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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Paul
Shepson, director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, was
guest speaker at the first session of St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Climate
Change 101” series. (Photo by Kevin Cullen) |
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
WEST LAFAYETTE — From Rome to the St. Thomas Aquinas Center on the Purdue University campus, Church leaders are stressing the moral obligation to do more to protect the environment.
In recent weeks, Vatican official Bishop Gianfranco Girotti said that globalization has made certain sins — including environmental irresponsibility — social sins.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s nuncio to the United Nations, told the U.N. that debate about climate change has “helped put into focus the inescapable responsibility of one and all to care for the environment.”
And the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter on March 12 that called for an end to the “obsession to possess and consume” in favor of “joyful austerity” or voluntary simplicity.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Father Jim Barnett, OP, at the opening of a three-part “Climate Change 101” series, April 2 at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center. The public is invited to the final session, 7 p.m. April 16 at the church, 535 W. State St.
“We are called to live our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation,” Father Barnett, associate pastor, told an audience of 40. “… We have a moral responsibility to care for our universe.”
If Americans adopted simpler, more sensible, less materialistic lifestyles, he said, they could focus more attention on promoting peace, conserving energy and addressing the needs of the world’s poor.
Father Barnett said there’s truth in the old Quaker dictum of “living simply so that others might simply live.” Instead, too many Americans “make an idol of the bottom line” and lead lives dominated by their never-ending quest for more “stuff.”
Americans, he said, need to be “less focused on the accumulation of toys. We are more than what we have … when we’re at our best, we make the right choices and do the right things.”
He urged audience members to begin to see themselves as “caretakers of our planet earth.” A “caretaker” ethic, he said, would go far to end war, build positive relationships, and create “a more fulfilling existence.”
“Part of our task is making connections … the interconnectedness of all creation,” Father Barnett said.
Quoting an old prayer, he said, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.”
Lynn Johal, coordinator of the Social Concerns Ministry at St. Thomas Aquinas, said that care for the environment has become “more of a mainstream thing.”
“It’s a journey,” she said. “It invites our wholeness. It takes us to different and painful places, to disturbing projections and exciting possibilities for living life in harmony with the earth.”
Pollution and climate change, she said, is upsetting habitats and threatening wildlife.
“For most of us, there is grief and sorrow for the losses in nature,” Johal said. “… We can move through sorrow because it stems from our deepest wishes to care for the earth. Gratitude is a powerful antidote for hopelessness.”
Paul Shepson, director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, was guest speaker at the opening session. He has done extensive research in the Arctic, where the effects of climate change are increasingly evident. He said there is no doubt that mankind is contributing to global warming.
Pollution generated by the wholesale use of fossil fuels has changed the climate, and it will be “very hard to go back,” Shepson said.
The earth’s population continues to grow, and most people use polluting fossil fuels for heating, cooling, transportation and light. Other pollution is generated by livestock, and by the use of fertilizers that lead to the release of nitrous oxide.
The problems are large, Shepson said, but not insurmountable.
The United States, with 4.5 percent of the world’s population, emits 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide. America is the dirtiest country on earth, but also the richest, and with the greatest ability to solve environmental problems.
“We could be leaders, but we have been losers,” Shepson said.
Economics has, in the past, hampered the development of cleaner, greener technologies, but “we need to understand that we can all get rich by fixing the planet,” he said.
“We have to change the way we heat and cool buildings, make light, make electric power and build cities,” he said. “If we don’t do it, someone else will.”
Germany, Japan and other industrialized nations are investing heavily in innovative technology while the United States generally continues to “embrace ‘Big Oil’ and embrace the 20th century,” Shepson said. “The world’s not going to run on oil anymore.”
Transportation is an obvious target, he said.
Often, people drive “urban assault vehicles” when they should be riding bicycles, he said.
A change in values is needed, at every level. The earth has limited natural resources, so it’s unreasonable to expect continued economic growth forever, Shepson said.
“We need to ask ourselves what we value — is it the accumulation of stuff, or other things?” he said. “We really have a problem with our values.”
He said that economic incentives can encourage the development and use of products that save energy. Energy efficient structures, too, should be promoted.
“You can have more and be more with less,” he said.
“What you’re doing is one of the most important things we can do — get together and talk about ways to make the planet a better place,” he told the audience.
He called stewardship “an unbelievable responsibility,” but an exciting and challenging one.
Looking at a photo of the earth from space, he said, “to me, everything here is alive. If you desecrate this, you desecrate my God and you work at destroying yourselves.”
There’s no time for despair, he said. There’s too much work to do. He encouraged his listeners to “get on with it … set an example … and get things going locally.”
“We can do a much better job,” Shepson said.