Laudato Si Sunday reflection: Adding to the grace of God's creation

This week's reflection is brought to you by
2 Timothy 1: 8b-10

O Christ,
you call us to join together with you
in suffering for the Gospel,
which translates to
love.

You showed us what real love is
by uniting with us
in our humanity
and teaching us
to serve one another.

Your grace is enough for us.

Let us be your grace
in all that we say,
do,
and are.

And let the grace of your creation
be foremost in our minds
in all that we say,
do,
and are,
so that we may care for it
and for each other
as you do.

+Amen

* * * * * * *

This week's section of Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home reminds us that humanity is capable of working together to change the course of history when it comes to caring for our planet. We're looking at paragraphs 168 to 172, which you can access by clicking here and scrolling down. Paragraph 168 carries an important message about positive experiences where different conventions made good decisions for the sake of life on earth: the Basel Convention on Hazardous Wastes, the Convention on international trade in endangered species, and the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer, which led to the Montreal Protocol which eliminated the CFCs which were creating the ozone hole.

When the ozone hole was discovered, it was a serious problem for the entire planet. And global climate change is the same sort of problem -- there is nothing on earth that isn't affected by weather which causes droughts and fires, floods and disasters. Edmonton had a tornado in 1987. Calgary had the flood of 2013. And for most of us in Alberta, these were fairly minor events. But for people living in developing countries, fires, floods, typhoons and drought cause more deaths and destruction than we can imagine, because the people in the developing world don't possess the resources we have to deal with such disasters.

"With regard to climate change, advances have been regrettably few," says the Pope in Laudato Si, his letter to the entire world. "Reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility, above all on the parts of those countries which are more powerful and pollute the most" (paragraph 169). That would be most of the countries in the western world, including us. I wish the Pope had also used the word, sacrifice, because I believe that it's getting to the point where we might have to be willing to give certain things up for the health of our planet.

Unfortunately, our political leaders prefer to point fingers at other countries, poorer than ours, who aren't doing their share to protect the environment. So we in Canada have wasted valuable time, and aren't doing enough to stop climate change as of yet. But the Pope reminds us:

there is a need for common and differentiated responsibilities. As the bishops of Bolivia have stated, "the countries which have benefited from a high degree of industrialization, at the cost of enormous emissions of greenhouse gases, have a greater responsibility for providing a solution to the problems they have caused." (Quote from the Bolivian Bishops' Conference Pastoral Letter on the Environment and Human Development in Bolivia, El universo, don de Dios para la vida from March 2012 (86).)

Those Bolivian Bishops have a lot to say when it comes to the environment, and Bolivia has been a leading country in fighting for the rights of Mother Earth. Bolivia is feeling the effects of climate change more than we are thus far. One of my kids visited the country and saw the huge mountain lake called Poopo that disappeared in 2015 due to water diversion and disappearing glaciers related to climate change. The lake will probably not replenish itself.

I was happy to see that the Pope and his encyclical writing team addressed the issue of "carbon credits" in paragraph 171. It has never made sense to me that countries could pay a certain amount of money to "remove" so many tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- after the fact. If I fly to Tahiti and buy a carbon offset so that I can feel better about "dealing with" the greenhouse gas emissions caused by my tropical vacation, someone might plant a tree somewhere with that offset money, but it will take years for that tree to actually remove my emissions. It would be better not to fly at all... and maybe I need to be more serious about how I'm creating greenhouse gases from the beginning. That sacrifice I was talking about earlier.

Unfortunately, so far no one seems to be willing to sacrifice jet setting vacations. While I applaud people who do what they can to offset their air travel -- I'm not saying that carbon offsets are bad -- we also need to reconsider frivolous things like flying to warm places in the winter. And our big, polluting corporations need to stop polluting instead of buying carbon credits from developing countries that don't produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. The idea is to reduce our greenhouse gases and improve the health of our atmosphere, not just to maintain things at the present level of pollution!

Paragraph 172 references the difficulties faced by poor countries and the help they will need from wealthier nations to develop less polluting forms of energy production. It also contains the encyclical's first mention of solar energy as a solution, noting that

Taking advantage of abundant solar energy will require the establishment of mechanisms and subsidies which allow developing countries access to technology transfer, technical assistance and financial resources, but in a way which respects their concrete situations, since the compatibility of [infrastructures] with the context for which they have been designed is not always adequately assessed (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Energy, Justice and Peace, IV, 1, Vatican City (2014), 53.)

I am underlining and bolding the statement that follows the above comment: "The costs of this would be low, compared to the risks of climate change."

It seems to me that, here in North America, we are too afraid to change, to take on our greater responsibility as people who live in countries that contribute the most to climate change. We think it will be too expensive, or too difficult, but in reality, climate change will be more expensive, and more deadly.

We're especially concerned about our livelihoods here in Alberta, where fossil fuel extraction and related industries have been our main employer for fifty years. But if we really think about it, fossil fuels are a dead end because our great-great-grandchildren can't live on a planet choked with greenhouse gases and terrorized by catastrophic events caused by an unstable climate.

We need to change now.

This makes me think of a young man who used to work in the Oil Sands near Fort McMurray. Paul saw that the future for highly polluting chemical processes to extract bitumen from the sand, water and clay up north was taking our environment downhill, fast. So he pulled the plug on that career and retrained to install solar panels. Rather than adding to climate change through his livelihood, he's participating in less polluting work in the alternate energy field and improving the earth's health, long term.

And more of us need to think this way. How can we change and find better ways to deal with the pollution created by our lives? How can we reduce waste? How can we save energy? How can we in North America, who have created greater greenhouse gas emissions with our larger homes, multiple vehicles, and excessive possessions, shoulder our greater responsibility for providing a solution to the problems our lifestyles have caused the planet?

What is one right thing we can do in the week ahead? Or one change we can make? Can we add to the grace of God's creation?

We found a way to help the ozone layer. Now we need to live in grace with the rest of our beautiful planet.