{"id":1524,"date":"2014-02-02T18:01:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T18:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2020-10-28T20:02:25","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T20:02:25","slug":"climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe thread of operations is broken. Nature has changed course, and none of the agents she employs today would have been sufficient to produce her former works.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean-Leopold-Nicolas-Frederic Cuvier, 1812<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\u201cReceived ideas of justice do not anticipate moral agency exercised cumulatively across generational time, aggregately through ecological systems, and nonintentionally over evolutionary futures.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Willis Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 2013<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[1] As a college student, I failed an audition and had to take Bonehead Speech. My only memory is the professor\u2019s advice: \u201cRasmussen, if in your lifetime you should ever need to give a speech, tell your audience what you are going to do, do it, and then tell them what you have just done.\u201d<\/p>\n

[2] Here is what I am going to do. I am going to address (a) the material significance of climate change (\u201cNature has changed course\u201d). Thereafter I will address (b) its moral significance (\u201cReceived ideas of justice do not anticipate\u2026\u201d).<\/p>\n

[3] The result of (a) and (b) is (c): climate injustice as a perfect moral storm.<\/p>\n

The material significance of climate change: golden spikes and carbon spikes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[4] The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) is the official keeper of geological time. To map Earth\u2019s ages the ICS plants what it calls \u201cgolden spikes.\u201d Golden spikes tell us where geological epochs begin and end. \u200b<\/p>\n

[5] The notion that Earth has discontinuous ages is quite recent. Typical instead is a biblical sense of Earth time: no fossils appear in the biblical record and even the very beginning of beginnings finds God creating domestic animals for a settled existence of herders and farmers. This omits dinosaurs, mastodons, and ninety-five percent of human history (hunter-gatherer), to say nothing of Earth\u2019s long tenure well before any life forms, even single-celled creatures. Thus it was against the grain of both religion and science that Jean-Leopold-Nicholas-Frederic (Georges) Cuvier (1769 \u2013 1832) argued from his little Paris fossil collection that worlds previous to ours existed. \u201cLife on earth has often been disturbed by terrible events,\u201d he wrote in the early 1800s, \u201cLiving organisms without number have been the victims of these catastrophes.\u201d[1] Nature had changed course, with devastating effect. Cuvier had exposed what no one expected\u2014a history of mass extinctions on an Earth given to periodic seizures.<\/p>\n

[6] The ICS will get back to us in 2016 about whether to plant a new golden spike. If it does, that will officially signal the end of the \u201cHolocene\u201d Epoch (Greek for \u201cWholly Recent\u201d). For geologists, given as they are to a patient sense of time, this decision isn\u2019t casual or precipitous. It means they have already accumulated sufficient evidence to deem the emergence of a new epoch worthy of a decisive judgment soon. \u200b<\/p>\n

[7] Meanwhile many scientists are not withholding judgment. Climatologist Paul Crutzen interrupted a meeting that kept mentioning the eleven and a half thousand year old Holocene as our habitat by exclaiming, \u201cLet\u2019s stop [this]. We are no longer in the Holocene; we are in the Anthropocene.\u201d The Anthropocene became the coffee break buzz, and, after Crutzen\u2019s essay, \u201cGeology of Mankind,\u201d was published in Nature in 2002, it became the popular topic of numerous scientific journals.<\/p>\n

[8] That human impacts are now orders of magnitude beyond what they were prior to the Industrial Revolution is doubted nowhere. Crutzen himself ticked off several: Human activity has transformed between a third and a half of the land surface of the planet; Many of the world\u2019s major rivers have been dammed or diverted; Fertilizer plants produce more nitrogen than is fixed naturally by all terrestrial eco-systems; Humans use more than half of the world\u2019s readily accessible freshwater runoff; Most significant, humans are altering the composition of the atmosphere.[2] The only question is, \u201cAre these geological-scale events a dramatic turn of the late Holocene or the onset of a new epoch?\u201d Should the ICS hammer in a new golden spike, or not?<\/p>\n

[9] The International Geosphere \u2013 Biosphere Programme has also rendered its verdict. \u201cThe planet is now dominated by human activities,\u201d they said in a 2004 volume that, like Crutzen and friends, announces the Anthropocene (from anthropos, Greek for human). \u201cEvidence from several millennia shows that the magnitude and rates of human-driven changes to the global environment are in many cases unprecedented. There is no previous analogue for the current operation of the Earth system.\u201d[3] <\/p>\n

[10] In this case, \u201cthere is no previous analogue\u201d means that, for the very first time, human time has merged with geological time with sufficient impact to initiate a world unlike any previous one. The \u201cthread of operations [of previous nature] has been broken\u201d and nature has \u201cchanged course.\u201d (Cuvier) To see this in graph form, see pages 56-57 of my book Earth-Honoring Faith.<\/p>\n

[11] Every geological age is distinguished by its core planetary surface processes, those intertwined operations of the atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses. Natural history has, for example, witnessed a huge carbon spike that initiated dramatic changes in these processes and an epoch called the Eocene. The global mean temperature soared 9 degrees Celsius and sea levels rose 25 feet. Both North and South America shrunk, at least above water, because of the new ocean levels. The Arctic and Antarctic turned sub-tropical and lush. There was no ice anywhere, even in winter. Forests stretched from North Pole to South. A humid climate enveloped the entire globe, so conducive to radiant growth that, over geological time, this radiance became deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas. Whether you travel by car, bus, subway, train or plane, you do so because that carbon spike effected those changes. Presently, and this time because of a recent ice-melting carbon spike, carbon corporations are rushing to the open water Arctic so that we can all discuss the response of Lutheran ethics to climate change at a time when \u201cthe demand for oil [and gas is] at an all-time high.\u201d[4] Heaven-bound CO2 is also at a human-history high. Industrial humanity soldiers on without so much as a pause. \u201cDrill, baby, drill\u201d is still the drill.<\/p>\n

[12] The carbon-rich Eocene stretched from 56 million years ago to 33.9 million years ago. From eos, a Greek word for \u201cdawn,\u201d and kainos, a Greek word for \u201cnew,\u201d the Eocene was the \u201cnew dawn,\u201d meaning in this case the dawn of many modern flora and fauna, mammals and mollusks among them.<\/p>\n

[13] The spectacular carbon spike that launched the Eocene proceeded more slowly than our present carbon spike. But it continued and topped out at 700-900 ppm of CO2. The exact cause, not yet settled, focuses on two events: big-time volcanic out-gassing that accompanied North Atlantic rifting, and the release into the atmosphere of vast quantities of methane that had been stored in large reservoirs during the previous geological age. In any case, eventually those high CO2 levels fell back to around 440 ppm, only 40 \u2013 45 ppm more than ours in 2014. This decline took 150,000 years and was paralleled with a fall-off in global mean temperature. Again, vast changes followed the mean temperature decline, now within the Eocene. Alligators gave up on the British Isles while Antarctic sub-tropical rainforests of the carbon maximum morphed to vast stretches of tundra. Apparently a key reason for this long, slow carbon and temperature reduction was the Azolla Event. Azolla is a species of aquatic fern that flourished across the Arctic and other seas during the carbon maximum. As these prolific ferns died and sank beneath the salty brine, they sequestered tons of atmospheric carbon.[5] This is again a reminder that we are alive and discussing climate ethics because, in a world previous to ours, nature changed its course so much so that mass death of flora then, even extinction, made possible our fossil-fueled existence now.<\/p>\n

[14] Incidentally, Luther\u2019s Reformation took place across an unusually cold stretch within our present, or recently present, age, the late Holocene. Called the Little Ice Age, it had a good run\u2014from about 1200 to 1700 C. E. Stradivarius violins owe their extraordinarily rich sound not only to the craft of Stradivarius himself but to the fact that his chosen wood came from northern European pines that grew very little, hardly at all, across those long winters and short summers of The Little Ice Age. The consequent denseness of the wood\u2014one tree ring is barely distinguishable from the next\u2014created the instrument\u2019s unmatched resonance.[6] If such beauty was wrested from the Little Ice Age, might not our question be, What beauty do we wrest from the Anthropocene so as to make music from our changing planet? If the Orthodox communions and the Navajo nation are right that in beauty resides our salvation, where do we find beauty and live by it on a diminished and convulsed Earth?<\/p>\n

[15] Let me not lose the point: Earth has seen wildly varied ages before, and will again before it becomes the cinder of an aging star. On the other hand, Homo sapiens civilization has occupied one age only. Our tenure is strictly Holocene. All recorded human history and all human civilizations to date, bar none and starting with neo-lithic settlements, have enjoyed the Holocene\u2019s emblem of a warm period of sufficient climate stability to allow, even foster, the triumph of life amid nature\u2019s ongoing predilection for fluctuation, change, and a spirit of adventure that will try anything once, including big as well as little ice ages. [7]<\/p>\n

[16] Presently, however, the climate stability of the Holocene is apparently giving way to the climate volatility of the Anthropocene. The specific cause was never intended and is quite startling; namely, humankind has taken to regulating solar radiation and re-engineering Earth\u2019s surface processes. By burning dirty fuels on a massive scale, since 1950 especially but steadily from 1750 onward, we are resetting the planet\u2019s thermostat and altering the core dynamics of the atmosphere, oceans and landmasses. One result is a dramatic carbon spike and climate volatility. Present CO2 levels in the atmosphere exceed those of the last 650,000 years.[8] <\/p>\n

[17] \u201cGlobal warming,\u201d even \u201cclimate change,\u201d while technically accurate, are misleading, at least for those of us still possessed of Holocene minds. Temperature fluctuation, sometimes upward or downward over longish periods, has happened now and again in the Holocene, as have notable changes of climate. Luther\u2019s Little Ice Age is testimony. So who cares if winter\u2019s a bit shorter and spring, summer, and fall a little longer, especially if you\u2019re Swedish? We\u2019ve grown accustomed to changing weather, even changing climate. (This distinction is nonetheless important. Weather changes quickly and often dramatically; climate changes slowly and gradually. Not every weather event is a climate event and not every climate spike merits a golden spike.)<\/p>\n

[18] In brief, \u201cglobal warming\u201d and \u201cclimate change\u201d don\u2019t tell the truth with the force it deserves. But if they are too tame, souring seas as a result of galloping ocean acidification and the death of ocean ecosystems as a consequence of our carbon spike is a different matter altogether, as is enough ongoing seasonal difference to flummox subsistence farmers in Africa about what to grow, or sea level rise sufficient to place the coastal cities where so much of the human population now lives under threat and hand them a bill for rebuilding and future prevention they cannot pay, or extinguished species of flora and fauna and migrating pests and diseases. Likewise, a carbon spike sufficient to inundate millions of delta peoples and sink island nations is change of a different magnitude than what people fathom when they hear that temperatures have been ticking up a Celsius degree or two.<\/p>\n

[19] Thus are \u201cglobal warming\u201d and \u201cclimate change\u201d unworthy of the reality they are meant to name. No prophet, certain of his or her word from God to the congregation, would find either their warning banner. To fathom what is happening, look instead to the geophysical \u201cdo-over\u201d that ends and inaugurates Earth ages.<\/p>\n

[20] Of equal import, even of utmost import for theology and ethics, look to human-induced causes. Why? Because the material significance of climate change this time around is anthropogenic geophysical change that goes where human agency and responsibility have never gone; namely, \u201ccumulatively across generational time, aggregately through ecological systems, and non-intentionally over evolutionary futures\u201d (W. Jenkins).<\/p>\n

The moral significance of climate change<\/strong><\/p>\n

[21] What about the moral significance of climate change? A recent sermon captures it well.<\/p>\n

[22] As a cub reporter for The New Yorker<\/strong>, Bill McKibben and a couple of friends started the homeless shelter in Riverside Church\u2019s undercroft. Now, decades later, on Earth Sunday, he was back, this time in the pulpit, to preach on Job and \u201cGod\u2019s Taunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

[23] We all know the story, he said. Job is a good man who finds himself cursed by God. It is little surprise that over thirty-seven chapters Job insists that God appear and account for his suffering. Finally God responds and lets loose with the longest soliloquy in the entire Bible. And what is it but a grand tour of the natural world, from the morning stars to the gazelle, from the ocean\u2019s edge to the eagle\u2019s nest, from the inside of a whirlwind to the womb of both ice and grass. But God\u2019s reply, says McKibben, \u201cis delivered in a sarcastic, taunting voice, as if God is annoyed at having been bothered for an explanation. If you\u2019re so smart, he tells Job, where do you keep the thunderstorms? Can you whistle up a blizzard?\u201dAnd Job, of course, has to answer as all mortals to date. No, he says, \u201cthat\u2019s your department. I can\u2019t make the weather. You are big and I am small. Can I sit down now?\u201d<\/p>\n

[24] Then McKibben delivers a word we really cannot comprehend because we do not yet have the ears for it. Job, McKibben says, has answered for all mortals up until<\/em> our time. All mortals, at least on their better days, have said, \u201cWe are small and you, Almighty One, are huge.\u201d But only up until<\/em> our time. Now we are huge. Waves are us<\/em> as ice melts and sea levels rise; tornadoes are us<\/em>, as devastation churns; wildfires are us<\/em>, as the land burns; droughts are us<\/em>, as flora and fauna thirst; superstorms are us<\/em>, as subway tunnels fill; the drying Sahel is us<\/em> and not, it turns out, because of the inept practices of its farmers, but because aerosol pollution from Europe and North America shifted tropical rainfall patterns away from Central Africa.\u200b<\/p>\n

[25] Who knew Job would have to be rewritten as the lowest barometric pressures ever recorded birth severe weather and the oceans no longer obey their Creator, even though the Wisdom literature says they always will? Who knew that we, rather than Isaiah\u2019s God, are the ones \u201cdoing a new thing\u201d upon the Earth?[9]<\/p>\n

[26] No, God did not shrink or disappear. The universe remains unimaginably immense, and we are definitely not in charge of one hundred billion galaxies with a like number of stars and who knows how many planets! In the cosmic scheme of things, we are unimaginably small. But, here, in this wee corner of a medium-sized galaxy, on a so-so star, perched on our little branch of the great Tree of Life, we are huge<\/em>. And there\u2019s hell to pay.<\/p>\n

[27] McKibben\u2019s point, of course, is not about Job, but about us. That \u201cthere is no previous analog for the present Earth system,\u201d that nature \u201chas changed course,\u201d is because industrial humanity bears responsibility for core change across generational time, through life systems everywhere, and into evolutionary futures (Jenkins). We are presently laying down future fossil finds.<\/p>\n

[28] The question is this: How do we assign and bear responsibility in an age in which we are changing planetary creation for millennia to come? Climate change cannot be dialed back to the earlier Holocene anymore than the Eocene could dial itself into its predecessor age in the Cenozoic era.<\/p>\n

[29] That question, however, raises another: Facing \u201cno previous analog for the present Earth system,\u201d are we also bereft of moral analogues for the non-analogous Anthropocene?<\/p>\n

[30] Twenty years ago I argued for \u201cthe ascendency of ethics.\u201d At the time I thought it important. \u201cIf the great new fact of our time is that cumulative human activity has the power to affect all life in fundamental and unprecedented ways, this means the ascendancy of ethics for our era, as an utterly practical affair. How ought we to live, and what ought wedo in view of a fundamentally changed human relationship to earth, a relationship we only partially comprehend?\u201d[10]<\/p>\n

[31] But I had no idea then how difficult this new relationship to Earth would render the assignment of responsibility, not just politically, as we\u2019ve seen across two decades of failed climate talks, but conceptually. I did not see then the moral storm climate change presents to those who would respond. Where are the moral analogues that show the way? Even if you believe the God of the Reformation is a God of transformation who charters resilient freedom for the Christian, what\u2019s the big ethical metaphor that follows from that freedom? We may pray the Holden Prayer with newfound meaning\u2014\u201cLord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.\u201d[11] But is good courage, while certainly necessary, also morally sufficient? What guides for the Anthropocene does good courage provide?<\/p>\n

[32] What operative justice, for example, lights up a moral landscape of truly extended time and space as well as the citizenship of the primal elements themselves\u2014earth, air, fire, water? What justice practice knows that \u201cnatural disasters\u201d and \u201cacts of God\u201d are now obsolete notions for both the insurance industry and theology? \u201cUnnatural disasters\u201d and \u201chuman-induced climate events\u201d are more accurate. They lack moral and legal standing, however. And how precisely do social justice and neighbor love spread their wings to soar as creation justice and creation love when the Samaritan travels the Jericho road in the present but the robber\u2019s victim falls by the road generations hence, from causes she cannot trace to her ancestral assailant(s)?<\/p>\n

[33] For us, climate change is a perfect moral storm because we\u2019re stuck with Holocene imagination, theology and ethics. Moral debates as well as our legal system continue as though the basic unit of human survival were human society. It is not. It is planetary nature comprehensively. Our debates and systems assume the first law of economics is to maintain economic growth for the sake of human welfare. It is not. It is preservation of Earth\u2019s economy as utterly indispensable to each and every human economy. Holocene assumptions continue to consider human wellbeing to be primary. It is not. Planetary wellbeing is primary because<\/em> human wellbeing, while always derivative, has never been more starkly so than in the Anthropocene. Holocene believers think that human individual and collective good is the sole and proper end of all our efforts. It is not. The common human good is not even possible if the primary goods of the planetary commons\u2014earth, air, fire, water\u2014are not accorded their due for their own regeneration and renewal on their own terms and timelines. Exactly the same holds for other-than-human life, from microbes and bacteria to flora, insects, and beasts, without which we do not live at all. In the Anthropocene the noblest human morality is not social justice. It is a flourishing life for all the children, human and more-than-human. Social justice is no longer possible without creation justice. Earth-made-poor renders all life poor.<\/p>\n

[34] Such is the moral matrix for exercising present\u2014not future\u2014agency. The generative, parental elements of all life\u2014earth, air, fire, water\u2014have moral claims upon us on their terms and not just ours, and for their futures together with ours. Justice cannot ask for less when the anthropos<\/em> that has modified the flows of most rivers and changed the catchment areas of the world, is us; when the role of the carbon cycle in the acidification of the oceans and the re-regulation of solar radiation is a role that has fallen to us because we have taken it; when this anthropos<\/em> is now the main agent in the planet\u2019s nitrogen cycle; and when this anthropos<\/em> sends species to eternal death at a quickening pace. It is not a metaphorical creation that groans in travail, awaiting human redemption. It is the literal one. (Ros. 8:22-23)<\/p>\n

[35] In the next presentation I will explore the Lutheran Reformation to see how we might \u201cuse our traditions to invent new possibilities of action.\u201d[12] That is the task climate change presents. But we cannot go there immediately. We will only know what retrieval is promising when we see more clearly why current moral habits do not work.<\/p>\n

[36] The full treatment of this belongs to Willis Jenkins in his new book, The Future of Ethics<\/em>. It is the extraordinary work we\u2019ll draw upon for years to come. I won\u2019t venture even a summary, in part because he deserves better than that and in part because my approach is different. Both of us, however, are intent upon a reform dynamic for a reform agenda.<\/p>\n

Policy guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n

[37] I have probably said enough about social justice and neighbor love to illustrate their present awkwardness as norms in the Anthropocene. Let me do the same with a commonly used policy guideline, discussed by Jenkins, and then finish with comments to cosmologies and moral imagination.<\/p>\n

[38] The illustrative policy guideline is \u201cthe polluter pays.\u201d It\u2019s the grown-up version of \u201cclean up your own mess\u201d and \u201cput things back where you found them,\u201d both learned in kindergarten. Its virtue is that it holds us accountable for our actions, assigning \u201cburdens [in keeping with] an agent\u2019s causal role in creating the problem.\u201d[13] By any standard that\u2019s good morality.<\/p>\n

[39] But climate change \u201cis more complicated than kindergarten.\u201d Climate change doesn\u2019t honor \u201cclear harms caused by discrete actions of definite agents\u201d whom we can now identify and from whom we can demand appropriate recompense. Rather, we have planetary impacts that are \u201cthe indirect, cumulative outcome of human action aggregated across space and time\u201d[14] since around 1750. When my grandparents topped off the tank of their forest green \u201839 Chevy for Sunday afternoon visits to whomever might be at home, or when they enjoyed illumination at the flick of a switch in their newly electrified house, both of these courtesy of fossil fuels, they had no idea they were polluters who should pay. Indeed, CO2 emissions only count as dangerous pollution because my grandparents\u2019 actions joined trillions of such actions that, wholly unbeknownst to them, were quietly building, molecule by molecule, to a huge influence. \u201cPolluter pays\u201d still works, and should be used, for innumerable cases\u2014BP and the Gulf spill, New Jersey toxic dumping, Holden Village mine remediation. Climate change, however, renders this common moral analogue obsolete for those innumerable cases in which the resulting destruction involves indirect, cumulative, and aggregate origins and outcomes spread over expanses of time and space that span centuries and the globe. Jenkins draws his conclusion with a paraphrase of Iris Marion Young: \u201c[E]thics must learn to construct justice without perfect liability or even the idea of complicity. When injustice is the outcome of the social relations that connect agents pursuing acceptable interests, then justice must take shape as responsibility for the systems through which we belong to each other.\u201d[15]\u201cThat does not absolve persons born into high-carbon societies,\u201d Jenkins goes on, \u201cbut rather tutors the shape of our responsibility. How can justice reflect such contextual contingency, causal dispersion, accumulating privilege, and global participation?\u201d[16] Jenkins here, and everywhere else in the book, never backs away from describing climate change as deep injustice: it imposes burdens on those who have contributed least to it, it harms persons \u201ctoo marginal to have benefitted from the action and too poor to adapt to it, and [it creates] adversity for future generations,\u201d[17] the very generations who have contributed nothing at all, nor benefited. The point is that climate change issues in structurally wicked problems involving vast systems that cannot be reduced to pin-pointed wickedness on the part of individual millions, even billions, of persons pursuing ordinary, life-sustaining activities. If an everyday commute, multiplied umpteen thousands of times, contributes to disaster; if growing food the way we do does the same; or if growing the economy to add needed jobs and lift millions from poverty, does, labeling the commuters, farmers, investors, policymakers, and workers the agents of far-reaching evil places the debate where it cannot move to a workable solution. The real debate is how we open new possibilities for deep systemic change while still caught in the contradictions of a way of life in which we are tied to one another by dirty fuels; and future generations, human and other, are tied to us, even after we\u2019ve banished dirty fuels and switched to renewables. How do we reform for new possibilities of action while wide awake about the injustice visited on today\u2019s and tomorrow\u2019s vulnerable populations; in different words, when we can we no longer dial back that injustice? How do we acknowledge the ecological debt incurred by the North vis a vis the South since the onset of the Age of Discovery while yet finding a way, together, to upend the global corporate economic order that continues to generate that debt? What moral and policy guidelines can inform profound change in the systems that, remembering Iris Young, are the very systems through which we presently belong to each other?[18] Climate change per se is not the enemy. We are. And the moral question is, how do we love this enemy so fiercely that we are changed? And how are we changed, not as a matter of personal virtue alone, but as systemic habits addressing structural sin that will continue to work its poison for centuries to come on the only place in the universe fitted out as home.<\/p>\n

[40] I must forego the rest of Jenkins\u2019s superb discussion. I commend that discussion to you even as I move to cosmologies and imagination.<\/p>\n

Cosmologies and Imagination<\/strong><\/p>\n

[41] The most promising cosmologies are those that have harbored creation justice and a love that includes the primal elements, non-human life, and future generations. The very peoples most oppressed by conquest and colonization, commerce and Christianity packaged as \u201ccivilization\u201d are peoples whose sense of connectedness across the full community of life has often been profound. Their most common religious practices have been, and are, creation-based and creation-oriented. They happen also to be the peoples who have contributed least to climate change but suffered most from it. So perhaps here, in the wisdom of marginalized peoples, are to be found the needed moral analogues.\u200b<\/p>\n

[42] I think so, and the next two June seminars\u20142014 and 2015\u2014of the Earth-Honoring Faith project at Ghost Ranch will explore exactly that.[19] But the search proceeds with a caution. Like all human cosmologies, and, indeed, moral imagination itself, this deep holism and human identification with both the biotic and abiotic worlds were forged in the age of relative climate stability and a confidence that nature is reliable. The moral plumb line across these moral worlds has most always been this one: In the face of error and wrongdoing, what do we do to restore ourselves to nature\u2019s intrinsic harmony? Communal harmony was premised on the assumption of natural harmony. Even the costly surprises of fickle nature\u2014drought or deluge\u2014were judged to belong to larger cycles that could be counted upon to return. Does that now hold, when we know, first, that eco-systems themselves never reach a point of settled, \u201cmature\u201d harmony but are always undergoing adaptive change, much of it quite disruptive; and, second, when we know that a new geological age has likely intruded in which large-scale, long-term global volatility precludes notions of Holocene harmony. <\/p>\n

[43] There nonetheless remains something vital in the moral orientation of native peoples; namely, that true human belonging means to fit in, fit into a creation community here long before we arrived and long after we leave. Human responsibility as \u201cthe fitting response\u201d (H. Richard Niebuhr),[20] or the \u201cfitting-in\u201d response, becomes the basic stance, rather than the basic stance of industrial humanity, which is: What can we get away with so as to fit nature to our designs? I only emphasize that climate change renders \u201cfitting in\u201d inordinately difficult because it means fitting into a profoundly changing planetary creation, with disruptions of biblical proportions and a destiny that is anything but manifest.<\/p>\n

Reform-rooted Communities<\/strong><\/p>\n

[44] I finish with what Willis Jenkins hammers out as his proposed way forward. The backdrop is climate change as a perfect moral storm that renders our inherited moral habits, norms, even working cosmologies and imagination morally awkward, if not inept in both theory and practice. He underscores that radical inequality across the globe only intensifies the conflicts and frustrates the efforts to move forward together. Global climate talks tragically bear out this analysis.<\/p>\n

[45] What then? His reply is that the moral analogue for the non-analogous Anthropocene may rest, not with conventional moralities, but with communities that, facing moral uncertainty and incompetence, know how to drive moral creativity by reforming their own traditions to reach beyond their own work to date. They drink from their own wells and cherish their own treasures but for the unusual purpose of setting out on paths as yet untrodden. I label these \u201canticipatory communities\u201d[21] whose work is to meet the adaptive challenges of a new geological epoch. <\/p>\n

[46] My Bonehead Speech professor said, \u201cFinish by telling them what you did.\u201d Here is what I endeavored to do.<\/p>\n

[47] I attempted to (1) Highlight climate change as the driver of planetary processes that inaugurate geophysical change at human hands and (2) Show that the same reach of human activity \u201ccumulatively across generational time, aggregately through ecological systems, and nonintentionally over evolutionary futures\u201d (W. Jenkins) that launched this new epoch makes most of our working morality out-of-step with the reach of human power. Standard guidelines, norms and cosmologies appear not to serve the moral universe of the new era (planetary creation as the matrix of human responsibility). (3) Lastly, I suggested, with Jenkins, that the most helpful analogue may lie elsewhere; not with moral systems we know but with communities whose reform-rooted traditions can take them beyond their own legacy, into moral creativity fitted to a different Earth age. The promise of the Reformation awaits.\u200b<\/p>\n

   
\nNOTES<\/p>\n

[1] Elizabeth Kolbert, \u201cThe Lost World,\u201d Part Two, The New Yorker, December 23 & 30, 2013: 50.<\/p>\n

[2] Elizabeth Kolbert, \u201cThe Lost World,\u201d Part Two, The New Yorker, December 23 & 30, 2013: 52.<\/p>\n

[3] W. L Steffen et al., Global Change and the Earth System (Berlin and New York: Springer, 2004), v. <\/p>\n

[4] \u201cRushing for the Arctic\u2019s Riches,\u201d The New York Times Sunday Review, December 8, 2013: p. 6.<\/p>\n

[5]Information from Eocene, www.britannica.com and Eocene, www.wikipedia.com.<\/p>\n

[6] This story was passed along by Paul Hawken, speaking at the Lensic Auditorium, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 8, 2013. It will be part of a new book by Hawken on the history of carbon.<\/p>\n

[7] \u201cThe Holocene,\u201d University of California Museum of Paleontology, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu.<\/p>\n

[8] Nicholas Kristoff, \u2018Neglected Topic\u2019 Winner: Climate Change, The New York Times Sunday Review, January 19, 2014: 11, reporting data from William Nordhaus\u2019s new book, The Climate Casino.<\/p>\n

[9] From the sermon for Earth Sunday, April 21, 2013, available on the website for The Riverside Church, New York City: www.theriversidechurchny.org.<\/p>\n

[10] Rasmussen, Larry, Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Orbis, 1996), 5.<\/p>\n

[11] Morning Prayer, Lutheran Book of Worship (Augsburg Publishing House, 1979), 137.<\/p>\n

[12] Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 20.<\/p>\n

[13] Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 33.<\/p>\n

[14]Ibid.<\/p>\n

[15] From Iris Marion Young, Responsibility for Justice (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 34 of Jenkins.<\/p>\n

[16] Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 34.<\/p>\n

[17]Ibid.<\/p>\n

[18] Young, Responsibility for Justice, p. 34 of Jenkins.<\/p>\n

[19] See \u201cEarth-Honoring Faith\u201d in the on-line catalog, available at www.ghostranch.org. The 2014 seminar, June 23 \u2013 30, is \u201cListening to Earth, Opening to God,\u201d and focuses on women\u2019s experience, traditions, and voices. The 2015 week, also in June, will turn to Native American wisdom.<\/p>\n

[20] Niebuhr was moving into this in his latter years, away from exclusively teleological and deontological orientations. His turn was to moral theory arising from relational responsibility. See his last work, The Responsible Self.<\/p>\n

[21] See Rasmussen, Earth-Honoring Faith, 121, 223-24, 226-27, 361, 364-65.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u200bRasmussen writes that scientists have concluded that we have entered a new geological age due to human activity. We are now having a bigger impact on the natural environment than ever before, changing mountains, oceans, even the atmosphere itself. What should the moral or ethical response be when so-called natural disasters are the result of humans, particularly when the people who create the problems are not the people who suffer the worst effects? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nClimate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u200bRasmussen writes that scientists have concluded that we have entered a new geological age due to human activity. We are now having a bigger impact on the natural environment than ever before, changing mountains, oceans, even the atmosphere itself. What should the moral or ethical response be when so-called natural disasters are the result of humans, particularly when the people who create the problems are not the people who suffer the worst effects?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Lutheran Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Denise Rector\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Denise Rector\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"27 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Denise Rector\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/person\/1d1a38a7727af6291bbff14ba363351c\"},\"headline\":\"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\"},\"wordCount\":5386,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Climate Change, Ecology, Environment\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/\",\"name\":\"Journal of Lutheran Ethics\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization\",\"name\":\"ELCA - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg\",\"width\":250,\"height\":250,\"caption\":\"ELCA - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/person\/1d1a38a7727af6291bbff14ba363351c\",\"name\":\"Denise Rector\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Denise Rector\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/author\/drector\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics","og_description":"\u200bRasmussen writes that scientists have concluded that we have entered a new geological age due to human activity. We are now having a bigger impact on the natural environment than ever before, changing mountains, oceans, even the atmosphere itself. What should the moral or ethical response be when so-called natural disasters are the result of humans, particularly when the people who create the problems are not the people who suffer the worst effects?","og_url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/","og_site_name":"Journal of Lutheran Ethics","article_published_time":"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":250,"height":250,"url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Denise Rector","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Denise Rector","Est. reading time":"27 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/"},"author":{"name":"Denise Rector","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/person\/1d1a38a7727af6291bbff14ba363351c"},"headline":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm","datePublished":"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00","dateModified":"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/"},"wordCount":5386,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Climate Change, Ecology, Environment"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/","url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/","name":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm - Journal of Lutheran Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-02-02T18:01:51+00:00","dateModified":"2020-10-28T20:02:25+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/climate-change-as-a-perfect-moral-storm\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#website","url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/","name":"Journal of Lutheran Ethics","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#organization","name":"ELCA - Journal of Lutheran Ethics","url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/01\/Journal_of_Lutheran_Ethics_Logo.jpg","width":250,"height":250,"caption":"ELCA - Journal of Lutheran Ethics"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/#\/schema\/person\/1d1a38a7727af6291bbff14ba363351c","name":"Denise Rector","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cd6b17eb57a1d89f3baef8305d701c7443492f28eb7b50b711980b582f26385?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Denise Rector"},"url":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/author\/drector\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1528,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}