The summer was so quiet that we all thought we had escaped a serious hurricane, but as we moved into late September, the storms, fueled by warmer waters began to stir. In his article for The New Yorker, climate activist Bill McKibben writes that Ian is a storm that was bound to happen because the overwhelming majority of excess heat we have generated through fossil fuels has gone into the ocean.
Recent storms have produced more than wind; they have produced record rainfall – remember what happened here in Jersey and New York with Ida? That’s because warm air holds more moisture than cold air. And not only have we not taken climate change seriously enough, we continue to build along the Atlantic shores.
Just look at the high rises along our shores with large paved parking lots leaving little or no ground to absorb water when it floods in from storms. We reap what we sow and we are not sowing on good ground. Our children and the future will suffer for our neglect.
Prayer for the Day
Caught up in what we perceive to be our current needs,
We have not considered the consequences of our actions;
Focused too much on living in the here and now, Holy Creator,
We have only regarded our own desire for comfort.
But you, O God, call us to pay heed to effects of our decisions,
As our earth reels from our consumption and greed.
In the name of the One who can transform us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there.
- Bill McKibben, environmentalist, author, Middlebury College professor
And politicians in Washington and Tallahassee are still undermining efforts to fix the dysfunctional ecosystem, even as they bloviate about its beauty and majesty and irreplaceability.
- Marjory Stoneman Douglas, from The Everglades (1890-1998)
By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our rescue;
You are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.
By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might.
You silence the raring of the seas, the roaring of their waves,
The tumult of the peoples.
Psalm 65: 5-7