Thanks Mardi - I woke up hoping this would be here.  We will provide copies of this text for folks at Selkirk United this morning.  And I will read excerpts from it as well. It is our hope that this letter, together with information and action responses to Haiti will offer inspiration and hope to all who gather for worship in a few hours.

There will be a peace and hope candle lit for climate change and also one for hope and action in Haiti.

Cheers and hooray from across the prairies for our church, my church, to make a statement and ring the bells for change across our country.   As some of us prepare to meet with our local MP's in support of Kairos, it is incredibly important that our church be visible in many ways along the justice trail.

blessings, Deborah Vitt

Hi Mardi.

Your bold leadership on this issue who's controversy is evidence of our sinfulness (that is, broken relationship) has been a bigger blessing to our church than anyone can realize in this moment, and certainly an inspiring gift to me.

I'm still trying to discern what my additional response will be to this challenge, but its pressing urgence requires me to act with prayer, but quickly.

May we all continue to discern faithfully and answer God's call ever more bravely!

Shalom,
Tim.

With the rebuilding in Haiti, there are opportunities for rebuilidng in manners which are environmentally better,  help the local economy and address water issues .

Some interesting articles on www.nytimes.com regarding some of these.

At this morning's service, during the usual reflection/sermon time, I read Mardi's letter to the congregation and then offered this reflection (please forgive the lousy formatting conversion):

Jan 17, 2010.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to discern what to say in this moment.  This has been one of the most difficult sermons of my life to write because there are a number of people whom I care about very, very deeply who will disagree with much of what I am about to say.  And I don’t want that care and friendship to go away.

I was privileged to be able to get a copy of Mardi Tindal’s letter early, and so have had several days to reflect on it.  And I have come to a place were I simply feel the only faithful thing to do is to comment about what she has said, and add my own thoughts.

I am passionately with our Moderator on this one.  And I know that there are some quite learned people who will not be.  But I’m here to tell you some of why I believe what I believe, about both God and the things that I believe Jesus would preach passionately about.

From news reports to online groups to gatherings in this very church I have heard:

- Quotes of “leaked emails” from a few scientists,
   - While ignoring that, still to this day there are medical professionals who publically doubt the hazards of smoking, the most recent of which was a CBC report of a doctor in Quebec who says it’s all a sham.

- Claims made of bandwagon mentality, writing science to get funding, and the “unpopularity of nay sayers.”
    - This while ignoring the history of the science that has led us here.  The decades spent by some of the greatest minds on earth facing up to ridicule of many of their peers and most every politician imaginable, going forward through persecution with evidence and theory that, because of its rigour and integrity and logic, eventually led to more and more peer acceptance and only painfully, painfully slowly led to more funding and some politicians beginning to believe.
    - Not unlike smoking, and the massive campaigns of ridicule and mistrust that ensued from the beginnings of the evidence being layed out.  But the integrity of the evidence and theory are prevailing.
 

- Careless and seemingly thoughtless mention that much of Europe is going through the coldest winter in a long, long time,
    - this while conveniently forgetting that the winter Olympics are in a perilous place because of our spring like weather that has my daffodils up more than six inches right now.  (Yes, it's an El Nino year.  Climate change is opperating through changes and disruptions to these cycles.) Conveniently ignoring that what is at stake is long term global average temperatures and the destructive extremism of local patterns.
 

- Claims made that perhaps what’s truly going on is that we’re averting what, in nature’s cycle, would have been the next ice age,
    - this while the poles of our planet - never before ice free during an ice age - are showing terrifying signs of warming and the destabilisation of volumes of ice that are incomprehensible when witnessed in scale rather than just numbers on a page.

It has taken decades for the integrity of the evidence and theory to be strong enough to move unprecedented numbers of scientists world wide to say with confidence that what we are doing is dead wrong.

To continue to do little, given even a quarter the statistical probability of the confidence levels of the best models out there, is simply, in my view, sinful.  It is to knowingly and deliberately put at risk the well being of not just polar bears and the poor in low lying countries, but the well being of entire generations of our grand children.

“God’s kingdom come” is what we pray.  A kingdom of shalom.  Shalom means well being.  And there is a terribly higher than enough probability that we are putting that well being into jeopardy because we are too stuck, stubborn, and selfish to change.

When Jesus returns from his wilderness period, he returns preaching the same message that John preached.  “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.”  Translated another way, “Turn around, back to God, for there you will find God’s kingdom.”

My friends, I believe that if we take seriously a commitment to following Jesus, then we take seriously a commitment of turning our lives around within our society of broken relationship with each other and the Earth, and take seriously a commitment to doing as we would have done to us were our grandchildren’s generation our grandparents’ instead.  I believe the life of faith leads us to take seriously our Moderator’s challenge:

    "So what am I asking you to do?
   
    Whatever it takes to follow in the footsteps of inspirational leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.
   
    Whatever you can imagine. I wouldn’t dream of limiting you to my list. The possibilities are abundant. In our homes and offices, in our places of worship, in our families and community organizations, as individuals and acting together, let us choose hope and action over despair and paralysis."

This is not the only conclusion that people of faith, or people within this congregation have come to.  But I have the responsibility of trying to prayerfully discern the truth using all the tools I have been given, both as a scientist and theologian, and then attempting to speak boldly to the truth as I see it.  And so I have tried my best to do just that.

In the face of the possibility that this is real, people of faith cannot turn back.

May we rededicate ourselves to putting God back in the centre of our lives, as absolute best we can manage, and taking our direction from there.
 

Thank-you

Thank you. This is leadership on a subject relevant to today...and tommorrow and for the following generations. Take action, make the changes and see how it makes us all grow in so many ways. There is an abundance of support and information on what we can do as groups and communities as well as individuals. There is an abundance of ways to make improvments in "That's just the way we do it". There is an abundance of reasons to change. This is reality, let's deal with it now. It is a blessing to have leadership like this, lets be thankful, proud and act. This may very well be the transformation that we need as a church and society. Thank you.

Anyone, especially Christians should see that responsible enviornmentalists no longer deny our kids futures with the SAVE THE PLANET threat, post climate gate.

Anyone, including Christians still perpetuating Al Gore's and David Nutzuki's DEATH by CO2 mistake after 24 years  is not an envornmentalist or a responsible person or a Christian.

History wil curse us all for this modern day witch burning and fear mongering . Shame on all of you.

Stop scaring my kids or I"ll tell God on all you.

meme mine, are you trying to say that you deny that there is an environmental crisis ?

Dear Pinga,

Absolutely there is NOT an environmental crisis. The climate gate data scandal proves that, unless you still believe that for 24 years this IPCC climate crisis has been conveniently hiding far away atop mountains, deep in the oceans, jungles and polar caps. Fear mongers and misguided and probably well intentioned people like you seem to wish for this misery because you and I have not suffered from your fantasy climate crisis, correct? Unless you would like to share your personal experience with rising seas and drought and floods and famine. Go ahead, tell us all about it. You are the denier, not us realists who will see Al Gore and the like charged with treason for leading us to this false enviro WMD war against a non existent enemy of climate variation.

When Christians, PR firms, politicians promising to lower the seas and make nice weather, corporate media and paid consultants in lab coats you call scientists ALL agree on anything, be suspect, not eager to believe and scare my kids. What you few global warmers are doing 24 years later and POST CLIMATE GATE is criminal and history is proving this point accurate.

Yes YOU are the denier. YOU deny almost half a century of Rachel Carson environmental crusade that defeated the smoggy 70's and brought all sorts of environmental laws, protections, standards and awareness.

So stop scaring my kids, be compassionate, be a Christian and stop scaring my kids.

Look at it this way, if you were actually going to be held responsible for what you have done, are you willing to risk history judging and punishing you? Are you willing to bet this promise of death will be sustained with the voters, the public and fellow Christians for another 24 years?

Stop this silly and now criminal and needless panic and be a responsible environmentalist who preserve, protects and respects Nature, not a finger pointing technician of blame and misery trying to save us with needless panic from a non existent enemy.

And spare me your personal definition of crisis please. The CO2 , IPCC Climate Change policy declares that MY kids will not have kids and will die an unspeakable death on a dying planet. That is why they call it CLIMATE CRISIS. And NO, not all bad weather is caused by my SUV now so please detach yourself from this Greenzi like fanaticism that will see you cursed in history for this.

Be a real Christian and be a leader who faces the future of energy and conservation and responsible environmentalism with courage, not fear.

Stop scaring my kids.

Peace,

Meme

Meme mine

I agree with you that we need to face the future with courage, not fear. Fear leads to paralysis or panic. I don't sense fear anywhere in the moderators letter though. What I get from it is hope and encouragement and determination to do exactly what you are saying- work on energy consevation and be responsible for our own consumption or over consumption...but then again, if there is no environmental crisis as you start your letter with, why would we need that? Are you saying that the tars sands are not poisoning the earth? That the arctic is not melting faster than ever before? That we are taking good care of the earth? 99% of the scientist on earth agree there is a problem. The church is finally agreeing with science after all this time. Why do you think your kids are scared?

D

Are you suggesting that  I should only care about my children?  That I should not care about the shifts thatare occurring in  the far north, which are impacting their life?

Should I not care about the creatures of this planet?

Meme -- I am an average person, living in an average house..doing average stuff....so, not sure what has caused you to go into a tirade.

Forgoing the word crisis....do you feel there are issues in our environment (the world's that is...) ?

I did not read the letter yesterday. We have published in our bulletin prior notes from the Moderator, but not this one. It arrived well after our press deadline. The implimentation was confusing, with multiple communications of various types. And I can not take 15 minutes of worship to read a letter from the Moderator. This whole thing was poorly executed and confusing. We can do better. 

BTW, with the earthquake in Haiti, creation had the last laugh...  

24 years of predictions say no. Climate gate says no. Why do you insist on us killing the planet?

More eternal damnation?

Your God or Nature is not falible.

Meme... which planet are you from? This one does face some very serious human-induced climate change threats. Changes are already being recorded, people are already suffering and time is running out. If you would rather deny this so your children aren't bothered, maybe you'd like to think about how they'll feel when the ecosystem collapses around them?

While I applaud the efforts made here to try and persaude one person to think differnetly, namely Meme Mine, I think one look at the picture chosen to represent this person on this page says volumnes. If I were to put a caption under the picture, it would read: "I'm not listening, I'm Not listening!"

Perhaps we  that are convinced there is a problem could move on to creative ways of making change. I for one would welcome hearing some of the stuff that congregations are doing.

I did read Mardi's letter, the whole of it, to my congregation, and then we engaged in conversation. We are starting up a Green Team, and will do what we can in our small part of the rural world to make change.

Cheers and encouragement to all who choose to move beyond the neighsayers and keep on keeping on!  (Sometimes you just have to move on and not get caught in the negativiety!)

Blessings

From the Moderator's letter:

>> If we fail to act, we are helping to doom millions of our species to abject suffering and death. That is wrong.

So what am I asking you to do?

Whatever it takes to follow in the footsteps of inspirational leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.

------

I've been thinking about this since yesterday. I wonder if Martin Luther King would be satisfied because we stopped using plastic bags and made our churches green? These are good steps, but they won't save the planet or the millions who will suffer because of climate change.

Rather, I think MLK would say this "crisis of conscience" calls us to political and social action and to take the struggle beyond our own private recycling directly to those responsible for maintaining the polluting status quo. What would this mean for us?

1) Get rid of the Federal Conservatives as soon as possible. I don't think there is any debate that Stephen Harper and the Convservatives are the main reason Canada has become a pariah state among environmentalists. They have resisted every step for progress against the challenge of global warming. The Liberals may not be that much better.

2) ...and, in the tradition of Martin Luther King, civil disobience and non-violent direct action. Imagine if the United Church lead a hi-profile Greenpeace-style Gandhian campaign of boycotts, protests, and other non-violent action against polluters? This may be one of the only ways to convince the world that the ecological devastation is the most pressing moral issue of our time. If lives are truly at stake, then what are we waiting for?

As we had conversation in church yesterday about what we could do, the conversation went to packaging.

I had this image of standing at the checkout of a store - removing all the unneccesary packing from the products I had just purchased, handing them to the store staff and asking them to return them to the suppliers, inviting them to reuse or reduce their packaging.

Perhaps a bit foolish - but it might produce some change if a mass of people did it all at once, perhaps on one day - like Earth Day....

Just dreaming out loud!

A few borrowed thoughts...

"We have met the enemy and he is us".

   Pogo author, Walt Kelly, first used the quote on a poster for    Earth Day in 1970.

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'."

   Bob Dylan / 1963

"Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching."

   Steppenwolf / 1970

"And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence."

   Paul Simon / 1964

"When they said repent, I wonder what they meant."

   Leonard Cohen

I would take great hope from one simple United Church of Canda action: stop running pleasure cruise industry ads in our national magazine; a tacit endorsement of the hedonistic ethos by which the modern world is overturning the order of the soul. I say this fully realizing my place  is not to tell others how to resist.... my place is to resist where I am; which I do by the Grace of God working in and through me.

Here it is folks, 2010 and here we have a faith that is based on spreading Love and Peace and at the same time this faith tells our children to save the planet. It's as mean spirited as a civilized human can be to tell the children it's THEIR responsibility to save God's creation.For the life of me I can't understand why Christians would do this. You are Christians for God's sake, so instead of declaring God's work weak and dying from the tar sands or something, how about showing one another how to love and experience nature instead of frightening one another with this green Dooms Day threat? Why not teach them about Rachel Carson's revolution that brought us the environmental legislations, laws, protections, standards, technology and conquered the smoggy 70's? The next time you do gooders tell my kid or anyone else's child to SAVE THE PLANET, look them deep in the eyes and really question what you are doing.

On a political note, history shows over and over again that motivating by fear and fear alone is not sustainable and it's been 24 years of predictions. Public support for this CO2 mistake that history will call Modern Day Witch Burning is plummeting and I trust you all know why. I'm not the only one expressing my back lash for your fear mongering. Get ahead of the curve, and stop scaring my kids because what you are doing is going to be much more unpopular very soon.

Here is an honorable withdrawal:

Preach Nature to our kids, not how to bail a sinking boat. Teach them how to love the planet and tell them the good news that Climate Change research is going through a new phase of research and we all need to do our part to keep our world safe on this crowded planet. Teach them to rejoice in Gods' creation and to have the faith to face the future of our energy challenges with optimism and bravery.

Any takers or stay the course.

Meme -- why do you presume that the message was targetted to children, rather than adults.

I ask -- what is bothering you -- what has caused your reaction, specifically.  Did someone do something which caused your child to have nightmares or panic?  Help us to understand where you are coming from.

Don't get personal.

My kids and their friends have been convinced that they won't have kids or maybe grandkids because the planet is in crisis.

Stop scaring my kids.

Thoughts on Martin Luther King day.

If we are to bring the substantial assets of Grace into the fray we will need to examine our reliance on the manners and methods of our age. This will lead to the deconstruction of our founding document; the undoing of empirical protocols for the measurement and management of persons and resources. 

How many United Church dollars will nourish the economy of greed in Vancouver? How many saints will sit be-dazzled before the bright digital spectacle of mass advertising; by that choice tacitly endorsing Nike's 'swosh' - the ubiquitous sign of avarice and greed. To say nothing of the diverse corporate principalities and powers who advertise the good life but deliver atrocity;  in their ceaseless striving of power after power'.

Soft words will not turn the heart of our Prime Minister or the Capital Interests he serves. 

Where is McClung?

Where is Woodsworth?

Who draws juice from the deep roots of dissent and non-conformity?

^"And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."    Revelation 19: 10

Let us make ourselves known in spirit and in truth.

"Martin Luther King, In His Own Words"

Meme -- who has convinced them of that?  It seems you are indicating that it happens in churches, and I am not sure if it happened in your church, in United Church of Canada programs your children attended....

It is important to have specifics, or we can't address the issue.

Here is my take on the subtext of the polemic hyperbole: 'I am angered that you assault my children with your rhetoric".  Such hyperbole being a prominent device in the prophetic tradition. This last phrase not to suggest Meme Mine claims a prophetic mandate; though the divine has spoken much through shouters of the type. Consider Ezekiel:

'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them."

I have a history of such shouting. In my youth anger moved my voice to render much insult in the hearing of polite society. Thanks be to God who now holds back the anger to permit the rise of sorrow. Sorrow conceived in East Vancouver where Church and State conspired to cast lost children away from the sanctuary of the Church and into the back lanes of the City; easy picking for the likes of Robert Picton and company. The United Church of Canada, by the officers of its courts, sided with a gentrifying neighbourhood against broken daughters and sons; citizens born of citizens treated like trash.

How sad is that?

Will you grieve with me?

It will not serve us well to psychologize those who come to pronounce strong sentences. Jesus says something along this line in one place: "You may deal with me as you wish, still will the word I have pronounced in your hearing bear witness in the day of accounting"; which is now standing at the threshold of our shared opportunity. Let us be measured even though we be found wanting, knowing that our refining is that key by which the way of our mission in the earth is opened. Surely we have not forgotten the insight of Wesley and the company gathered  in that name?

I am in this place as one invited to conversation. My understanding takes it that a diversity of voices are to be heard - it this the case?

Knock.  Knock.

I too applaud our new Moderator for her eloquent and engaging leadership on this right relationship issue of climate change.  Along with the UCC's initiatives striving for a right relationship with our aboriginal brothers and sisters, we moving forward in our spiritual quest to become faithful stewards of God's creation.  This bodes well for a future of hope, peace and harmony on Planet Earth. 

These two issues are intertwined as we can and should learn much from our native peoples on caring for and respecting nature and one another.  There can be no doubt that the polar bears in Canada's arctic (which represent some two-thirds of the world's population) are like the proverbial canary in the mine.  They and their habitat are imperiled by the receding ice cover in the Arctic.  That shrinking ice cover is directly due to the rising levels of green house  gases, especially CO2.

The polar bear is akin to the sheep in the parable set out by Jesus in his days on Earth. He taught that if one sheep be lost , the shepherd must leave the flock, go find it, and bring it back to safe haven.  We all need to act in accordance with this parable rather than to continue to act like a prodigal son in his profligate ways. 

In addition, like Jesus did, we need to hold our modern day leaders to account for failing to act in the best interests of God;s creation her on Earth.  A good first step would be for each of us to write a personal letter to our political leaders in Ottawa stating very clearly our expectations that they embrace the need for significant climate change that is comprehensive, sustained, and immediate in its implementation.  Our follow up step after that should be to hold them to account at the next general election.  There realy is no more important and urgent an issue on Canada's national agenda than to get moving seriously on bringing about an enduring right relation with God's creation.

I was inspired to write, because there are so many wonderful, serious people on this site who are deeply concerned about global warming.  I was also inspired by Meme Mine, who I don't think is doing much to advance his cause. 

As the recently leaked e-mails from Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia demonstrate, Anthropogenic Global Warming (APG) is not settled science, and the last decade has shown no warming trend at all. The fact of the matter is that the planet it quite old, it has had dozens of ice ages, and an equal number of ice free ages (no polar ice caps).   This is not tragic, it is just what the climate of earth does. The weather of the earth is in constant flux.  What is most interesting to me is that even though solar intensity is up about 20% in the past 4 billion years, our climate has remained remarkably constant, within a very few degrees.  Clearly, there are deep and robust systems which self-regulate the temperature of our planet very, very effectively.  

I am not a kook, I am not denying that C02 is a greenhouse gas.  Just look at Venus for proof of that.  I am saying that objective, peer reviewed science, as opposed to the science which the leaked e-mails has demonstrated to be not science at all, is far from settled in this matter, and the past decade indicates the global warming trend from the 70s to the 90s might just have been the weather. 

Let's all thank God for that.

Lanson Ross

The Moderator's letter arrived yesterday via regular mail...

Hi Mardi:

First of all, thank you for making your excellent letter available to all of us.  It speaks to the truth of our global problems, our need, and the necessity for action.

I'm a very positive person but as an advocate for declining species, I'm becoming very discouraged by overwhelming facts that point to the demise of so many species, and most significantly the death of our oceans and all the life therein.  In the November 2006 issue of Science, a report by an international group of scientists studying a vast amount of data gathered between 1950 and 2003 declared that if current trends of fishing and pollution continue, every fishery in the world's oceans will collapse by 2048.  Further, our oceans are now more acidic than they have been for the last 650,000 years, owing to increased greenhouse gases and the sequestration in the sea of more carbon from the atmosphere...and this is only the beginning.

How do we sustain human life on earth and in our oceans in the face of almost overwhelming ignorance, greed, inaction and often apathy.  Can a few outspoken and committed individuals actually change the world, and stop our slow progress to oblivion? I hope so - for this generation, for the innocent lives who suffer because politicians refuse to act, and for the future of a planet we love..

Blessings and peace.