PREACHING CLIMATE CALAMITY
Rev. Douglas Olds (all rights reserved)
20 December 2018
I've read this unpublished manuscript. The author would probably not like my upcoming sermon because I conclude with a spiritual hope for Christians in light of this climate catastrophe. The author labels spiritual hope "psychological denial."
Bendell's article may be questioned as to both process and its radical conclusion in light of Climate Change: "Currently, I have chosen to interpret the information as indicating inevitable [civilizational] collapse, probable catastrophe and possible extinction."
This does not read like a scientific statement to me.
I would like to make a point that is recurring as these doomsday articles appear: these are not necessarily scientific facts that are being presented.
I received the Bachelor of Science. I was taught that science operates by consensus and replicable experimentation. When an experimental finding is observed, it is required in the scientific enterprise for those findings to be replicated inside the scientific community. Only when the findings are replicated and confirmed by consensus (majority, not totality) are they elevated to the status of fact. Replication is to my understanding the sine qua non of verifying hypotheses based on experiments and/or observations. Findings support hypotheses, but these are not elevated to established theory until replicated. Whether this process happens experimentally or “comparatively” through observation, individual “findings” do not necessarily make for factual claims until confirmed by some consensus of peers. While establishing fact by consensus is probably more difficult to attain in observational science than in experimental science, it follows that policy must adapt when catastrophe is likely, even if not fully established by consensus science. At the same time, I don’t believe non-specialists can process the noise of all the findings that are publicized. Remember, there are also a number of rosy scenario “findings” that come across my computer feed. If my temperament were different, I could promote those as many technological optimists are doing. So it seems to me that, absent a scientific philosophy, rosy and doomsday findings may cancel each other out for someone who is respectful of normative process in science.
In October, the New York Times reported that the ocean had absorbed more heat than previously found by science, so that the news was bad[1]. But the NYT reported the author of the study admitted that it was based on a new methodology that needed confirmation by other researchers before it was accepted as a scientific fact. And indeed, the article posted on the web has been updated to note that the finding has been changed due to updating an error in the original methodology. If the news item had been reported as its original title stated, and as a fact rather than a subject-to-change finding, many would have been misled as to its negative claims.
The link above reports an inductive analysis of the negative scientific findings the author focuses on and concludes that civilizational collapse is certain. That's his meta-finding. However, he could not get any of his peer reviewers to agree that it was a publishable finding, so that the science is not yet advanced by his meta-analysis. This doesn't mean that Cassandra was wrong, but it does mean to me that it is not responsible to present to a congregation that it is reasonably established that civilizational collapse under the strain of climate disruption is certain. That claim is preliminary and not-yet scientifically established, according to my training in science and policy.
I also believe that we need to be thinking more about risk, along with the severity of consequences of certain developments. For example, the risk of an airplane crashing may be one in a hundred, but the consequence is death. Do you take the risk of taking the flight? If we apply that thought process to our climate situation, our thinking about the future becomes different and the way we go about our lives becomes different. If the possibility of an event is small and it has not been established as certain scientifically, but the consequences of the event are huge, it makes sense that that possibility not be ignored.
However, I find that the time and space necessary to responsibly process these nuanced points in a four-page sermon may often be prohibitive. That is part of the reason why I believe preachers should apply the Ockham’s Razor of the IPCC process--to cut down on the noise and nuancing of the myriad but preliminary findings that are flooding the media, both rosy and doomsday. Is the church an appropriate venue for this kind of tentative truth-seeking just under the threshold of fact? Perhaps in order to be responsible both to the science AND to the limited attention spans of our publics, we may assert that IPCC facts are the most concise and reputable, yet other, more dire scenarios are possible, the explication and reporting of which require investments in time, effort, and education beyond the ordinary and expected. Those qualifications could serve to present scenarios that are “possible” but necessary to take into account because of their out-sized risks.
I won't be presenting the meta-finding of certain civilizational collapse in my sermon on Dec. 30. It is for this reason of scientific consensus that I believe the most reasonable and responsible approach for policymakers and non-scientists to take is to rely on the consensus reports of the 1100 climate scientists who make up International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Reporting of individual scientist's findings is useful for the scientific community to process, but it takes a number of peer-reviewed scientists to test those findings for confirmation, and publish them in a reputable journal.
However, I find that the time and space necessary to responsibly process these nuanced points in a four-page sermon may often be prohibitive. That is part of the reason why I believe preachers should apply the Ockham’s Razor of the IPCC process--to cut down on the noise and nuancing of the myriad but preliminary findings that are flooding the media, both rosy and doomsday. Is the church an appropriate venue for this kind of tentative truth-seeking just under the threshold of fact? Perhaps in order to be responsible both to the science AND to the limited attention spans of our publics, we may assert that IPCC facts are the most concise and reputable, yet other, more dire scenarios are possible, the explication and reporting of which require investments in time, effort, and education beyond the ordinary and expected. Those qualifications could serve to present scenarios that are “possible” but necessary to take into account because of their out-sized risks.
I won't be presenting the meta-finding of certain civilizational collapse in my sermon on Dec. 30. It is for this reason of scientific consensus that I believe the most reasonable and responsible approach for policymakers and non-scientists to take is to rely on the consensus reports of the 1100 climate scientists who make up International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Reporting of individual scientist's findings is useful for the scientific community to process, but it takes a number of peer-reviewed scientists to test those findings for confirmation, and publish them in a reputable journal.
In addition to the B.S., I have a Master's Degree in Environmental Policy and have taught the science of global warming to graduate students. Yet, I do not consider myself qualified to argue from the pulpit anything but the established science of the IPCC presentations. Neither I nor any other preacher I know can be relied upon to responsibly and reliably test doomsday or pollyanna findings that swarm the vast media web. I personally would distrust any preaching that presented doomsday (or pollyanna) findings not confirmed by scientific consensus unless that preacher was also a currently employed credentialed climate scientist--or unless he or she claimed the vatic possession by the Holy Spirit and explicitly expressed their expectation to be stoned if their prophecy turned out wrong. I would deem a preacher theologically unqualified, not to mention scientifically, if he presented a finding as a fact. Especially one from a meta-analytical exercise.
Social collapse has always been possible in the Christian tradition of eschatology, but the mainline doesn’t usually focus on it as a certainty like Bendell and the dispensationalists do. So is social collapse possible ? (yes), certain? (perhaps). Nuclear war is to my sense a more certain destroyer of the planet and all of planetary life, yet we’ve learned to live with out-sized risk beyond the possible into the probable without obsessing on its doomsday. Might not despair and preoccupation with climate catastrophe (which I do believe is occurring and will worsen) be the equivalent of the early-Reagan administration’s nuclear arms rattling and the borderline hysteria over nuclear war in this country in the early 1980s? I think it's a reasonable analogy, but while the nuclear threat seemed to quiet for a while, will the climate catastrophes also relent for a season? And if so, what will be the effect on social urgency to address the problem of Climate Injustice? Neither I nor any other preacher I know can be relied upon to test doomsday or pollyanna findings that swarm in the vast media web.
Royce Truex writes, "I also don't see anything wrong with a preacher presenting his/her own opinion if it is presented as such along with an explanation of the way it was reached." Yet, I personally am limited in my time in the pulpit, both on any given Sunday and over the course of the Church year. The issues involved in Global Warming and Climate Injustice are vast!
I'd be pleased to receive rebuttal to these perspectives. It's an important debate, and since I am researching how to impel the Church to lead on the issue of Global Warming/Climate Injustice, I' wonder if the case can be made that socially hastens the scientific enterprise in a way that grounds despair into action-making fear and changes the basis for our future hopes into a program of sustainable economics. Spurring the Church to combat Climate Change and Injustice is an existential priority. It is a pressing and urgent challenge for all to act individually and socially to change our lifestyles and our economic structures, to immediately and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The problem indeed may be that the science is progressing slower than the buildup of greenhouse gases, but that's a speculation, not a claim of fact.
I agree with the desire to harmonize our focus. But this statement of yours moves the debate from science to faith. I was originally arguing about the responsible use of science in preaching, but your statement indicates that you are searching for an existential message for your faith that is more convinced of pessimistic ecological outcomes than mine. My faith is that a scientific finding-claim or anecdotal consensus are NOT extrapolatable to doomsday. God is active. WWII seemed to many to lead inexorably to the end of the world, based on extrapolation. Many have told me they thought American civilization was doomed to collapse during the 1960s unrest as they extrapolated the shootings at Kent State into ta dystopian future. In the early 1980s, there was a hysteria (that I shared) about doomsday when Reagan rattled nuclear weapons. In none of these cases, when the faith of the pessimistic tended toward doomsday (and scientifically, when the Nuclear Clock moved to 5 minutes to Doomsday and Nuclear Winter), did the end come in the time frame predicted.
Doug, I’ve added a few responses. As you can tell, I don’t have the expertise to “debate” many of these issues. I do want to note, though, that you seem to have been looking through the lens of what’s acceptable or possible in a sermon, which is very appropriate as a part of your DMin project. My focus is more to find information that informs how I live my life. May the two focuses meet!
Your receptivity to climate pessimism is to my mind thus analogous to these: they extrapolated current conditions and trends toward the world's end, with a questionable precision into timetables. Because you focus on scientific findings that either are or as yet not scientifically endorsed by consensus, you are extrapolating that focus toward a "certainty" that the end is scientifically established. Yet it seems to me you perform that extrapolation of current findings and trends from what I believe is your faith, not your command of the science. The fact that many others are also extrapolating does not vitiate my criticism. My faith temperament, though, avoids grand extrapolation: I believe that these extrapolations failed in the previous instances noted. I also have a faith in the goodness and the power of God. That power includes the power to influence the minds and hearts of individuals and collectives by the work of the Holy Spirit. Revival is always possible. Because of my faith, I do not believe grand extrapolation is an epistemologically warranted operation of rationality. It leaves out the power of God to intervene in hearts and minds. My rationality includes both faith and science. As I've said, I share your intuition that the current climate/GW findings support a catastrophic or pessimistic outcome, but I cannot proclaim the certainty of extrapolation from that intuition. I believe in the urgency to turn aside what I believe is God's anger at the current misuse of the earth, yet the Bible demonstrates that God can turn aside from wrath. It is also relevant to note that God's anger is portrayed in the Bible as "heat." Whether God turns aside from allowing human extinction at this point, to my faith, relies very probably on our species learning to live faithfully, in trusteeship of nature that I've been advocating. But in either case, I cannot claim certainty for any outcome other than my own impending death.
So our argument is really not about scientific epistemology: I don't believe that extrapolation of findings is a scientific operation. But we are arguing the multiplicity of faiths that either extrapolate or not, and faiths that recognize, or not, the potential for the Holy Spirit to change hearts and minds on a grander scale than apparent to individuals. My faith allows for the "realism" of potential extinction, but also the "realism" that is provisional. Extrapolation fosters a rationality guided by temperament, theology, Bendell's "choice" to conclude certitude, and other non-scientifically established metaphysics.
My intention is not to cop out on pessimism because I've got to preach to congregations that demand hope. It's because hope is an authentic Christian virtue that has been validated repeatedly though not universally in history (absent of course in the deaths of children and the Holocaust). Virtue requires the practice be undertaken whether we are walking in deepest gloom or in luxury and joy. The extrapolation of doomsday findings, even if considered factual or realistic, have been negated repeatedly in history. In my judgment, extrapolation of anecdotal journalism supported by individual observations of climatologists is not necessarily scientific. Instead, it is based on a specific type of faith--one where the vector of God's concern with Creation's goodness is absent. I submit that there is no virtue in hopelessness, and it is that claim that needs more work in our process. This is why I am focusing on virtue as the existential praxis for living with unbearable feelings of doom. Hope, being a virtue, requires practice and cultivation, even if one's realism denies it. That's what makes it a virtue.
Feel free to rejoin. This is an important discussion for me. I hope it may lead you closer to my focus as yours have mine.
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[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/climate/ocean-temperatures-hotter.html accessed 12/20/18. See also another finding retracted upon attempts at replication: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/sea-level-rise-may-not-become-catastrophic-until-after-2100/579478/?utm_source=fbb accessed 5 January 2019
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