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We're Not Tree-Huggers

Catholics and Climate Change

BY BARTHOLOMEW JAMES

A recent cover story in Time magazine featured the headline, "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." Why be worried? Because, the article proclaimed, the debate about global warming is, or should be, over. "From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us," Time said.

The seemingly real-time Armageddon is the result of a chain-reaction of events originating in mankind's, and, to a degree, the earth's, own excessive generation of carbon dioxide and other gases, which damage the protective layer of the earth's atmosphere. The damage lets in harmful energy, such as ultraviolet rays, and traps the sun's heat, causing surface temperatures to rise, among other side effects. For years, the immense complexity of the problem delayed an accurate assessment of the cause and effect relationship, but long-term research combined with technological breakthroughs have all but confirmed the stark reality of the situation, according to various sources that have written or spoken on the issue.

"I haven't run into anybody that's skeptical about climate change," said Edward Wassell, a former researcher for NASA and now a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California. "Mostly the question is, what do you do about it? And that's not a scientific question but a policy question." But debate on the policy question is influenced by starkly contrasting special interest groups ranging from oil and corporate interests to environmental organizations. "That's where it gets controversial," Wassell said. "I think there are certain people that don't want to attribute the bulk of the problem to emissions from power plants and vehicles. Others say that the way to solve or curtail global warming is to reduce emissions. I think that's a good goal, but I don't know that that's going to stop it or how much of an effect it will have," he said. "You have to ask yourself the question of should we focus on reducing man's production of greenhouse gases or should we try to focus on trying to work with the earth itself to try to naturally sequester more of the greenhouse gasses?" Trees and other vegetation, for example, naturally reduce levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

So what should Catholics do in regards to global warming? "Catholics should always try to be stewards of the earth ... that is Catholic doctrine, that we're supposed to take care of the earth in some way," Wasswl said. "So we should exercise personal stewardship in whatever way is possible. If you're talking about things like reducing man-made pollutants -- that seems like it's a good thing, whether or not there is global warming. Should Catholics push for a political solution to the problem through regulation of industry? Not necessarily. I think we should be personal stewards of the earth, and this means that if possible we probably should personally buy hybrid cars and plant trees."

Evangelical Christian leaders have recently gotten involved in the debate as well. In January, a coalition of Evangelical Christians announced the Evangelical Climate Initiative. "Over the last several years many of us have engaged in study, reflection, and prayer related to the issue of climate change," the group announced in a 12-page statement. "For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority." But now they say they have seen the light and been "persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians." The initiative noted that even small increases in global temperatures could cause sea levels to rise, more frequent heat waves, droughts, and extreme weather events. The poor would bear a disproportionate share of the negative impact, since the areas likely to be hardest hit are in the poorest areas of the world, according to the initiative statement.

The Evangelicals' pronouncement had striking similarities to a 2001 statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which, apparently, was ahead of the global warming acknowledgment curve. Nearly five years ago, the bishops emphasized the socioeconomic ramifications of climate change. "We especially want to focus on the needs of the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable in a debate often dominated by more powerful interests," they said. John Carr, the U.S. bishops' director of social development and world peace, is gratified to see that consensus about the problem appears to have reached critical mass. "I think people are coming around to the points that the bishops made and continue to make," he said. "This is a classic case of where we have to act in pursuit of the common good instead of responding to one set of interests or another."

Carr gave an example of how the poor can be impacted by ocean temperature changes triggered by global climate conditions. "A lot of people fish for their food and make their living off what they catch, particularly in Africa and Latin America, and what happens to the oceans and the fish obviously has an enormous impact on that," he explained. Carr said that Hurricane Katrina' s devastation of the Gulf Coast was a preview of the problem. "There was a substantial fishing industry in Louisiana, and behind the industry is a whole bunch of families whose lives depended on harvesting shrimp and other fish, and that has been completely disrupted," he said.

Carr concurred with Wassell that solutions to the problem are complex and involve subtleties that go beyond the obvious. "We're not part of the 'What Would Jesus Drive' campaign," he said. "We think that Catholic social teaching is a little more complicated than that." Carr does advise that Catholics exercise sacrifice and restraint in their daily lives, be aware of the climate change issue, and make the political case for prudent action with a focus on how it touches the poor. "Because in Washington there are a lot of voices at the table -- the environmentalists, the power companies, industry and labor, to a certain extent. The poor aren't at those tables. They're not buying 60-second TV ads."

At the state level, California Catholic Conference executive directorNed Dolejsi said the state's bishops are tracking legislative proposals related to the issue and especially air quality measures, such as Assembly Bill 32, modestly known as the "California Global Warming Solutions Act." Among other provisions, the bill proposes to set a statewide limit on greenhouse-gas emissions by forcing power plants, refineries, cement makers, and other polluters to adopt cleaner energy technologies. At the diocesan level, Dolejsi said that the diocese of Stockton has been at the forefront of the issue. Rich Fowler, executive director of Catholic Charities for the diocese, initiated an environmental justice committee. The committee's goal is to encourage San Joaquin Valley Catholics to "contribute to the restoration and protection of a healthy society and environment." About six months before worldwide Earth Day celebrations on April 22, Fowler and Bishop Stephen Blaire took the issue to parishioners throughout the diocese.

"We come at it from a faith perspective, not from an Earth Day perspective," Fowler explained. "We're not opposed to Earth Day, but we're not tree-huggers. We don't come at it from that point of view; we really come at it because our faith demands it." In recognition of national Respect Life Month, in October 2005 Bishop Blaire issued a pastoral letter to parishioners of the diocese. The letter expanded the traditional respect-life issues of abortion and euthanasia to include the death penalty and a "new attention to the quality of life and to ecology through environmental justice." Fowler said that the diocese's environmental committee decided to focus primarily on air quality issues because the San Joaquin Valley has the unenviable distinction of having the worst air in the country. "There are lots and lots of people here who have asthma and other respiratory difficulties because of the quality of the air," he said. "The bishop decided that he felt like the Church needed to be engaged somehow in the discussion of how we clean the air."

Fowler said that Blaire held several meetings with about a hundred leaders from the diocesan community, including farmers, farm workers, government workers, and school teachers. "And he basically said, 'what do you all think we should do?'" said Fowler. The consensus seemed to boil down to two issues. "One is that Catholics don't really even understand that this is part of our faith, that caring for the earth and caring for the environment is part of our faith, and so the recommendation to the bishop was that he do some things to help the Catholic community to understand that caring for the earth is part of our faith," he said. "And then the second suggestion was that we focus on air quality because rich or poor, black, white or brown, we all breathe the same air."

As a result, the last Sunday of Respect Life Month became the first annual "Environmental Justice Weekend." Fifteen parishes in the diocese participated, and homilies on "Care for God's Creation" were delivered at 28 Masses. By the end of 2005, the committee helped influence passage of a clean air regulation by the San Joaquin Valley Air District. "We went to our county commissioner here in San Joaquin County, who was opposed to it, and told him why we thought it should pass. He ended up voting for it, and it passed unanimously," Fowler said. In 2006, the committee objectives include raising awareness of air quality issues in five specific parishes, working with air quality experts and partners to build a broad base of support for improving air quality in the valley, teaming with interns from Santa Clara University to produce a media presentation on Catholic social teaching and air quality, and setting up environmental justice committees in specific parishes.

Fowler also said the diocese has received two $50,000 grants to continue and expand its work. "It's money that we will use to try and build a base of people in our parishes who can work and act together on this issue," he said. The diocese hopes to partner with the larger Fresno and Sacramento dioceses. "We're [all] in the Central Valley, and if we're going to be serious about this, then we need to be working in collaboration with them," he said. "Frankly, we don't want to be activists. What we feel like we must do is take the time to really both educate and organize our own people around these concerns so that it's informed consent and they're really clued into what this is all about. That's what we're trying to do."

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