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Slip-sliding away

01 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

God promises Noah that "the waters shall never again become a flood." But scientists studying global warming in the Antarctic warn that worldwide sea levels may rise much more quickly than previously projected, causing widespread flooding. Antarctic glaciers are melting faster across a much wider area than previously thought, they said Wednesday. Previously most of the warming was thought to occur on the narrow stretch pointing toward South America, said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. But satellite data and automated weather stations indicate otherwise. "The warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," Summerhayes said. "That's unusual and unexpected." The biggest west Antarctic glacier, the Pine Island Glacier, is moving 40 percent faster than it was in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly into the ocean, said Summerhayes. The Smith Glacier, also in west Antarctica, is moving 83 percent faster than it did in 1992, he said. All the glaciers in the area together are losing a total of around 114 billion tons per year. "That's equivalent to the current mass loss from the whole of the Greenland ice sheet," said Summerhayes. Source: An article by Eliane Engeler for the Associated Press

global warming flooding antarctica glaciers colin summerhayes scientific committee on antarctic research pine island glacier smith glacier
Heated divisions stall global warming accord

16 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Letter to the Ephesians this Sunday counsels its hearers to "watch carefully how you live." Global warming is making the urgency of this advice ever more apparent to an energy-hungry world. But time is running short for agreement on a new global warming treaty amid deep divisions over key issues, according to the United Nation's top climate official. Speaking at the start of the latest round of U.N. discussions, Yvo de Boer said political signals were positive but progress still too slow. About 1,000 officials are meeting in Bonn for a week of informal talks. The aim is to clear the way for the adoption of a new U.N. climate treaty in Copenhagen in December. "We've got a 200-plus-page text riddled with square brackets [where issues are unresolved]," de Boer said. "And it worries me to think how on earth we're going to whittle that down to meaningful language with just five weeks of negotiating time left." One of the toughest disputes is over which countries should commit to reducing their levels of greenhouse gases. Another source of tension is over the financial aid the developing world says it needs in order to cope with the effects of climate change. Bernaditas de Castro-Mueller of the Philippines, a senior coordinator for the G77 group of developing countries, said the nations that had caused the most greenhouse gases had an obligation to help those suffering from them. "It's just an outrage that countries cannot live up to their responsibilities. We're all parties to this convention, including the developed countries," she said. Source: An article by David Shukman for BBC News

united nations global warming climate change yvo de boer bernaditas de castro-mueller developing countries treaty
Climactic moment on climate change?

13 Dec 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"What then should we do?" was the question on the minds of John the Baptist's listeners we learn in this Sunday's gospel. It is also the question at the forefront of the debate over global warming. Political leaders and scientists gathered in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit some dub the world's "last chance" to control warming. At the same time the conference was getting underway the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday that greenhouse gases are endangering people's health and must be regulated. The move puts pressure on Congress to act on stalled climate legislation. The ruling paves the way for regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, power plants, factories, refineries, and other major sources. Industry groups quickly criticized the decision, saying that the regulation of carbon dioxide would be legally and technically complex and would impose huge costs across the economy. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said that the finding was driven by the weight of scientific evidence that the planet was warming and that human activity was largely responsible. Jackson waded into the current dispute over leaked e-mail messages from a British climate research group that have stirred doubts among some people about the integrity of climate science. "We know that skeptics have and will continue to try to sow doubts about the science," she said. "It's no wonder that many people are confused. But raising doubts--even in the face of overwhelming evidence--is a tactic that has been used by defenders of the status quo for years." Worldwide the vast majority of increased greenhouse-gas emissions is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India. But those countries have made it clear that their willingness to reduce growth in emissions will depend on what wealthier countries do first. That puts a spotlight on the U.S. in Copenhagen, observers said, and the EPA announcement was timed to boost the Obama administration's case that the U.S. is indeed taking action to combat global warming even though Congress has yet to act. In conjunction with the Copenhagen summit churches around the world this Sunday will ring their bells as part of what is being called "Hopenhagen," a call to action and prayer in response to climate change. Source: Articles by John M. Broder for the New York Times, Dina Cappiello and H. Josef Herbert for the Associated Press, Jeffrey Ball and Charles Forelle for the Wall Street Journal, and Ecumenical News International

china carbob dioxide emissions climate science lisa jackson summit copenhagen greenhouse gases climate change india global warming environmental protection agency hopenhagen
Alaska’s final frontier feeling the heat

20 Feb 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In encouraging his followers to go the extra mile and do the right thing even when harmed, Jesus explains in this Sunday’s gospel that the sun rises and the rain falls on all the children of the Creator. The harm from global warming falls on all of God’s creation as well, and in few places is that impact being felt more dramatically than in Alaska’s prized network of national parks. Thawing permafrost in Denali, Kenai Fjords, and other Alaskan national parks is triggering mudslides on roads used by sightseers, while bushes newly sprouted on the warming tundra are blocking panoramic views. Glaciers are receding from convenient viewing areas and their fast summer melt poses new flood risks. A rapidly warming climate also has led to a proliferation of invasive plants and fish, greater frequency and intensity of wildfires, and declines in wildlife populations that depend on sea ice and glaciers, according to a recent National Park Service report. Since the mid-1970s Alaska has warmed at three times the rate of the lower 48 states, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And with nearly two-thirds of U.S. national parkland located in Alaska, the issue of climate change is especially pressing there, officials say. An article by Yereth Rosen for Reuters

global warming alaska national parks
Oceans away?

26 Jun 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The divine word and law have been entrusted to Israel as a blessing, the psalmist reminds the people this Sunday. From the moment God first separated land from sea and entrusted the oceans to humanity, they have blessed us with abundance. But a new study warns of the imminent and catastrophic extinctions of sea life--the worst collapse of life in millions of years--because of climate change and overfishing. Time is running short to counter hazards such as the collapse of coral reefs or the spread of low-oxygen "dead zones," according to the study led by the International Program on the State of the Ocean (IPSO). "We now face losing marine species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation," said the expert study which will be presented to the United Nations. "The findings are shocking," Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO, wrote of the conclusions from a 2011 workshop of ocean experts staged by IPSO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature at Oxford University. Jelle Bijma, of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said the seas faced a "deadly trio" of threats: higher temperatures, acidification, and lack of oxygen known as anoxia that also have factored in several past mass extinctions. A buildup of carbon dioxide, blamed by the U.N. panel of climate scientists on human use of fossil fuels, is heating the planet. Absorbed into the oceans, it causes acidification, while runoff of fertilizers and pollution stokes anoxia. Fish are the main source of protein for a fifth of the world's population, and the seas cycle oxygen and help absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activities. The study said that overfishing is the easiest contributing factor for governments to reverse, while countering global warming will require a major shift away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energies such as wind and solar power. Source: An article by Jan Harvey for Reuters

global warming oceans overfishing ipso coral reefs alex rogers jelle bijma acidification anoxia fertilizers extinction climate change pollution fossil fuels
The incredible shrinking species

23 Oct 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s second reading closes with a reference to “Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.” Those who warn of the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming have a new piece of evidence to add to climate change’s already alarming laundry list of effects such as melting glaciers and rising sea levels: A number of animals are shrinking in physical size in response to warming. “I don’t think that organisms will shrink to the degree that you’ll walk outside and see that trees are suddenly half the size that they used to be,” said Jennifer Sheridan, a conservation biologist at the University of Alabama and a coauthor of a paper describing the phenomenon in the journal Nature Climate Change. But the shrinking among species in general is noticeable, Sheridan said, at least to scientists studying them. And in the long run, she suggested, changes in species sizes could have major implications for crop production and the availability of protein sources like fish. Judging from the fossil record, creatures like beetles, spiders, and pocket gophers shrank during periods of warming in the past, the researchers wrote. Scientists are increasingly relying on fossils to predict what the planet might anticipate over the next century. Although climate change is now unfolding at a much faster rate than in past periods of warming, the researchers said, the basic message is the same: Warmer temperatures equals smaller animals. Source: An article by Rachel Nuwer for the New York Times

global warming climate change species jennifer sheridan fossils
Skeptic warms to evidence of climate change

05 Aug 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?” the skeptical crowds ask Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel. One of global warming’s most prominent skeptics has become a believer after a closer look at the signs of climate change. Global warming is real, and greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity are the main cause, said Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, who called his new stance “a total turnaround.”The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came to such conclusions years ago, but the difference now is the source: Muller is a long-standing, colorful critic of prevailing climate science, and the Berkeley project that led to his change of heart was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.Some leading climate scientists said Muller’s comments show that the science is so strong that even those inclined to reject it cannot once they examine it carefully. Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said Muller’s conversion might help shape the thinking of the “reasonable middle” of the population “who are genuinely confused and have been honestly taken in” by attacks on climate science. Source: An article by Neela Banerjee and Andrew C. Revkin for the New York Times

global warming climate change michael e mann charles koch charitable foundation richard a muller
Even Venice can flood

18 Nov 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Both the gospel and the first reading this Sunday speak of a time of tribulation when people will be forced to move. Fast-rising waters forced hundreds to flee their homes in Venice, Italy Monday as nearly three quarters of the fabled city was inundated by near-record levels of floodwater that filled shops, homes, and historic palaces.Elevated water in Venice reached nearly 5 feet, one of the highest stages since records began in 1872, forcing residents to wade through waist-deep water. Tourists in bathing suits sat at cafe tables under the water. There was no immediate estimate of damage to the city.In Tuscany, 9 inches of rain fell in four hours, causing several rivers to flood, according to the regional government. “It has been devastating,” said Roberto Pucci, the mayor of Massa Carrara in Tuscany, one of the worst-hit areas. “I saw at least six bridges destroyed in the hills, floods, landslides, vineyards, and olive groves swept away. If there hasn't been a death it's a miracle,” he said.Local media said dozens of people took refuge on their roofs after rivers burst their banks in central Italy. It was the fourth time since 2000 that Venice had been hit by record-high water, and the city's environment officer said the latest flooding was the result of global climate change. A barrier to protect the city from repeated winter flooding, which has been planned for decades, is due to be finished by 2015.By Wednesday the situation in Venice was improving, but several bridges and roads in Rome had to be closed as the swollen Tiber river rushed through the capital and flooded outlying regions.Homily hint: The power of nature unleashed, which the East Coast of the U.S. may feel one week and Italy the next, reminds us of our vulnerability to even the smallest changes in climatic conditions. A few degrees of warming can give a storm greater power, melt a glacier, kill a magnificent coral reef. We honor our Creator by living in harmony with the rest of creation. Sources: Articles by Steve Scherer, Naomi O’Leary, and Philip Pullella for Reuters

global warming flooding climate change venice tuscany
Some like it hot—but this hot?

13 Jan 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Memorable words from the Book of Isaiah greet us in this Sunday’s first reading, such as these from the ch. 40 option: “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” If heating trends in the U.S. continue on their current trajectory, future citizens may find themselves crying out for salvation from just such a desert wasteland.2012, the year of a rare March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt, and a monster storm that brought devastation to Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year’s 55.3-degree average demolished the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.An alarming 34,008 daily high records were set at weather stations across the country, compared with only 6,664 record lows, according to a count maintained by Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton using federal temperature records. That ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out of whack for decades as the country has warmed but never by as much as it had last year.“The heat was remarkable,” said Jake Crouch, a scientist with the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina which released the official climate compilation on Tuesday. “It was prolonged. That we beat the record by one degree is quite a big deal.”Homily hint: Global warming is one of those issues that seems remote until it is your home that is washed away or your crops that wither in the field. When people complain about the high cost of clean energy, invite them to this simple challenge: Try counting your money while holding your breath! A clean and safe environment is worth our investment. Sources: Articles by Neela Banerjee for the Los Angeles Times and Justin Gillis for the New York Times

weather global warming united states heat guy walton jake crouch
Latest global warming figures are breathtaking

19 May 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist is clear this Sunday that God renews the face of the earth and gives us the breath of life without which we would perish. Recent signs of the damage of global warning suggest humanity has forgotten this ancient wisdom. The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported last Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million. The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said. Maureen E Raymond, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a unit of Columbia University, said: “It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster.”Homily hint: Global warming is one of those issues grandchildren soon will turn to their elders and ask: Why did you let this happen? How will you answer the question? There is still time to help turn down the heat; make sure your own faith community is as green as possible. Source: An article by Justin Gillis for the New York Times

global warming carbon dioxide maureen e raymond ralph keeling pieter p tans

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