Urgent Biophilia
Sermon | April 18, 2021 | Social Action Committee
So here is our home, in the words of Carl Sagan, the only home we have ever known. As far as we know, Earth is the only planet with conscious life forms. We are alone in our Milky Way Galaxy. If we zoom in closer, we can see what inspired Bill Anders of the Apollo 8 mission to take what is known as the Christmas Eve Earthrise picture. This photo started a change in our relationship with Planet Earth. We are here today to celebrate the Earth, that fragile blue boat that sails the universe. But what is it exactly that we are celebrating? The Earth and all its life forms are at a tipping point that if left unchecked will fundamentally change life on earth as we know it.
I have made nearly 70 circuits around the sun and in those nearly 70 circuits I have seen so many changes on the planet that I call home. I have seen once vibrant coral reefs turn bleached white; I have seen winter migrant birds turn into winter residents and then die in winter storm Uri. I have seen urban sprawl consume wild areas where I once watched frogs and salamanders spawn and wild areas where I helped grow food for our community. When I first moved to Midland in 1981, I marked spring by the call of spadefoot toads in our urban parks once playas and I awoke each morning to birdsong. In our backyard, my girls and I counted dozens of Monarch butterflies each fall migration; we watched cicada killers, marveled at the variety of lizard life, including horny toads and listened in summer evenings to the cacophony of June bugs, cicadas and crickets. The last spadefoot toad I heard call in Midland was 2011; each year I see fewer and fewer Monarchs and lizards. I know that by the way the native plants and the garden vegetables in my yard grow that I can no longer depend on the seasons as I once knew them: I have seen blackberries that normally bloom in May blooming in January; trees and shrubs leafing out three times only to be frozen out because of the abnormal cycle of warm spell and cold spells we are seeing in a changing climate. Last year I had vegetables that had to be pollinated by hand because there were no pollinators. And I have rescued baby birds with beak deformities due to nutritional deficiencies in their urban diet. I feel each year that the connection to Nature that sustains me is being disrupted and I can no longer find smooth sailing. Perhaps you, too, have noticed the changes.
But I also know that change is nothing new to Earth. Scientists can document changes on Earth from the Big Bang, through meteor bombardment and a molten earth, through a cooling Earth and the rise of oceans, to the precursors of life and eventually our first life form: bacteria. And each of these changes brought about a change in the life forms and the physical world. Earth transformed life and life transformed Earth. Life is not a noun but a verb, a process playing out over time. Life itself has transformed Earth into what we see today. Five times in its 4.6-billion-year history, Earth experienced cataclysmic physical changes and life forms died and were re-invented. Most of us are familiar with the dinosaur extinction at the end of the Cretaceous around 65 million years ago and the subsequent rise of mammals that led eventually to our human ancestors. For roughly fifty thousand generations we were hunter gathers and then for about five hundred more we were farmers. From the earliest time that we started burning coal for fuel and clearing land for our use, we started down a path that is changing our climate and tearing apart the complex interrelationships that support us. We are currently in the sixth period of extinction, but what sets this period of extinction apart is that there is no physical cause. This current mass extinction event is the result of life form activity: human life form activity. Our behaviors are tearing apart the complex web of abiotic, (non-living) and biotic (living) relationships that have shaped the Earth as we know it. Virtually every activity in modern life from eating, to making things, to moving around affects the health of our planet. So, what can we do to avoid this slide into environmental disaster? Can we as one Earth come together to extend our time on it?
To gain some insight into that question, let’s take a journey back in time through one of my favorite children’s book series to see what lessons the Earth must share with us. Written as a letter from the Universe to Earthlings, this series of three books by Jennifer Morgan covers 13 billion years of cosmic time. What I love about this series is the almost last page of each book which sets out the lessons that the Universe has learned. And how deeply relevant these Universe musings are to the time we are in now. I wish we had time to read each one and talk about each book because the evolution of life on Earth is fascinating. As we look at these Universe lessons for Earthlings, I do invite you to pick out one of the lessons that speaks to you and hold on to it. In Born with a Bang the Universe tells how creativity and chaos lead to the formation of Earth. Look for the timeline at the top of the Universe lessons to orient yourself in cosmic time then look at the lessons learned. From Lava to Life continues with the evolution of life forms, in fits and starts, and down dead ends from bacteria to protists to eukaryotes, from water to land, and eventually to dinosaurs. Did you find a lesson that speaks to you? Mammals Who Morph follows the dinosaur extinction to the human life we know today. The cells of our bodies carry parts of 13 plus-billion-year history of the Universe from the calcium in our bones, the water in or bodies to bacterial contributions such as mitochondria and our ability to use oxygen to release energy. And in the larger picture, we are truly all connected to Earth, to its life forms and to the complex interrelationships that form the ecosystems that support us. Life as a verb is an ongoing process that melds the physical and the biotic worlds and has created Earth as we know it. Call it the web of life, call it nature, call it biodiversity, call it ecosystem services but we are dependent for life on an intact natural world. So, let’s see what the Universe say had to say about the lessons learned. These are the lessons from creation that we can take forward.
Now, let’s turn to the challenges we have ahead of us to see where we as individuals and collectively as the world can take action. David Attenborough in his book A Life on our Planet, chronicles the changes he has seen on Earth in his nine decades of life. During his life on Earth there has been a rise in atmospheric carbon and the human population with a concurrent decrease in wilderness areas. And these trends can be extended back in time for as long as we have been keeping records. Increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere increases the temperature on Earth. Decreasing wilderness areas means that humans have changed how lands are used and that also affects other life forms in ways that Elizabeth Kolbert summarizes in her book, The Sixth Extinction. As a result of these fast-moving changes, many animal and plant species as well as other life forms are threatened with extinction, some groups more than others. But as we know extinction has been and will continue to be part of Earth’s story. What is different now is the rate and scale of the changes taking place. And this is before we even consider the role of environmental justice in social justice.
So, what is the good news? And yes, there is good news. Let’s start with an ongoing success story documented in a PBS documentary Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet. This documentary chronicles how an unlikely trio of Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher and George Schultz became instrumental in establishing an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol, to cut the use of CFC, remember chlorofluorocarbons, the cooling agent in fridges?) by half. This treaty was strengthened in 1990, to ban all CFCs in all countries by 2010 including developing nations. Citizen led campaigning, environmental groups as well as key industry players came together to find alternatives and modify existing technologies. The Montreal Protocol has also contributed to the fight against global warming by diverting more than 135 billion tons of CO2 from our atmosphere. The world came together to solve a problem. In the Universe lessons from the Earth: groups of Earthlings can do great things when they work together.
To fight climate change, we need to reduce our CO2 emissions from 51 billion tons a year to zero. Bill Gate’s book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need is a readable introduction to the whys we must and possible hows that might reduce carbon emissions. He states from the beginning that this is a huge and overwhelming task, and it will be hard. Everything we do from how we move around, how we grow our food, how we make things, and how we keep warm and stay cool emits huge amounts of carbon in the form of CO2 that was once sequestered deep within the Earth. If we are to reduce these CO2 levels, then we need to transition to clean energy. However, there major technical hurdles to clean energy: energy from fossils fuels is cheap and easy to transport; clean energy is not. But there are many groups working on the problems to develop carbon sequestration, store clean energy and make it more available worldwide. In the Universe lessons from Earth, we know: when I am in crisis, I get creative and turn a dream into reality.
In her TED Talk, local climate scientist, Dr. Kathryn Hayhoe, co-director of the Climate Center at Texas Tech shares her thoughts on what we all can do. As an evangelical Christian, she brings a unique take to climate change. She begins her talk with reminding us that the data is not enough. We have had data for decades. We need to start with the heart. In her words:
“The world is changing. But it just isn’t changing fast enough. Too often, we picture this problem as a giant boulder sitting at the bottom of a hill, with only a few hands on it, trying to roll it up the hill. But in reality, that boulder is already at the top of the hill. And it’s got hundreds of millions of hands, maybe even billions on it, pushing it down. It just isn’t going fast enough. So how do we speed up that giant boulder so we can fix climate change in time? You guessed it. The number one way is by talking about it.”
She continues:
“The bottom line is this: climate change is affecting you and me right here, right now, in the places where we live. But by working together, we can fix it. Sure, it’s a daunting problem. Nobody knows that more than us climate scientists. But we can’t give in to despair. We have to go out and actively look for the hope that we need, that will inspire us to act. And that hope begins with a conversation today.”
And in the Universe lessons from Earth: communication is important and there are special times for doing things, or I would lose my chance.
And then there is Doug Tallamy. His latest book, Nature’s Best Hope, outlines the need for and the benefits of creating habitat in our own yards. He started Homegrown National Park, an individual grassroots effort that is seeking to turn 20 million acres of biological wastelands, the average urban yard, into 20 million acres of habitat. That is more acreage than a dozen of our largest National Parks combined. We can all do this. And in the Universe lesson from Earth, we know that even great things start small. Could our Church get on the map?
So, what can we do as individuals? We can do so much and you probably already know what to do. From the Universe lessons from Earth, …differences though little at first can become enormous. I know that because that has been my story. And if you are curious or want to know more about the changes I have made, how to do them or why they matter, check my website, Emmy’s Earth. Look for the tab Resources for the Sustainability Tour and then click on what interests you. Under each tab are resources, handouts, and videos to help you find what you can do. And you can pass it along!
And finally, not all of us have the wherewithal to buy and restore 2.2million acres of unspoiled wilderness in Chile and Argentina as Doug and Kris Thompkins, the founders of Patagonia and Northface have done. Their story is a love story on several fronts. These two working together have protected more land than any other individuals in history. Asked why, Kris said:
“It’s not about money. There is just no excuse for doing nothing. Abdication is not a possibility. Whoever you are, wherever your interest lies, whatever you’ve fallen in love with, you get out of bed every morning and you do something. You act, you step into the fray, and you fight for a human society that is in balance with the natural world. We have no choice. Otherwise, we might as well kiss our beautiful planet goodbye.”
Although Doug is no longer alive, his words speak for themselves: What is the rent you pay for living on Planet Earth?