Bishop Philip Huggins – member of the United Nations Interfaith Liaison Committee and Patron of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change has written a reflection on the Coalition announcement about building seven nuclear power plants, and that which will bring Peace on Earth. It is a journey fractured by much noise and building of division instead of unity.
GOING TO CHURCH THE SUNDAY AFTER THE COALITION SPOKE ON NUCLEAR REACTORS.
“Peace! Be still…”
Jesus’ word calms the winds and those anxious around him.[Mark 4.35-41]
It’s one of those Gospel stories that takes us into the depths of incarnational faith.
‘Matter’ matters so much that our Creator comes amongst us at a moment in time-God amongst us,born of Mary.
This is the One who creates all that is, seen and unseen.
Who said ‘ let there be light:and there was light’;who created the birds of the air,the fish of the sea.. and us.
The One who beheld it all and us all,thus concluding that it is very good!{Genesis 1.]
This One ,in divine humility ,leaves us utterly free to make what we will of our gift of life on this exquisite planet in a vast universe,the end of which may not yet have been found.
The essence of the wisdom given is that we should seek to be fully loving in what time we have ,this side of eternity.
Divine love,as true love,never coerces but encourages us to be peacemakers; to be merciful and pure of heart …
Hence,in the gift of each new day, we are encouraged to create beauty;to try and be utterly truthful and always be kind.Choosing words and deeds that heal and never do harm.
On the eve of the winter solstice,I stood quietly pondering these deep matters as moonlight fell upon the waters where we live.
In the days previous ,there had been the Coalition announcement about building seven nuclear power plants and about no longer committing to an emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030. The regular scaling up of national ambition ,as regards the transition from carbon emissions to renewables,which is central to the Paris Agreement, had also therefore been dismissed.
Thus, Australia’s contribution to the Paris Agreement, the international plan to contain the rise in global temperatures, was rendered uncertain.And this at a time when trust in each other to abide by agreements is crucial to the prevention of catastrophic climate change.
And all this ,most obviously,so that the Leader of the Opposition might be able to win an election through a deliberately negative campaign. A campaign which fans people’s fear about an effective transition to a renewable energy system and which posits nuclear reactors in this context.
The political commentary will continue, but what is the connection to my appreciation of God in creation?
Here are three thoughts
The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is of a piece with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative: https://fossilfueltreaty.org/
Imagine our world if there were no nuclear weapons and no other weapons of mass destruction. That is,instead of the current risk that other nations may acquire nuclear weapons; that those with them will add to their stockpile and that one of those leaders who make veiled threats of a ‘first use’ may actually use one.Or that this release of mass annihilation and environmental destruction may even happen by mistake.
Imagine a world with none of this anxiety and in which planetary life has a renewable future with no further carbon emissions.
This is our possibility and,as a matter of love ,we must continue to seek this.
‘What the world needs now is love’
That’s the song Melbourne school girls sang so I could convey their message at the UNCOP’s- the Conference of UN members who meet annually so as to implement the Paris Agreement in a trustworthy manner.
The students sang their song so their voices would be heard.
Secondly,loving life means not poisoning the earth.
I am aware of the bleak history as regards nuclear testing in Australia. Our indigenous people carry the memory more vividly.
Hence their voices of opposition to what is being proposed.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/indigenous-news/2024/06/21/nuclear-backlash
Failing to take account of that past sorrow inflicted on our land, long prayed in and treated respectfully by our indigenous people is, frankly, of a piece with the way this Leader of the Opposition treated the requests made in the ‘Statement of the Heart’.
Acting to stop nuclear reactors is thus a reconciling moment and may help heal some of the sorrow that persists after the failed Referendum on ‘Voice’.
Thirdly
it must be faced, that these plans speak of a form of political leadership that operates by division and not by building unity.
It is a huge generational challenge to make this transition to renewables and prevent further global warming.
The Opposition’s announcement was made here in the middle of winter,not in the middle of a summer like now to our north.
In the current Northern Hemisphere summer we see our future if we do not persist cooperatively with what is needed.
The summer is breaking all heat records. Teachers can’t teach, kids can’t learn in the classroom heat and pilgrims to Mecca drop dead in temperatures over 50 degrees daily.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hajj-2024-deaths-saudi-arabia-extreme-heat/
We need bi-partisan cooperation on climate policy. It is an emergency and time is running out.
Hence the anxiety after this week’s announcements.
It is an anxiety for one’s grandchildren’s generation in Australia.
When we need cooperation, we are going to have months of divisive noise.
I have never met the Leader of the Opposition but I have seen the effects of his divisive rhetoric on vulnerable people.Including refugees from Africa, ahead of a previous State Election in Victoria.
We made a video to call this out. I still know those who spoke to the camera and I know their lingering sorrow. The things that were said about these dear folk were not true and there has never been an apology.
https://aran.net.au/campaigns/stop-racism/
So,after Sunday’s Church and thus,time to abide in that divine peace,it will be like it was for St.Anthony ,centuries back in Egypt.
We will rise and simply say about these challenges of our immediate future-“Today we begin again.”
BISHOP PHILIP HUGGINS
Patron, Australian Religious Response to Climate Change
Member, UNFCCC Interfaith Liaison Committee
Saturday June 22 2024.
Citation
(Scientific American)
The New Normal
Today is the summer solstice, when Earth’s northern axis is at its most tilted toward the sun. The sun spends the longest time above the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere today (the opposite is happening in the Southern Hemisphere), and the additional hours of heating this time of year yields the warmth of summer.
But not all summers are the same. The warming of Earth’s climate is causing more frequent summer heat waves. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service’s forecast for 2024 shows a greater than 50 percent chance of above-normal temperatures across nearly all of the Northern Hemisphere. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also predicts above-normal temperatures for most of the U.S., especially in Southwest and Northeast states. So far, these predictions have come true, with three major heat waves already in the books–one in Mexico, another in the western U.S., and one occurring right now, with a “heat dome” settled over the Northeast. Mild summers are decidedly a thing of the past.
The time range for what we think of as “summer weather” is changing
as the world heats up. A 2021 study in Geophysical Research Letters found that summers had grown from 78 to 95 days as the other three seasons shrank, based on when the highest 25 percent of temperatures occurred in a given location. When averaged across 50 large U.S. cities, the heat wave season has grown from about 24 days in the 1960s to 73 days today–49 days longer than it used to be.
Why this matters: Heat waves pose an increasingly severe public health threat. Summer of 2023 was the hottest in 2,000 years, and some 2,300 people in the U.S. died from excessive heat during that season, the highest number in 45 years of recorded data, according to a recent analysis. Some experts think total heat-related deaths are far higher. Extreme heat is more deadly than all other weather-related disasters combined.
What can be done: Labor unions, green groups and public health advocates filed a petition this week with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to add “extreme heat” and “wildfire smoke” to the 16 types of events that can trigger the release of disaster aid to states and households. Only five states have laws protecting workers from extreme heat, and there is no federal standard.
What the experts say: “People aren’t always prepared for today’s extreme heat because we think of summer weather in terms of a gentler climate that no longer exists,” writes Andrea Thompson, sustainability editor for Scientific American. Prior experiences drastically affect how people perceive risk, says Micki Olson, who researches risk communication at the University at Albany. “They remember a heat wave—they don’t remember a temperature.” It’s time we all got used to a new, sweltering normal.
