Lessons in Climate Science, Biology, and Religious Conviction
It is time to call it what it is: Global Heating. Warming fails to capture what’s happening.
Although we in the inland Pacific Northwest have, so far this summer, been spared most of the pall of wildfire smoke that has blanketed the region in the summers of recent years, the sense that we have recently reached some sort of climate tipping point in the world is hard to miss. A “heat dome” sits over the Southwest as day and nighttime temperatures in Phoenix break records. Towns in Pennsylvania flood as six inches of rain falls in a single hour. Downtown Montpelier and many smaller towns in Vermont experience the third “hundred year” flood in thirty years as water rises four feet up the walls of downtown businesses. Ocean temperatures off Florida are breaking records as coral reefs are threatened. It’s not just here in the U.S. In Canada wildfires rage over vast acreages of dried-out forest in places we habitually think of as damp and cool. Smoke from these Canadian fires fills the air on our eastern seaboard. Further away and less noticed by most of us, areas on three continents suffer under oppressive heat and smoke. Wildfires rage in Greece. Iran is running out of water as it swelters in dry heat. Temperatures rose to 95 degrees Fahrenheit in Beijing in northern China—an unheard-of heat wave.
For those who pay attention to science, the principles of global heating as a result of burning fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial revolution have been known since the mid 1800s thanks to the work of Irish physicist John Tyndall and American scientist and feminist Eunice Newton Foote. More than a century later, in 1988, climate scientist James Hansen presented abundant evidence to the U.S. Congress that the temperature signals of global heating were already ominously measurable. At the time, Hansen naively imagined that Congress, having heard the alarm, would act to mitigate the threat. He badly underestimated the power of inertia and doubt underwritten by the fossil fuel industry.
Jeff Goodell’s, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet (2023) was recently discussed on Fresh Air. Goodell emphasizes that although the science of global heating is well understood, specific extreme weather events fueled by global heating, events becoming ever more frequent, are often grimly unpredictable.
As a species we are not adapted to withstand temperature extremes like those we are now hearing about from all over the globe. Death from heat is real. Accounts of delirium and death of young people with core body temperatures as high as 110 degrees Fahrenheit after working in the Texas sun at 104 degrees ambient temperature attest to our fragility as humans. All the currently existing life on our planet has evolved to survive and thrive within what is a rather narrow range of temperature in the grand scheme of the universe and earth history. Successful biological adaption of a species to changes in climate and temperature takes thousands of years and many generations, not just the couple of hundred year time frame of global heating caused by human activity. We, as humans, smugly think of ourselves as “adaptable” to extremes ranging from the antarctic winter to summer in the Kalahari Desert—but some of the extremes of heat we are now experiencing are simply not survivable by the vast majority of humanity on this planet—and, eventually, there will be nowhere to hide. As the entire planet heats on average everywhere a couple of degrees (in Centigrade or in Fahrenheit) there will be nowhere to go to escape increasingly frequent uninhabitable extremes. (Air conditioners, Goodell points out, don’t reduce the net heat plaguing the planet, they just move the heat from one place to another—and often consume energy from the burning of more fossil fuels in the process.)
We—and certainly I—have been tempted to think of the predominantly Republican U.S. Congressional global heating inaction and denial is rooted purely in dependence on fossil fuel industry money and influence. According to this theory, Republican congresspeople actually understand the science of global heating, but evilly resist action because they have been bought off. The more worrisome truth is that many Republican U.S. Representatives and Senators, most especially “our” U.S. Representative from eastern Washington State, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-CD5), are now and ever will be doctrinally incapable of understanding the science—or the threat of global heating—even as they hide their denial behind useful buzzwords.
In particular, “our” Rep. McMorris Rodgers has famously proclaimed that she believes in the “literal truth” of the words in the Bible, including that the world as we know it was literally created by God in seven days. Unless she can engage in a spectacular example of cognitive dissonance (and there is zero evidence that she can or does), her fervent belief in the literal truth of the Bible precludes comprehension of humans’ dependence on the environment and humanity’s position as a part of nature itself. Furthermore, her belief blocks any understanding of species adaption to climate and the geological timeframe required for such evolutionary adaption to occur. By way of obfuscation, she has schooled herself to occasionally utter words like “renewable” and “sustainable”, words that serve as a smokescreen to offer solace to those of her constituents who might be concerned about the observed changes in climate. That said, she will never, ever cast a vote in favor of a bill that might involve the government in ameliorating global heating. (Of course, she will rise in high dudgeon to point at her defense of the Snake River dams as if this were a full proof of a commitment to confront the threat of global heating.) For McMorris Rodgers and the vast majority, if not all, of her Republican colleagues in Congress, the unregulated “free market” and the ever-greater mining and burning of fossil fuels are essential to the “progress” of humankind. “Full speed ahead—and never mind those pesky environmentalists! If the world overheats (and I’m pretty sure it won’t because God will save us) the righteous among us still have heaven to look forward to.”
Sadly, even if everyone in the U.S. Congress were scientifically in tune with the threat of global heating, taking action to avoid climate disaster will be challenging—and positive results will only emerge over decades. The sooner the federal government commits to the task the more likely we can avoid the worst consequences. No commitment will come about while modern-day Republicans retain a majority in either house of Congress.
The first order of business is to expose the deficiencies in scientific understanding of current Representatives and Senators like McMorris Rodgers; then vote them out of office. Trying to change their minds is pointless.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Espousing Christian faith is NOT synonymous with believing in the literal truth of the Bible and denial of science.
It is important to recognize adherence to the idea of a 6000 year old earth and the literal truth of Creation in seven days is not a majority view in America, probably not even among self-described Christians. Much of Christianity, including United Methodism, the tradition in which I was brought up, considers the biblical creation story to be allegorical: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.” It is worth noting there have been recent (and un-successful) efforts to change Methodist doctrine to an anti-science view. Christianity is not monolithic, and McMorris Rodgers’ views represent only some of those who call themselves Christian. The details of a legislator’s particular Christian faith are critical. We are fortunate to clearly understand McMorris Rodgers’ particular Fundamentalist, anti-science belief system. Keep it in mind as we contemplate the consequences to the planet of keeping such people in Congress.
P.P.S. A high alignment rating with WeBelieveWeVote.com, however, conveniently declares to prospective voters that a candidate subscribes to anti-science Biblical Fundamentalism: “The Holy Bible is the supernatural, full, and inspired Word of God; it is inerrant, supreme, and final.” If you expect action to address global heating steer away from these people.