less incredible. Karsten (a biologist) and Leanne (a filmmaker) decided to emulate the experience of the cariboo by following a caribou herd in the Yukon and Alaska for five months. They recorded the experience in the film and the book “Being Caribou.” These two truly did “become caribou” as they watched the massive herd flow over ridges of ice and snow in their migration. They sometimes slept for only two half-hour periods a day, traveling fast and hard to keep up with the running caribou, being bitten by bugs and swimming raging rivers where there were no fords. When they lost track of the herd they would pause and listen for the deep rumble: a rumble they could hear only through ears sensitized by months away from noisy civilization. When they returned from their epic journey they told their story to a small village that still depended on the caribou hunt. The big hunters of the village began to weep when they heard Karsten and Leanne speak, because, they said, the very cadence of their speech had not been heard since their grandparents had been brought off the land. I think that rhythm must have sunk into their bones, as they spoke in such a way that simultaneously captivated and calmed me.

This humble couple call their adventures their “necessary journeys.” Their third such journey was by canoe all the way across Canada with their two and a half year old son, Zev. They followed in Farley Mowat’s footsteps, experiencing the settings of most of his books, as they paddled, portaged, and sailed. From Canmore to Cape Breton Island, Leanne captured the family’s journey through varied settings as they experienced and honoured Mowat’s legacy. Her NFB film “Finding Farley” pulls together moving and profound footage to tell this journey’s story.

They now live in Calgary and often wish they could leave this all behind and live in the wild. Yet they know that this is not what they are called to do. They are storytellers, and they undertook these journeys so that they could return and share: what it is like to be a migrating carnivore; how the caribou hear; what the landscapes of Canada truly are. Their message is one of conservation, but they convince not by pointing out destruction, but by telling enraptured tales of beauty (without leaving out the bugs). I invite you to listen to their stories and let them sink deep into your knowing.

Karsten and Leanne’s website will take you further than I ever could with these third-hand words: http://www.beingcaribou.com/  (all images in this post were taken from that website)

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How to Get to King’s–Sans Gas

From thetransportationgazette.com

by MacKenzie Crawford

Every regular academic year, King’s students and staff drive at least 1.62 million kilometers to and from campus. That’s a recent number that even excludes the spring and summer terms, and assumes people only drive to and from campus once per day! Clearly, there’s a challenge that some of us face – we’re right beside a truck driver training school, we’re a slightly inconvenient distance away from a major bus terminal, some days are very cold in the winter, and we have a very inviting free parking lot. So how does one go about getting here without participating in the assumption that personal cars are the way to go?
 
There are myriad reasons why one would want to avoid personal car use ranging from personal health to economic implications. Our car culture is built upon a legacy of decades of artificially-cheap subsidized energy with an implied belief that the supply can last forever with few harmful effects. We’re very sensitive to urban planning and our built environment, and Edmonton is highly geared towards automobile transport, not alternative modes of transportation.
 
We’ve been fooled into normative behaviours that are sometimes hard to overcome. I believe that cars are too expensive to use to get to school when one adds up the costs of insurance, weekly gas, maintenance, and potential accidents. Our health during the academic year is very sensitive to begin with. Even a short daily trip of walking or biking can make large impacts on our grades and long-term health. We tend not to notice the stress that is placed on us by navigating busy streets (I hardly ever feel like driving home from King’s in the 4-6 rush hour), and the inherent daily feeling of being rushed that comes from driving our streets – never mind the fact that our “free” parking lot actually costs students a whopping amount of money per year in tuition and other funding to maintain such infrastructure. We also have moral and theological obligations as Christians to consider whether driving a personal vehicle is good stewardship of the world’s resources.
 
Not that I want to get anyone riled up. I just want to share my experience of getting to campus. Sure, there are plenty of students that live less than 1 km from school and still warm up their cars and drive to school in the winter which is enough to get me riled up, but I think it’s most important that getting here be more relaxing, healthy, and enjoyable. Even economic calculations of quality of life now take into account things like commuter stress, lost opportunity costs, and sedentary health impacts. Certainly, there are stressors associated with alternative transport such as difficult transfers, poorly linked bike paths, high-resistance streets, availability of space and timing of transit vehicles, and aesthetically deficient neighbourhoods, but many of these will not change without greater public demand for good urban planning.
 
Ever since I got a U-Pass (a semester-long Edmonton Transit Pass) stamped onto my part-time U of A student ID, I’ve found it really hard to “need” to drive my car to King’s. That tiny nudge is what made me finally park the car. Sure, the bus route isn’t perfect, but I compensate by throwing my bike on the bus’ bike rack and riding the rest of the way through quiet suburban streets. Admittedly, it takes slightly longer to get here by bus, but I don’t have to worry about getting into a car accident on a snowy day, I can get some study or contemplation time into my day, and most importantly, my car just sits at home not chomping into my bank account. The pleasant realization that I haven’t filled up the car for over a month is surprisingly freeing! The community aspect is wonderful too. When I’ve carpooled, biked next to, or taken the bus next to my fellow students, I’ve found that community ties are fostered far more than heading off in my sole social bubble-on-wheels.
 
So, how does one get here more easily? First, try to overcome the socialized assumption that one must fly solo and that one must arrive and leave absolutely as quickly as possible at all costs. It’s best to avoid traffic heavy roads like 50th street, instead using quieter roads and city bike routes, which can be investigated on Google Maps or Edmonton.ca. Use city bus routes, plan your route, and use the extra time to catch up on some class readings. While you’re there, look at all the vehicles that can be taken off the road and how many more people could get around easily on transit if we reached the “critical mass” of transit ridership. If you live far away from bus routes, consider carpooling with others in your area. Last year, through a research project, Josh Culling and I identified many people who lived far away from King’s, but were just a few blocks from other King’s community members who were willing to carpool. You can use carpool.ca, put up a “carpool wanted” poster on campus, or talk to other commuters. Most importantly, enjoy yourself, and remember that life is about living intentionally in your community, not fighting traffic.
 
This year, I hope to spend some time exploring what King’s could look like if we had a mandatory U-Pass and some way for commuters to carpool. Obviously, those who are not well serviced by the Edmonton Transit System might not benefit as much from a U-Pass, but for a majority of students, their experience at King’s might be a much more positive one due to the myriad benefits of non-automotive ways of getting to campus. As a community dedicated to sustainability and community, we owe it to ourselves to delve into this issue more deeply.
 
An abbreviated version of this article was published in The Chronicle on September 28.

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Kicking the Plastic Habit

by Heather Looy

I grew up adoring shows like Wild Kingdom and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and the Planet Earth and Blue Planet series have pride of place in my DVD collection. So when a friend sent me a link to this delightful mockumentary, The Majestic Plastic Bag, I had to laugh at how it echoes this marvellous genre.

Then I had a dream that I was sitting on the beach when a plastic bag drifted by. And then another, rolling gently over and over like tumbleweed. A larger clump lolloped past like a stray beachball. And as I looked, there was a plastic bottle, and a lid, and a six-pack holder, and a shampoo bottle, and an empty sunscreen container, and suddenly an enormous wave of plastic gathered itself up and crested over my head, threatening to drown me. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, attacked by a deck of cards. Gasping, I woke up.

Whew. It was just a bad dream. Or was it? Check out the consequences of our plastic addiction here, and, if you like more of the science, here. I did, and made a resolution to kick the plastic habit.

I rolled up my sleeves, rubbed my hands, and got to work. Cloth bags for shopping—check. Mesh bags for produce—check. Make my own salad dressings—check. Use butter, which is wrapped in foil, instead of margarine, which comes in plastic tubs—check. Reuse plastic bags that held buns for storing the bread I bake—check. Buy relish, mustard, ketchup in bulk using refillable containers, preferably glass ones—to do. Do same with shampoo, conditioner, household cleaners, detergent. Dishwasher detergent already comes in a cardboard container—but whoops, the individual lozenges are wrapped in plastic. Consider switching dishwasher detergent to avoid this problem.

For a virtuous moment I thought I had the plastic problem licked. But then, just as in my dream, I began to see plastic EVERYWHERE. The chair I sit in as I type this blog uses plastic. My work light. My keyboard. Much of my CPU. The modem, the router, external hard drive, telephone, camera, clipboard, pens, mechanical pencils—and that’s just what I can see from where I sit!

I have a huge drawer full of Tupperware. All plastic. I hereby designate them family heirlooms. Watch out, all heirs of my ‘estate’:  I am going to bequeath you my ‘freezer mates,’ ‘modular mates,’ ‘rock n serve microwavables,’ spice carousel, serving bowls, measuring cups, cheese graters, unto the seventh generation. Because yes indeed, they will last that long!

What about all my ‘Dutch tupperware’—piles of old margarine tubs? Or with the plastic in my appliances, built into the house, shoes, or cosmetics, not to mention the bits you just can’t avoid? Try buying socks that don’t have a plastic hanger or are not wrapped in a plastic bag. Even at the farmer’s market the meat and the cheese come wrapped in plastic, and I can’t ask for that to change because of health regulations. Am I never to eat yogurt again? And that bulk stuff I’m putting in reusable containers just comes from larger plastic containers bought by the store. What happens to them?

Plastic, plastic everywhere. What’s a person who wants to live sustainably do? Live in a log house and wear skins and furs? Since I think I’ll pass on that one for a while, I need an alternative, and a good one.

Reduce—definitely the best option. I could buy a lot less—excuse my language—cheap plastic crap. No more dollar stores for me! (Sigh.)

Reuse—at least it extends the useful life of plastics. Recycle—Edmonton is a leader in recycling, but only some plastics get diverted from the landfill.

Create a market for recycled plastic. Next time I have to build a deck or fix the front steps I could buy materials made from recycled plastic. And lobby my community league to used recycled plastic when we upgrade the neighborhood playground.

Finally, while I am not naively optimistic that technology will solve all our environmental woes, I could support creative ways of dealing with the tonnes of plastic waste already cresting over our heads. See for example this young person’s interesting idea.

So can I kick the plastic habit? I can’t go cold turkey unless I head to the wilderness—though that would have the virtue of considerably shortening the number of years I’d be around to abuse plastic! Looks like I will have to wean myself off gradually, paying attention, thinking creatively, sharing ideas with others, and working to change a culture that is just as addicted as I am.

(image from The Victorian Web, http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/12.3.html)

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Can Big Governments Play a Role in Altering our Environmental Footprint? A Lament and a Word of Hope

Global environmental problems are big–hence, “global.” We therefore turn to world leaders to, well, lead. Yet over and over again we discover that they cannot agree, that they focus on short-term priorities rather than long-term sustainability. Is it time to give up expecting real change to come from this source? Is there an alternative?

Wendell Berry has long advocated a focus on the local: that we cannot love the whole world because we cannot know the whole world. Global change comes from deeply knowing, loving, and caring for, our local spaces. How can big governments protect and honor that local loving? Historically, they have not, turning instead to a world-as-machine view that treats everything as an anonymous and generic part of a huge (economic) mechanism.

George Monbiot, an activist, producer, and writer, examines these questions in his recent provocative blog, “The End of An Era.”

What do you think? What is he right about? What is missing from his analysis? Can Christians speak into his vision?

(And once you’re at his site, explore his history and some of other blogs. You may not agree with him, but he will get you thinking.)

I look forward to your comments!

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Hole in the Wall Provincial Park: A Hidden Treasure

by Sheri Connolly

Skunked the previous day from finding Hole in the Wall Provincial Park, my work partner and I grabbed GPS coordinates and a detailed description of the road’s bends from a supervisor and set off to slalom through coal, logging and other quad-laden pickups down the Sukunka Forest Service Road.

Straight stretch, bend, culvert. Ah hah! Throwing our pickup into park, we  leaped out and   bounded up the now-obvious and admittedly well-trodden trail with cameras and empty water bottles in hand to the spring at the base of a blue-gray rock wall. Lush vegetation surrounded the feature as spring water bubbled up from underground caves.

 

Devil’s club tickled our bums, moss covered rocks threatened to send us swimming, the sheer size and volume of water was overwhelming as we stooped to fill any empty vessels we could find in our truck.

Established in 2000 and unfortunate victim of BC Parks, Hole in the Wall’s resurgence spring emerging from a limestone wall is not signposted aside from a well-hidden, faded, brown Provincial Park Boundary sign kilometres and kilometres ahead of the 40 meter trail at 50.5 kilometer off the potholed Sukunka, a mere 25 kilometer drive south of Chetwynd, British Columbia on Highway 29.

As summer plans are being solidified, consider a visit to B.C.’s Peace country. Dinosaurs, waterfalls taller than Niagara, outstanding hiking, superb fishing and hunting, and hidden, hard-to-reach-but-worth-the-effort gems like Hole in the Wall are waiting.

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Helping Christians Think Wisely About Climate Change

The issue of climate change is receiving widespread attention in Canadian society and the churches. Many churches are starting to develop their thinking and theology on this critical cultural question. One church that has long supported the King’s University College, the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRC), commissioned a “Creation Stewardship Task Force” to study climate change and write a report and recommendations to the CRC Synod. This report will be debated at the CRC Synod, in Spring 2012, and Synod will determine whether to adopt it or not. The report is available at http://www.crcna.org/site_uploads/uploads/resources/synodical/CreationStewardship.pdf. The following article, by King’s Professor John Hiemstra, is an appreciative but critical engagement with that Report. The article aims to sharpen and deepen our Christian understandings of the issue of climate change and the larger “ecological question” of our time.

Economic Origins of Climate Change: A Response to the ‘Creation Stewardship Report’

Dr. John Hiemstra is Professor of Political Studies at The King’s University College in Edmonton. He can be reached at john.hiemstra@kingsu.ca.

Introduction: ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’

My first reading of the CRC “Creation Stewardship Task Force” Report produced two quick, gut-level responses: (1) “Synod should definitely adopt this excellent report,” and (2) “It’s the economy, stupid!” I hasten to clarify. I meant no disrespect to the Taskforce by this second thought. It was simply a spontaneous recall of Bill Clinton’s famous electoral phrase designed to oppose the popular incumbent President George H. W. Bush in 1992.

Clinton coined the term “It’s the economy, stupid!” to focus voters’ attention on what he thought was the sitting President’s weak spot, namely the recessionary economy.

In this article, I explain why this phrase popped to mind while reading the Christian Reformed Church’s “Creation Stewardship Task Force” Report. First, I show how the “Creation Stewardship” Report, while a very strong document, fails to focus sufficient attention on the key role of the economy in climate change. Second, the article argues that if Christians are going to help tackle today’s environmental problems, we need a much stronger grasp of the radically distinctive character of our times, namely, we face an overwhelming ‘ecological question.’ Third, it shows how the interrelated environmental issues within the ‘ecological question’ are primarily generated and expressed through the economic side of society. Finally, the economy generates ecological problems, I argue, because it is miss-shaped and miss-directed by the ideology of economic growth. Exposing and countering the false and deforming idolatry of endless economic growth should be a key dimension of the Church’s calling to publicly proclaim the Gospel.

The Creation Stewardship Report

The “Creation Stewardship Task Force” was created by the CRC Synod when “public engagement” of climate change by several CRC denominational leaders became controversial. Synod mandated the Task Force to “identify a biblical and Reformed perspective of our position on creation stewardship, including climate change” and to issue a report. It aimed to help the CRC denomination, its agencies, members, as well as partner denominations to develop a deeper biblical understanding of climate change. The Report makes a very helpful and thought-provoking contribution to this aim. It will significantly deepen and broaden the Churches’ understanding of creation stewardship and climate change.
The Report correctly argues that environmental problems, and certainly climate change, are at their deepest levels spiritual and moral issues. It identifies a number of key religious themes running through the climate change debate, and does a great job of sketching out an alternative, biblically-rooted, spirituality of creation care. The Report identifies and elaborates sound ethical principles and does a strong job of explaining the science behind climate change. It proposes a host of useful activities for churches to undertake. I strongly encourage readers to set aside an hour next Sunday and read the online Report! The CRC Synod will debate and decide whether to adopt the recommendation of this Report in June 2012.

Failing to ‘name’ the economy

The Report strongly supports the claim that climate change is “likely due to human activity.” This “likelihood,” the vast majority of scientists say, is “a greater than 90 percent probability” that climate change is happening (p. 52). In everyday life, the Report continues, if we know there is “a greater than 90 percent probability” that we will suffer a very destructive event or process, we would definitely act now. But what ‘actions’ should we undertake, according to the Report? It rightfully, and helpfully, identifies “human-induced climate change” as a “moral, ethical, and religious issue,” thus requiring acts of these types. But oddly, the Report stops short of explicitly naming climate change also as an economic issue. If climate change occurs largely in the realm of “human activities” we call economic life, then the Report should have clearly named this and explained how this works.

To be fair, the 125 page Report does include a fair amount of helpful economic material. It contains, for example, a couple of paragraphs on the common etymological roots of ecology and economics. It shows how they share the root word, oikos. This word is also the root of the word used for the human “task and privilege of caring for creation,” namely, oikonomia, which translators often render with the word “stewardship” (p. 28). The seeds are present in this brief discussion alone, to develop a deeper understanding of how present-day economy, its structures, institutions and practices, are centrally implicated in the unstewardly practices that are destroying the creation’s ecology, including climate change. The Report also deals with a variety of principles and concerns that have clear economic components or implications. Under “Mitigation and adaptation” (p. 46), for example, the Report tackles issues and problems that are, at least in part, economic. But much more is needed.

The Report’s lengthy list of recommendations also stops short of explicitly tackling climate change as an economic issue. They underline that “urgent action is required to address climate change,” and properly make this appeal broad by arguing that “action is needed at the personal, community, and political levels…” (p. 77). But then, the Report’s recommendations focus too heavily on the institutional church, especially on “congregations, denominational staff, leaders, and members” and on “major CRC agencies and institutions.” While several recommendations address economic activities, the Reformed approach to life that the Report is clearly following, should have produced far more recommendations on what Christians—as ‘believers in all areas of life’—ought to do. The recommendations should have directly addressed Christians in their economic vocations, that is, as people called by God to be business entrepreneurs, workers, investors, bankers, consumers, producers, advertisers, pension and mutual fund managers, union leaders, and so forth. It should have recommended that Christian Colleges, Universities and Christian professors study how our economic offices, economic institutions, and national and global economic systems are directly implicated in causing climate change.

Understanding our times: the ‘ecological question’

Why should the Report focus greater attention on the economy as a cause of climate change? My answer is rooted in the fact that today we face a dramatically novel context, something radically new, that is the ‘ecological question.’ Let me explain.

Since the early 20th century, society became aware of disappearing wilderness and natural resources, and consequently we moved to conserve and protect, e.g. National Parks. Since the 1960’s, we identified pollution threats to air, water and soil, and society and state rallied to implement significant environmental practices and policies to control and prevent some of these threats. In the 1970s, we detected serious threats to the earth’s ozone layer, and government, industry and society adopted measures and policies to stop emitting the disruptive chemicals causing this and allow the ozone layer to recover. These and other actions were distinctly ‘environmental policies,’ some were successful, and in our current situation we can learn much from how society and government accomplished these actions.

When we examine the overall environmental pattern of the 20th century, however, J. R. McNeill observes that there is Something New Under the Sun: “This is the first time in human history that we have altered ecosystems with such intensity, on such scale and with such speed. It is one of the few times in the earth’s history to see changes of this scope and pace.” We are now in a new context, in which these trends can no longer be appropriately identified and tackled as ‘environmental issues.’ Although this had been true all along, the nature and scale of the ecological challenges today no longer allow us to think about, and act on, them as discrete environmental ‘issues’ and ‘interests’. They can no longer be separated from many other economic, social, cultural issues and interests and can no longer be solved independently.
In the current context, furthermore, scientific studies indicate convincingly enough that we are increasingly and rapidly approaching a variety of tipping points in many ecological systems. We see it in climate change, ballooning human population, declining populations of animal species and threatening extinctions, and resource-depletion, resource-competition and resource-conflict. This continued ecological ruin of the finely tuned balance on our planet is compounding and amplifying other interrelated issues such as hunger and poverty across the globe, our unsustainable industrial food production system, peak oil with looming fossil-fuel shortages and transitions, increasing worldwide human migrations with conflict and war, and growth-oriented lifestyles that are based on hyper consumption driven by media systems that willfully generate wasteful, ‘artificial needs.’

In summary, we face an integrated reality in which social, economic, cultural and environmental issues and interests are so finely interconnected and interrelated that an overarching ‘ecological question’ has emerged. Our current context constitutes a single integral reality. Humans are totally embedded in, and completely co-exist with, all other living beings and other natural systems in creation. This is the place in which God means us to flourish. The ‘ecological question’ concerns this full creational reality, because that is how God gives humans oxygen to breathe, food to eat, cells for our bodies, bacteria for various bodily functions, materials for shelter, clothing, opportunities to work, and places in which to build homes for human community. The ‘ecological question’ of our times, therefore, fundamentally concerns our ecologically taxing and destructive ‘way of life.’ Our society no longer faces a suite of discrete ‘environmental problems, issues, and interests’ which we can technically adjust and solve, but an overarching ‘ecological question’ that concerns our full way of life.

By the way, the fact the church faces an overriding question at a particular moment in history is not new. In the early 19th century, British Evangelicals took leadership on the ‘slavery question.’ In the mid 19th century, both protestant and Catholic churches in Europe and North America, identified a key question of their cultures as the ‘school question,’ by which they meant the question, how do diverse pluralist societies publicly deal with religious freedom in schooling? In the late 19th and early 20th century, protestant, evangelical and Catholic churches identified the ‘social question,’ by which they focused on the societal breakdown, poverty and dislocation in their context, resulting from the deep and rapid changes brought on by the industrial revolution. Today we face an overarching ‘ecological question.’

I should note that the “Creation Stewardship” Report does, in various ways, identify and talk about the integrality of environmental issues and the need for integrated responses to problems (p. 39f). It would be helpful, however, if the Report pushed this further and explained more fully the dramatic novelty of our current context. Helping readers understand the ‘ecological question’ is critical for discovering the leading causes of climate change.

‘It’s the economy!’
How did we get to this point? In a concise overview of trends since the 1960s, the New Scientist shows the spectacular exponential growth patterns in a variety of human activities which intrinsically depend or impact on ecological systems. Among others, these trends include: rapid growth in population, GDP, foreign investment, water use, damming rivers, fertilizer consumption, urbanization, paper consumption, motor vehicles, telecommunications, and tourism. Strikingly, the rate of change for each activity or problem increases so rapidly that humanity will, with increasing likelihood, soon face the prospect of vital ecological systems [of creation] failing or becoming unable to sustain our ever-increasing human activities and impacts.

These contours of the ‘ecological question’ place us face-to-face with our economy. Our society’s ‘way of life’ is based on an economic system that is now hitting the limits of several of earth’s key capacities, and in some cases, approaching them at exponential rates. This is occurring on two fronts simultaneously. First, under the assumption that resources are infinite, our economic system has begun to seriously deplete the key natural resources that are required to fuel the economic growth on which our ‘way of life’ depends. The formerly cheap and easy to secure stream of natural resource inputs is running low, becoming more and more expensive to secure, and requires increasing environmental damage to acquire. Second, under the strain of continuous economic growth, our economy is running out of space in the earth’s ecosystems to dump the every-growing stream of wastes, pollution, and impacts that society generates.
Christian economist Herman Daly concludes:

“The most important change on Earth in recent times has been the enormous growth of the economy, which has taken over an ever greater share of the planet’s resources. In my lifetime, world population has tripled, while the numbers of livestock, cars, houses and refrigerators have increased by vastly more. In fact, our economy is now reaching the point where it is outstripping Earth’s ability to sustain it. Resources are running out and waste sinks are becoming full. The remaining natural world can no longer support the existing economy, much less one that continues to expand.”

He continues,
“…economists have not grasped a simple fact that to scientists is obvious: the size of the Earth as a whole is fixed. Neither the surface nor the mass of the planet is growing or shrinking. The same is true for energy budgets: the amount absorbed by the Earth is equal to the amount it radiates. The overall size of the system – the amount of water, land, air, minerals and other resources present on the planet we live on – is fixed.”

The enormity of the ‘ecological question’ grows even more significant when we realize that the world’s economies now draw so much from, and dump so much into, creation’s ecological systems that we are starting to destroy some of the ‘capital’ of nature. As we continue on this trajectory, our economies are beginning to deplete earth’s ability to provide resources (e.g. wood, agriculture, fresh water) as well as its ability to absorb refuse and waste (e.g. wetlands cleansing water, atmosphere absorbing GHGs, and the ocean acidifying as it absorbs CO2). The combination of human population growth (from 1 billion in the early 19th century to 7 billion in 2011), decline of the earth’s ecological capacities, rapid growth of new national economies (e.g. India, Brazil, China), and the continued growth orientation of advanced economies all point to a single conclusion: our economies are generating an ever worsening ‘ecological question.’
An economy possessed by idols?

Why are we doing this? Here, I happily rejoin the thrust of the Report in saying “human-induced climate change” is a “moral, ethical, and religious issue.”

In short, the leading groups, and in some cases the majority of citizens, in many nations of the world are convinced our societies need more and more economic growth. Even the most advanced and wealthy economies presume to need constant economic growth – if not to deliver ever more stuff, then at least to keep the current system from collapse. We believe this even though natural resources are running low, we face massive environmental challenges, and many in our societies already have excessive material goods. We brush off these problems, however, with the declaration that we trust in science and technology to solve these problems. Essentially, economic growth, science and technology promise to deliver ever increasing levels of material goods and services, to increase our happiness, to solve our problems, and to give us ‘meaning,’ if only we put our exclusive trust in them. We have made them our ‘gods’ or idols.

The CRC Report also points to idolatry on several occasions (p. 10, 103). What the Report needs to do more of, however, is show how idolatry enters into, shapes, and directs our current ‘way of life,’ including our economy. We need to identify how idolatry has misshapen our economic goals, our forms of organizing and directing economic life (including our economic institutions and professions), and show how these are generating the ‘ecological question.’ Certainly, a key task of the church is to publicly proclaim the Gospel in opposition to the day-to-day manifestations of idolatry and ideology! Happily, the CRC Report is very helpful in illuminating the key biblical ideas and principles by which Christians can expose and oppose economic growth ideology and idolatry. The liberating and redeeming Gospel of Jesus offers a new direction for our ‘way of life’ and for an alternative economy.

Conclusion:
If I am correct that economy and ecology are intimately connected, then Christians need to change how we engage these issues. There’s a lot that we can say on this, but I limit myself to four points.

First, studies such as the CRC’s “Creation Stewardship Task Force” Report need to identify and analyze more adequately the ways economies are causing the key environmental challenges of our time. This includes identifying and countering the ideologies and idolatry that shape so many contemporary economic practices. It is also time to identify which concrete forms of economic practice we need to adopt to move the economy into tune with stewardly existence on earth (including what ‘appropriate entrepreneurship’ ought to mean).

Second, Christians need to recognize that ‘technical adjustment solutions’ will no longer fix most environmental ‘issues,’ and certainly not climate change. The seriousness of the ‘ecological question,’ as I have described it, requires us to think more deeply about problems in our ‘way of life’ and economy. The ‘technical adjustment approach’ to solving environmental problems is failing frequently today, and I would argue, has produced the ‘ecological question.’ Tackling the ‘ecological question,’ including climate change, demands we articulate a biblically-informed analysis of society, the economy, and the driving ideologies. This larger biblical understanding is desperately needed to move beyond technical adjustments to the status quo. It will allow us to devise ‘re-orienting action steps’ to address environmental problems, such as climate change, within the larger society, economy, and to do so while attending to their deeper spiritual roots, as the CRC Report rightly argues.

Third, the solutions we propose must be simultaneously shaped by biblical concern for both stewardship and social justice. We cannot allow our legitimate concern for stewardship to negate social justice nor a passion for social justice to push aside stewardship. The Report recognizes this when it warns that climate change affects the poor more negatively than the rich, and that policies enacted to mitigate climate change could do so as well (pp. 74-76)! But we also need to do more than simply add them together. Indeed, the countries of the global south (formerly called the Third World) are owed a massive ecological debt by the global north. We have used disproportionately large shares of the world’s resources, often originally drawn from the global south, while all too often leaving behind new ecological problems and a diminished resource base. Thus, while the global south owes the north a large financial debt, the north owes the global south a large ecological debt. We need eco-justice which works to heal the environment while simultaneously being shaped by social and distributional justice. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important this is.

While pursuing eco-justice and social justice in tandem, however, we must never lose sight of the growing ‘ecological question.’ We are running up ‘ecological debts’ not only to the poor in the global south but also directly to the earth! By overexploiting resources, weakening and destroying the productive capacities of the earth, and overusing its waste-absorbing capabilities, we deplete the earth itself! The consequences of owning this debt to the earth can be summarized as follows: we are building a massive ecological debt to our children and grandchildren, and their children, for they will bear more of the risks, less of the benefits of the resources we use today, and will foot the bill to repair and clean-up our damage! [See the Report’s warning, p. 75.]

Fourth, I have refrained, in this article from dealing directly with the government’s calling in the ecological question. Clearly, the tight intertwinement of our economy, economic growth ideology, and resulting ecological destruction requires decisive leadership from political officials. We leave this concern, however, to a future article.

Notes and Sources
CRC’s “Creation Stewardship Task Force” Report: accessed December 20, 2012, at http://www.crcna.org/site_uploads/uploads/resources/synodical/CreationStewardship.pdf.

J. R. McNeill, Something New under the Sun: An environmental history of 20th century, New York: Norton, 2000.

New Scientist reports: “The increasing rates of change in human activity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Significant increases in rates of change occur around the 1950s in each case, and illustrate how the past 50 years have been a period of dramatic and unprecedented change in human history Accessed May 9, 2011 at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14950-special-report-the-facts-about-overconsumption.html.

Herman Daly, Special report: Economics blind spot is a disaster for the planet, New Scientist, October 15, 2008, http://www.newscientist.com/article.

Image from www.thisbluedot.net

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Prayer of Confession

 

 

 

 

 

This is who He says I am
I am a daughter, one who sins but remains a princess, forgiven always
I am a priestess, a watcher over the seas for the one who has come before me
I am a slave awaiting the master’s return entrusted with the fruits of His labour
Therefore I must protect the endangered and replant what has been lost
I have a confession to make
I have failed my father, my Lord and my master
For neither have I pastured His sheep
Nor have I kept His Air, Land, and Water sacred for the coming of His Son
Please forgive me Father breathe life into me once again
For I remain deaf to your calling

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