Importance

i’ve been re-reading Thomas Berry in the light of some current events in Canada - the reminder of the deaths in residential schools - well known and documented in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report - but not absorbed, so that recent findings are treated as news. Then there is the recent senseless killing of a family because of ethnic hatred of a disturbed young man. Last is an article by a Roman Catholic rightly decrying the theology of his church claiming that as an institution it can do no wrong - only individuals within it can.

Berry speaks of the moral dilemmas of our age which so-called civilized peoples and religions cannot deal with - suicide, homicide and genocide. He adds to them terms that we never hear from any of the religions by name - biocide and geocide. As creatures of the Anthropocene, we think we can do what we like. We fail to see the consequences.

Questions and answers

Here are the definitive questions and answers to the questions on climate change. It’s worth checking out the ones at the top and then go to the individual responses below. You may know some of the answers already but others may be new. Have a look.

The answers are extensive and also have links to further articles. It would ne good to set some time over the next few weeks to tackle one of the questions and responses at a time. An educated public is necessary. Misinformation is usually tied to an agenda. Sober realism is the necessary antidote.

Eating Fish

Netflix has recently issued a documentary outlining how we are exploiting the fish supply. Many who watch it are becoming like vegans and giving up fish altogether. I’m trying to each less meat and more vegetables and fish often seems the right choice. Thus I am encouraged by Guardian and New York Times writer Paul Greenberg who allows for four types.

• Farmed oysters, mussels and clams. - because those that farm them, have to abide by clean water rules

• Alaskan Sockeye salmon. - because preserving their habitat meant that an Alaskan copper mine never happened.

• Peruvian anchoveta - because if you can find it, it isn’t being reduced to pellets, as so many industrial fish are.

• Fish I or a family member catches -n a fresh water lake. I loved fishing from a rowboat accompanied by my father when I was a child. It was a time of calm and companionship - but moreover it was a sustainable kind of fishing. We kept only the perch, bass or trout that met size requirements. We went home or to the cottage, cooked it and ate it. We were mimicking the Georgian Bay patterns of the first nations people who lived there before we settlers came.. To pretend that anything we eat - even vegetables - doesn’t depend on the resources of our planet home is foolishness.

Taking responsibility

How often have read that as individuals we must take our share in reducing fossil fuel use - drive less, use fabric grocery bags and the like. But who are the serious polluters?

How about BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell. It was no secret to these companies as early as the 1970’s that their products were contributing to global warming. They continue to be subsidized by governments around the world. Their executives are awarded large bonuses even in the midst of a pandemic.

The real question is - when will they stop exploring and drilling. It’s important to note that many of the oil and gas companies are now switching to plastic production. Twenty firms according to a recent article in the Guardian produce 55% of single use plastics for us to buy. They can then conveniently blame us for the waste they bring into being.

As Bill McKibben says - “Don’t they have grandchildren?” He goes on to quote Sally Weintrobe,a British Psychoanalyist, who says. “The uncaring part wants to put ourselves first; it’s the narcissistic corners of the brain that persuade each of us that we are uniquely important and deserving, and make us want to except ourselves from the rules that society or morality set so that we can have what we want. “Most people’s caring self is strong enough to hold their inner exception in check,” she notes, but, troublingly, “ours is the Golden Age of Exceptionalism.”

Climate and Weather

Beautifull spring days here in Toronto mean that people like me are bringing up cushions from the storage locker and enlisting younger family members to wash balcony windows to enjoy the coming season. It’s easy to confuse weather and climate.

But the study of norms is sobering. It examines patterns over time. I don’t know whether there are similar Canadian statistics, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US Department of Commerce publishes norms each decade and a new one was recently released. Comparisons between previous temperate climates and current warming ones are scary

This is what industrialization and other human action is creating. Look what we are doing to ourselves.