Pie in the sky? Geoengeering not a fix for our problems

Mount Pinatubo produced enough sulphur to combat a double CO2 scenario, but also declines in global rainfall.

One of the things that has been keeping me from blogging of late has been a journal article on a theology of geoengineering.

I make no secret of not being a fan. Geoengineering is planetary scale intervention in the Earth system to combat climate change. It is plan B after we have failed to take proper action. A number of the technologies have nasty side effects. None of them will work alone. The effort would be better placed into a massive switch to greater efficiency, renewable energy and restructuring our cities (which will have to move anyway thanks for committed to levels of sea level rise.

But I also think there are theological issues which address the problems that geoengineering seeks to solve as well. We've lived for too long in the bubble of our own power. Inherited from Francis Bacon, technology and science are seen as a source of power to endlessly manipulate an inert environment. This view should be collapsing in the Anthropocene, but ecomodernism pushes geoengineering. Two theological frameworks can be constructed.

1. Based on Genesis, particularly chapter 1, creation can be envisaged as a temple, sacred to God. This means humans have a priestly role of service. This is not exclusive of use, but challenges mechanistic views alone of human mastery over inert matter. The Earth is not simply a resources or a laboratory. Add to this Aboriginal theology that sees the Creator Spirit as present in the land.

2. Based on 1 Kings 16-18, technology like geoengineering can be viewed as a form of Baalism - seeking from the cause of the problem also the solution.

To read more, see the draft on Academia.edu.

Don't look down Donald - climate and political change

Have you ever watched cartoons where the character doesn't know that they are about to fall under the influence of gravity until they look down? I remember once watching a cartoon (I was sure it was Ren and Stimpy but can't find the episode) where the laws of gravity are held in the local court house. Someone accidentally rubs them out and gravity fails.

The equivalent of this appears to be happening in the US at the moment with climate change either being removed or planned to be removed from government webpages. This, together with planned sackings etc in the US (and indeed what has happened in Australia with the Climate Council which now is publicly funded and CSIRO) is the equivalent of trying to erase the law of gravity.

Now you might protest that climate change science and gravity cannot be equated, but hear me out.

Firstly, both may be observed by anyone. Drop a brick on your foot, or keep track over the years when flowers first open or birds migrate. Keep a record of rainfall on your farm. A friend who worked in aid and development in Nepal for many years said there were no climate change skeptics there - because they could see it.

But secondly, both need some more careful observation. When Newton said that a body continues at a constant velocity unless acted upon by a force, he knew that in the absence of air that a pound of feathers and a pound of lead would fall at the same rate due to gravity (a fact someone I once worked with denied), but this is a level of abstraction since none of us lives in a vacuum (at least in the literal sense). Likewise, careful longterm datasets help us understand how natural change cannot fully explain the warming we see.

Thirdly, while Einstein came along, and quantum gravity might yet arrive, Newton is still valid for everyday. Likewise, while we learn more about aerosols, the role of the oceans, the sun, etc in natural variability, the basics of greenhouse gases - depending on the fundamental physics of quantum mechanics and radiative transfer are also still valid. It really is warming, it really is our fault and it really will get bad if we don't act.

Trump's lies (sorry alternate facts) will not change the real facts - except they will become worse through inaction. Tell the truth and shame the devil my mum sometimes says. Or as it says in the ten commandments, don't bear false witness. Tell the truth about climate change during this era of Machiavellian, oligarchic lies.

Cultivating a concern for nature/creation: Daily awe not daily aww

You care about what you think about and value. So if we want to care about nature, or from a theological viewpoint, the creation, we should cultivate an interest in it and admiration of it. I call this daily awe. Of course this awe isn't of nature in of itself only, but insofar as it points to the God who created it. I find Psalm 104 helpful in this regard - God is a God of biodiversity, who creates many different habitats for the sake of their inhabitants, and not just for human economic needs (though not less than that in some times and places).

So the daily awe is to see God's creativity in things - be it watering the earth for all creatures, including humans, or caring for lions who can be down right dangerous for humans and their livestock. But note too this therefore isn't the daily awww as in the exclamation we make when we see something 'cute'. There are many things in nature that appear savage but yet have their own aesthetic appeal. Notwithstanding some anthropomophizing of some behaviour, only humans are cruel. Hence our awe will include predation, things not considered cute by all such as various invertebrates on which life depends (I mean creepy crawlies).

So how do we cultivate daily awe?

1. By direct experience. Look at the insects or birds around you (or if you're very lucky, mammals). Take a walk on the beach looking for shells; look at the seeds or leaves that fall to the ground and study their smell, textures and colours.
2. Organize a holiday based around nature such as ecotours.
3. Have a regular diet of good documentaries. The ABC and BBC do a good job. A lot of Animal Planet material is sensationalist rubbish.
4. The web is full of amazing pictures. I 'like' a number of Facebook pages with some wonderful daily images.
5. Read good books on natural history. In a day of cultural ADHD forced by social media, being able to sustain reflection on a topic is a virtue if not a necessity. These books should vary from celebrations of what is to reflections on what we are losing and why - but never read just one either you'll lose sight of what we value in despair or live in a fantasy where Eden still exists everywhere.

Tim Flannery's Quarterly Essay

I've just finished Tim Flannery's Quarterly Essay on the management or rather mismanagement of biodiversity in Australia. I just want to briefly summarise his argument (made in characteristic fashion with the odd swear word and powerful invective)

1. Setting aside areas is not enough unless they are properly managed. We have nature reserves with animals going extinct
2. Conservative governments by in large are cutting funding to conservation projects and eschew the word biodiversity.
3. Nowhere appears safe and anything short of World Heritage areas can be mined if it suits the government of the day
4. Some key wins can be made by organized private citizens in protecting biodiversity and keeping governments accountable when they don't even follow their own rules.
5. Government/private partnerships may be a useful way forward
6. Management is necessary because Aborigines were responsible for the extinction of large marsupial herbivores that kept vegetation down and greatly reduced the risk of hot, widespread destructive fires, but then they themselves became intimate parts of the ecosystem by their fire practices. An absence of this since Europeans have arrived has seen an increase in destructive fires and other impacts, such as lack of herbivore control by predators and too much growth of some vegetation types. Where such control has been introduced, species thrive

The essay is not all bad news, though while it is realistic about the present threat of extinction, there does appear to be useful ways forward if governments have ears to hear.

The frustrations of an eco-prophet/eco-missiologist

I sometimes struggle to define myself. Words are slippery things, labels doubly so. One might argue they don't matter. I'm a meteorologist and educationalist in business hours, outside I don't quite have the bits of paper for a label. My undergraduate theology comes from a currently unrecognised institution so I have a Scholar in Theology Certificate but it is everything a BTh is. Time and money means I haven't started my MTh thesis yet. To a close friend of mine this would mean I can't really call myself a theologian, but I think and write theologically, so who knows.

My deep interest in environment/creation care, its missional and apologetic role, to say nothing of the need for urgent action. So am I an eco-prophet, an ecotheologian or eco-missiologist? A green prophet? I dunno for sure. One for certain is I am frustrated.

On one side I keep meeting sceptics within the church, those who latch on to every Andrew Bolt rant, or claim the IPCC is part of the new world order, or bemoan it isn't run by Christians. There are those who deny, don't know or don't care, those for who evangelism is all that there is. As I noted on Facebook today, "dualism - a disease that infects much of the modern church, making real mission impossible". Yet many are so dualistic without even realising it, looking past our createdness, or earthy-ness and creaturely-ness; that we are saved with and not from creation.


And then there are green activists I am trying to dialogue with. Of late I've been following Ecological Internet on Facebook and Twitter. Most recently there has been a stream of anti-religious bile, and its been hard to ignore. Now I am well aware the church has been tardy in the extreme, damaging and distracting in caring for creation (or environmentalism but I'm not going to enter into the debate language raises right now), but this person is totally unaccepting of 'greener traditions' either in the past (Celts) or now (A Rocha, Ethos Environment, Au Sable, Catholic Earth Care to name a few). Too little too late is the cry, despite most of the destruction being wrought by godless capitalism (well money as God) and atheism (look at former USSR for example).


So on one side I am godless because I dare to raise warnings about what we are doing to creation because it isn't the business of the church and I'm courting paganism and on the other side I am abused for superstitious beliefs and almost denied the role as an ally in the fight against evil in the world.


So whatever label I apply, frustration must be the first. A frustrated eco-prophet. I guess that is the lot of any prophet.

Do Christians concerned about 'the environment' risk becoming pagans? Part 2

In part 1 I discussed more the value or otherwise of labels, missiology and so on. Now let's deal explicitly with the label itself. Changing the focus a little (given what I wrote last time), let's consider the closely related issue of idolatry. Are Christians who are involved in 'environmental' issues or more properly creation care guilty of or in danger of idolatry?

Well I know and have known plenty of middle class Christians who idolise career, the rites of passage European trip, their minister/pastor, denomination or systematic theology, even the bible itself, to say nothing of sex, money, etc. So to point the finger of idolatry (paganism) at so-called 'green' Christians is a non sequiter really.

The key issue is are we at more risk of idolising creation than anyone else is of idolising anything else? I don't think so. Creation declares God's glory (Psalm 19), points to his divine power (Rm 1) and wisdom (Ps 104). Caring for creation itself is an act of worship - so long as we see past the creation itself. More Christians I suggest fail to do this with wealth than they do with trees.

Note none of this excludes human rule - hence Gen 1:26f, but also proper use - tilling and tending (Gn 2:15). However, even the strong language of Gen 1 is moderated by being made in God's image (is God ultimately destructive or creative?) and by creation being God's temple (c.f. Is 66:1). One doesn't descrate God's temple nor reflect his character by destroying what he says is very good with humans in their proper place, yet good even without humanity.

It is also worth noting (I say this so often I am repeating myself) that divine care extends to that which is useless (pre-eco tourism) or otherwise harmful to humanity, so our priorities often shouldn't come into the picture.

So we shouldn't worship church, our ministers, the music, the cute girl we want to date at church, or even the bible itself but God,. Yet we care for all of these things. Why is creation itself any different

Coming rapture - dualism in the modern church

Are you ready for Christ's return? You should be as he will come like a thief in the night! Will it happen how a church in the US is expecting this weekend? I dunno but I dunno how they know either?

See this excellent blog article by Kurt Willems.