By Caroline Sheridan, parishioner, Trinity Episcopal Church
I like to practice walking with God. It’s as if I am walking with an old, dear friend, sharing my day’s moments of joy, sadness, confusion, anger, and all the feelings that happen in life. My dear friend is there, listening and putting an arm around my shoulder, supporting my walk through life.
In the same way, I practice seeing the beauty of God’s creation every day. I work to silence my inner chatter so I won’t miss the perfect blue sky and its sculpted clouds, the pink blossoms scattered by the wind, the many songs of the morning birds as I walk out my front door, and the glitter of stars above my backyard. I love all the daily wonders that God has blessed us with as we walk the path of life.
Creation Care is Our Duty
But it is painful to realize how many ways my life is contributing to the degradation and harm of this beautiful planet. We all bear responsibility for the planet on which we live. In our modern lifestyle, we’re currently trapped in systems that are harming the very place we live. But we can and must break free of these unsustainable systems. We can’t let ourselves be led to believe that there is no other way or that it is too hard to change.
Those who are making money from the status quo are counting on the rest of us to be too overwhelmed to push for change. It is the story of David and Goliath. Most of the Israellites were absolutely convinced that Goliath was unbeatable, that there was no point, that the cause was lost.
Sound familiar? Our “Goliath” is the fossil fuel economy and its pernicious corporate power structure, paving the halls of our political institutions with gold. How can we possibly fight the deep pockets of these behemoth companies and their networks of industry organizations, paid “scientists”, and political allies —these “Philistines?”
How the new Goliath Works
Perhaps you’ve noticed the heart-warming ads about the oil companies’ renewable energy programs. These are a new strategy. They spent years and millions questioning the reality of the climate-destroying effect of their product. They sowed the seeds of doubt even as their own internal reports revealed that they knew that destructive climate change was a real impact of fossil fuel use. They kicked the can down the road.
But in the past decade, they’ve seen that most of the public (finally) accept climate change as fact. So to “greenwash” their activities, they’re now telling us that they DO believe in the climate crisis and they’re putting their billions toward a solution.
But this is mere propaganda so that the public doesn’t turn on them. The investments they are making in renewables is pennies on the dollar of their efforts to continue to pump oil and natural gas at any environmental cost.
Because of greed.
So Goliath has a marketing campaign to convince you that he didn’t mean to kill all those people. He has turned over a new leaf. If you will just trust him, life can continue as normal without a fight. Keep serving him. Keep making big, gas-guzzling trucks. Keep building those pipelines. Keep fracking and contaminating people’s drinking water because there’s no other way to live life than as slaves to fossil fuels.
Or is there?
If you’re old enough to remember, Big Tobacco followed a similar playbook. First, using pseudo-science to raise doubts that smoking was harmful. Buying off politicians. Advertising cigarettes as sexy, cool, a right of passage. Then came testimony showing that the tobacco executives lied. That they knew exactly the lasting harm their addictive product would cause those teens that they lured into becoming life-long consumers.
Think about the change from a world where cigarettes were smoked everywhere all the time, including in airplanes, high schools by students, hotels, restaurants, even hospitals, to now. It was accomplished in a relatively short period of time.’
We are All David Now
So we can do this. We must believe in our ability. We must believe that God has our back, just like young David.
But where is their weak spot? Where do we aim our stone? What is the one thing these Goliaths are trying desperately to protect? That’s easy — their profits.
We can use our dollars as a stone to inflict pain. Creating a well-publicized divestment campaign, as was done during the effort to end apartheid in South Africa, is one way.
We should also call out these corporations and industry groups that continue to fight efforts to govern for the climate emergency. Fossil fuel and plastic industry lobbyists are crafting bills right now and giving them to politicians that are hindering climate-saving efforts.
We need to create incentives to expand renewables, cap and put a price on carbon emissions equivalent to the costs to the planet, offer dividends to Americans as we transition away from fossil fuels. These are strategies that are supported by both liberals and conservatives, by businesses and nonprofits. Visit CitizensClimateLobby.org, a non-partisan organization with real solutions to learn more.
Oil Companies can put their geological exploration and drilling expertise to work creating geothermal energy wells, a clean source of energy. They’ve known this for some time. But like all humans, they resist change. And the money machine is working just fine with their current business plan. We need to stop the money pipeline with divestment, penalties, and an end to government subsidies that support the fossil fuel industry.
It is time to pick up your stone.
