Hurricane Florence, Global Warming, and Ember Days

A thought and a prayer as people on the East Coast recover from Hurricane Florence:

Hildegard of Bingen wrote, “We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.”

Lord, when you invited Adam to name the animals, you invited us all to participate in your creative work. Teach us to rejoice in your creation and assist in its care, that we, your humble creatures, may in all things give you praise. Amen. (Both quotes are from the September 17 entry in Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals)

This is Ember Week and also the week after Hurricane Florence. I am doing the traditional prayer and fasting during these three Ember Days. My intercessions, following the recommendations of bishops and Catholic groups, are for the suffering earth and suffering people.

Hurricane Florence and the global warming connection

Among the reasons some people are suffering is that other people have too little love and too little caring for the created world. People on the U.S. East Coast and many other places around the globe are suffering from unusually severe weather. While Hurricane Florence was flooding the U.S. East Coast, Typhoon Mangkhut was wrecking havoc in the Philippines and China. Among the reasons these things are happening is global warming.

The connection between human-caused global warming and the increasing power of storms is as clear as it can be…. Until it gets even clearer in the years ahead. No less clear is the role global warming plays in drought and wildfires in many Western states and flooding in the Midwest.

I have not been seriously affected by any of these phenomena. But I breathed smoke from several wildfires for a month last year while staying near Glacier National Park. Now we have a second straight year of unusually severe wildfires. Unusually severe weather has become common in the last several years. An inch of water in my southern Minnesota basement isn’t even a beginning of the harm flooding has caused this year to farmers and homeowners in my vicinity.

Charity not enough

As a Christian response to this suffering, a little prayer and fasting on Ember Days aren’t enough. People in many, widely scattered places need prompt help. That’s charity, and Christians have always been pretty good at it. But justice requires something else.

Patterns of consumption and waste are putting the earth and its peoples, especially people who are poor, in increasing danger. The Catholic Church, especially in the United States, has found a way to advocate for the innocent and defenseless when it’s life in the womb. We advocate for the institution of marriage. We need to step up our advocacy for the earth and the people who are harmed when we harm the earth.

Image credit: Washington Post