It’s cloudy and cool this morning, not like the warm sunny day we had on Sunday and into the beginning of the week. As we look at the weather for the coming week, we see the forecasters give us rain (April showers) and then a warmer sunnier week. Sounds nice, but then we begin to wonder about the summer to come with its heat.
This past March was the warmest on record, and NOAA notes that in spite of all the fancy conferences (COP28), 2023 was a record year for three greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. And we just keep plodding along.
Some writers suggest that perhaps oil companies should be charged criminally, not just civilly, since it’s pretty clear that they knew the effects of their policies. Don’t you wonder how their executives must think knowing they are complicit in destroying the future of their own children? Or do they just think their wealth will insulate them?
Prayer for the Day
Not a harbinger of spring but a warning from the earth,
The daffodils came up early this year, O Lord;
Caught off guard by the early changes in climate,
Even garden suppliers only had pansies and a few trees.
Rouse us, O God, to do more than have fancy conferences,
And strengthen us for the struggle against corporate power.
In the name of the One who is our strength,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
It’s humbling, and a bit worrying, to admit that no year has confounded climate scientists’ predictive capabilities more than 2023 has.
Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
We have one force large enough to present any challenge to the rising temperature of the planet, and that is the rise of cheap renewable energy. But it’s not happening fast enough, and to speed it up requires political mobilization to break the power of the fossil fuel industry.
Bill McKibben, environmentalist, professor Middlebury College, Vermont
But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will tell you.
Who among all these things does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.
Job 12: 7-10