We’ve certainly had a lot of rain and not just here in New Jersey. The last two hurricanes that came up from the Gulf Coast brought a swath of heavy rain and damage to several states that have relied on fossil fuel companies to support their economies. And, it’s clear that the company owners were not the ones who suffered; it was the worker who is afraid of losing a livelihood.
That’s the way that big business has always tried to control the narrative. It was no different one hundred years ago when coal miners tried to strike and were gunned down by private armies. The coal, gas, and oil companies just do it differently now. They urge us to reduce our “carbon footprint” as if each of us has the power to reduce the global disaster that will come unless we radically change our political policies.
This is not to say that our individual life choices do not matter; they clearly do, but our collective action matters more. We are not isolated automatons; we are part of society and it is collective action that pushes real change.
Prayer for the Day
We say we marvel in your creation, O Source of all life,
We say that we marvel in the miracle of life all around us,
But our actions belie our words in our abuse of creation,
For, in truth, we look to the earth only for what it can give us.
Your creation is more than what we take of your precious resources,
Help us to change the policies of the past and move to a better future.
In the name of him who shows us the way,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Personal virtue is an eternally seductive goal in progressive movements, and the climate change movement is no exception. . .. but individual acts of thrift and abstinence won’t get us the huge distance we need to go in this decade.
Rebecca Solnit, American environmental writer in The Guardian
It’s endlessly cheaper and safer to build solar panels and wind turbines unless you own a coal mine.
Bill McKibben, environmental activist, writing in The New Yorker
The mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
Our God comes and does not keep silence,
Psalm 50: 1-3a