The effort to prevent climate disaster for Planet Earth is not going well.
Why? For starters --- Since the beginning of the year, oil and gas companies and electric utilities have spent nearly $24 million lobbying Congress and have made more than $4 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress, according to data by the Center for Responsive Politics.
All the more reason for the American public to bring much more energy to bear on this issue — and for the Jewish community to begin preparing now for Climate Healing Shabbat on October 23-24. That is when we focus on the story of the Flood -- the near-destruction of all life on earth, and its salvation by a committed family and the Ark they built. All the more reason to plan vigorous public demand for saving the only Ark that matters – our planet.
Step One: ask your rabbi, your synagogue or JCC or retirement-home board, your social action and interfaith committees, your Hillel council, your school principal, to name Shabbat Noach , October 23-24, to be Global Climate Healing Shabbat.
Register your plans at both these places: ---
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/...<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/event/index.jsp?event_KEY=50242>
Call the churches and mosques nearest you to invite them to take part. Put the decision on line. Call your local Jewish paper and religion editors to ask them to run a story on your plans.
Start inviting speakers, public officials, climate experts.
Officials in America and around the world have so far been building only leaky Arks, and late. The House of Representatives passed by a scant majority a watered-down bill to address the climate crisis; the Senate faces a grueling fight this fall over whether to preserve, strengthen, or weaken it even more; and at the G8 meeting of the major polluting countries in Italy, token targets were set for CO2 reductions but the rich countries refused to put up the money needed to help the poor do economic development through a path that does not burn fossil fuels. So the poorer nations refused to make commitments to reduce their CO2 emissions.
After the G8 meeting, the heads of government blew hot air of good atmospherics to describe their failure as a step forward. But the real physical atmosphere – earth's overheated air of global scorching -- was not fooled, and not healed.
Dr. Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was the first scientist to present publicly, back in 1987, the evidence that CO2 emissions were heating the earth, and that this process could lead to disaster. Now he writes that the failure of the G-8 meeting in Italy reflects the recent failure of the US in general and the House of Representatives in particular to deal seriously and realistically with the dangers of the Climate Crisis. For Hansen's article, see -- http://www.shalomctr.org/...
The Shalom Center agrees that the House bill is woefully weak. Unlike Hansen, however, we think it was worth passing --- because it means to the Congressmembers that they crossed a difficult boundary into new territory.
I was a legislative assistant in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1961, working on civil rights legislation for a member of the Judiciary Committee. I remember that in 1960, Congress passed a "civil rights" act that was astonishingly weak, way way less than my Congressman wanted, adding very little to an act that had been passed in 1957 --- which was also very weak.
But what both acts did was to convince Congress that it was possible to face down Southern filibusters and strengthen weak-kneed Northerners. Then, as civil-rights demonstrations erupted all across the country, Congress passed a transformative civil rights act in 1964 and a voting-rights act in 1965.
It took massive nonviolent unrest to make that happen. But the mental barriers had been broken by the two toothless acts of 1957 and 1960.
So I think it was worthwhile -- barely -- for the House to pass the watered-down Waxman-Markey Act last month. And it will be worthwhile to keep the Senate from weakening the bill this fall.
But more basically, it's up to us --- the people.
Why is the climate/ energy act in so much trouble? --
According to lobby disclosure reports, 34 energy companies registered in the first quarter of 2009 to lobby Congress around the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. This group of companies spent a total of $23.7 million -- or $260,000 a day -- lobbying members of Congress in January, February and March.
Oil and gas companies, mining companies, and electric utilities combined have given more than $2 million just to the 19 members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation and held a hearing this week on the proposed "cap and trade" system energy companies are fighting.
These corporations are the Pharaohs of our day. --- Out of stubborn greed and arrogance, addiction to their own wealth and power, they are willing to bring planetary plagues upon our lives. Droughts, famines, typhoons, flooded sea-coasts, tropical diseases breaking out of their old habitats into new latitudes.
Just as it took marches and sit-ins and boycotts and "freedom schools" to break the power of segregationist pharaohs forty-some years ago, so it will take public commitment to break the power of Fossil-Fuel Pharaohs today.
And as in the ancient story, that means giving new life to old communities and shaping new forms of community - not just opposing Pharaoh but crossing into new territory, shaping a new society.
That process began when the ancient Hebrews had the courage to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood upon their doorposts --- marking themselves out as troublemakers to the Pharaoh's FBI. The community-building took a great step forward when they discovered Shabbat along with manna -- the first affirmation of restfulness, reflection, in the face of forced labor; the first affirmation that a loving connection with the earth and God could bring forth food that did not require sweat pouring down the faces of the people to produce it.
We have an opportunity today to give new strength and life to old forms of community. This fall, the week from October 18 to October 25 could be the time for focused action. October 17 is the Shabbat when Jews read the biblical story of Creation; October 24, when Jews read the biblical story of De-creation --- the Flood --- and of the Eaeth Redeemed --- the Rainbow.
All around the world, October 24 has been named the date for public action of all sorts to heal our climate from the plague of global scorching. That is when Jews will be reading the story of Noah. On Sunday, October 25, many Christians will be reading the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus reads from the Book of Isaiah the call for declaring a Jubilee Year, freeing the people and healing the earth. Just a few days earlier, Muslims will be celebrating the New Moon of Dhul-Quida.
At the home page on our Website -- http://www.shalomctr.org -- is the Call by Jewish leaders for action leading up to Shabbat Noach, and the call by world scientists for action on October 24. It is God's miraculous gift that these are the same day.
What should be the measuring-stick, for what is a strong "civil rights bill" for our planet today? Jim Hansen urges:
"There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the "fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead.
"A carbon fee-and-dividend would be an economic stimulus and boon for the public. By the time the fee reached the equivalent of $1/gallon of gasoline ($115/ton of CO2) the rebate in the United States would be $2000-3000 per adult or $6000-9000 for a family with two children.
"Fee-and-dividend would work hand-in-glove with new building, appliance, and vehicle efficiency standards. A rising carbon fee is the best enforcement mechanism for building standards, and it provides an incentive to move to ever higher energy efficiencies and carbon-free energy sources. As engineering and cultural tipping points are reached, the phase-over to post-fossil energy sources will accelerate…. "With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won't we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won't be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change."
In the next months, The Shalom Center will be providing materials on applying the Four Worlds of kabbalistic thought to healing our planet : spiritual sustenance in prayer, emotional awakening in song and exercises in empathy with threatened species, habitats, and cultures; intellectual information and analysis of what to do; and suggestions for public action. With blessings that we all remember: "The earth and its fullness are filled with YHWH / the Breath of Life; the planet and all who live within it." (Psalm 24)
-- Rabbi Arthur Waskow