During this past hurricane season many in New Jersey count themselves fortunate. Apart from Ida and a few rainstorms, we did not suffer another Sandy, but Ida and those rainstorms wrecked enormous damage to Central and Northern New Jersey. We are experiencing more than climate change – we are experiencing a climate catastrophe.
But the pushback has begun. In response to the Governor’s accelerated plans to address the immediate and long term effects, the state Business & Industry Association wants us to slow down. In New Jersey alone, 30 people died as a result of Ida.
On Earth Day, the DEP released a report on the impact of climate forces on New Jersey. The same day President Biden issued a report on how the country needs to plan to avoid more climate catastrophes. This effort will take more than one state or even a tristate effort but needs a national effort to look for alternative energy sources. We are killing the future and not so slowly.
Prayer for the Day
Horizon of hope, whose boundaries are never fixed,
Reveal your Spirit to us, let her enter our minds;
Infinite Creator, who breaks into our lives when we least expect it,
Remove our reticence to be bold and daring.
Impart to us the possibilities of transforming our lives
By bringing us into new approaches to living.
We ask this in the name of him who shows us what is possible,
Even Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Climate change is the defining challenge of our day.
Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary General, United Nations
You cannot adapt to extinction – why is it so easy for leaders to open new coal power plants?
Vanessa Nakate, Ugandan youth activist
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers;
The heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws,
Violated the statues, broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
Therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left.
Isaiah 24: 4-6