![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/394\/2014\/05\/clinmate.jpg\" "\\"clinmate\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nLast week\u00a0\u00a0the Obama Administration unveiled the\u00a0Third U.S. National Climate Assessment<\/a>\u00a0(NCA)\u2014the \u201cmost comprehensive, authoritative scientific report ever generated about climate changes that are happening now in the United States and further changes that we can expect to see throughout this century.\u201d<\/em> What is shows is\u00a0the need for\u00a0urgent\u00a0action to combat the threats from climate change.<\/p>\n Of course there have been some who have expressed some skepticism, to which John Oliver responded with hilarity and vulgarity<\/a>.\u00a0 In a nutshell this latest report is simply confirming what most scientists have been saying for years.\u00a0Climate\u00a0change is real, it\u2019s dangerous, and we need to act\u00a0now.<\/p>\n Unfortunately<\/strong>\u00a0instead of taking action on this issue, we have been fighting to pass legislation that would make it worse.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Last year I read through\u00a0Oil and Honey<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0fascinating\u00a0book by Bill McKibbon. It it he talks about his journey from being an author who writes about Global Warming to being an activist who organizes people\u00a0around\u00a0the world about\u00a0climate\u00a0change, gets arrested, deals with Washington, and helps give thousands of others a voice.\u00a0This book was a splash of water on my face. I had known global warming was a big deal but McKibbon helped remind me of it. He writes:<\/p>\n [The amount of Carbon the atmosphere will be able to handle is compared to having a] 0.08 blood alcohol level\u00a0below which you might get away with driving home. [565\u00a0gigatons of carbon] is how many drinks it takes to get there\u2014 say, the\u00a0bottle of wine shared over the course of an evening that\u00a0might let you stay just beneath that line. And the 2,795 gigatons?\u00a0[the amount of\u00a0fossil\u00a0fuels\u00a0currently owned by energy companies]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s the five bottles of wine that the fossil fuel industry\u00a0has on the table, uncorked and ready to pour. To repeat:\u00a0We already have five times as much oil and coal and gas on\u00a0the books as any scientist thinks is safe to burn. We\u2019d have\u00a0to keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away underground\u00a0to avoid that fate. Before anyone knew those numbers, our\u00a0fate had been likely; now, barring some massive intervention, it seems certain. It\u2019s a lot like nuclear overkill: we\u2019ve got five\u00a0times the carbon that we need to cook the planet already in\u00a0our arsenal. But this time we\u2019re clearly planning to go ahead\u00a0and push the button.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This image struck me. \u00a0We need to keep the planet sober, but our energies corporations already 5 bottles of wine uncorked and ready to drink. Although any normal person might be able to know when they have had enough, corporations are not individuals. They are well oiled machines that are very good at making money, but very poor at making moral\u00a0decisions. This is the reason, Bill argues, that in spite of all\u00a0scientific\u00a0wisdom energy companies are looking for\u00a0even more\u00a0fossil fuels. The\u00a0controversial\u00a0Keystone\u00a0<\/em>pipeline is what Bill\u00a0believes\u00a0is one of the greatest threats to our global ecology and so much of the book talks about his struggle to fight against it.<\/p>\n In short\u00a0Keystone\u00a0has the potential to make the effects of global warming\u00a0worse, and it has the potential to bring them on faster. It puts more oil into our hands faster, for us to burn cheaper. This is not the direction we need to be taking.<\/strong><\/p>\n All these books, reports, and studies have convicted me that it\u2019s time I stood up and said something about this, but I wanted to make sure that I was getting the whole story. So \u00a0I sat down with a friend of mine who has a\u00a0PhD in \u201cAtmospheric Science\u201d and works on public policy surrounding\u00a0climate\u00a0change for a living. I asked him, \u201chow screwed are we?\u201d<\/p>\n His answer was simple: \u201cIt\u2019s much worse then the media says\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n According to him even if we\u00a0completely\u00a0stopped emissions today we would be in deep trouble. A chain reaction has already begun. The polar ice is melting, which both\u00a0releases\u00a0more\u00a0carbon\u00a0and\u00a0reduces the amount of hear with is reflected back into the atmosphere. He says the critical moment for action was in the 90s and we missed it, the moment for the \u201cHail\u00a0Mary\u201d for dramatic global efforts was last decade, and our efforts fell flat. Now it\u2019s too late and even if we\u00a0do\u00a0manage to actually take action it will only soften the blow.<\/p>\n In other words, we already dropped the ball. We fumbled. The other team has it and is running toward the\u00a0end-zone\u00a0 The time for\u00a0negotiations\u00a0has past. The world needs to sack our current energy economy and find new solutions NOW.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We are now facing a global issue, and as a good Catholic who\u00a0believes\u00a0in subsidiarity I now think that we need to take action on a global scale. My nation (The USA) has a fairly terrible track record\u00a0around\u00a0reducing emissions, but we need to make this a priority one issue. This is beyond political affiliation. This is a critical issue. We are called in scripture to care for our\u00a0neighbor\u00a0and care for creation. The choice is simple. We need to urge our leaders to take action today.<\/p>\n Here are a few faith based places to start:<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are a few other resources<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week\u00a0\u00a0the Obama Administration unveiled the\u00a0Third U.S. National Climate Assessment\u00a0(NCA)\u2014the \u201cmost comprehensive, authoritative scientific report ever generated about climate changes that are happening now in the United States and further changes that we can expect to see throughout this century.\u201d What is shows is\u00a0the need for\u00a0urgent\u00a0action to combat the threats from climate change. Of course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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