“We” Most Probably Won’t Do It

For decades now, I have had high regard for Al Gore, who served as vice president of the U.S. from 1993 to 2001 and who barely lost the presidential election in 2000. Since then, Gore, who celebrated his 75th birthday earlier this year, has been known primarily as an environmentalist.

Logo of Climate Reality Project
(started by Gore in 2006, new name in 2011)

An Inconvenient Truth is the name of Al Gore’s film about his campaign to educate people about global warming. in July 2006, June and I went with friends here in Liberty to see that powerful new documentary, which includes Gore’s slide show about environmental issues.

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

In January 2008 I had the privilege of hearing Gore speak (and show slides), and I was highly impressed with not only what he said (and showed) but with him as a genuine, insightful person. I thought again how it was such a shame that he didn’t become POTUS in 2001.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is Gore’s 2017 film documenting his ten years of effort to combat global warming after his first film that had garnered so much publicity. (I can’t explain why June and I hadn’t watched this until last week; it certainly was well worth watching.)**

The climax of this documentary is about the Paris Agreement reached at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 21). On Earth Day (Apr. 22) 2016, 174 countries signed that agreement.

But Gore’s joyful hope soon turned to feelings of despair as the Trump administration announced in 2017 that the U.S. was withdrawing from the Agreement as soon as possible (in 2020).

The film, of course, doesn’t show how Pres. Biden announced on his first day in office that the U.S. was rejoining. Since then, Biden has continually pushed measures to counteract the steady and detrimental increase of global warming, in spite of constant opposition from the GOP.

But has he done enough? Perhaps he has done about as much as he could have done because of the climate change deniers, but no, he has not done nearly enough to stem the coming collapse.

Al Gore remains hopeful that “we” can solve the problem of climate change, etc. A 9/20/19 opinion piece in the New York Times is titled: “Al Gore: The Climate Crisis Is the Battle of Our Time, and We Can Win.”

Speaking at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Oct. 2021, Gore declared, “We have the solutions…. I have an enormous amount of hope about our future.”

Then last month, David Gelles published an article based on a recent interview with Gore. The NYTimes reporter stated that “the events of the past few weeks have Gore even more worried than usual.” Still, “Despite the apocalyptic weather news, Gore is also hopeful.”

Gore said in that interview, “The faster we stop burning fossil fuels and releasing other planet-warming emissions, the more quickly global temperatures can stabilize.” Further, “We know how to fix this…. We can stop the temperature going up worldwide…” (bolding added).

While these words are perhaps true, the sad fact is that in all likelihood, “we” won’t do it. All the books and films about global warming end with what we need to do. But in spite of some encouraging signs, we (meaning the vast majority of people on Earth) don’t seem to be making much progress.

Part of the Paris Agreement goal was the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO²) in the atmosphere to no more than 350 ppm. In 2006 that figure was 380 and it had risen to 410 by 2017. But now in August 2023, it is 420, and it keeps going up, as is clearly seen in the following chart. 

I’m afraid the much-respected Mr. Gore is somewhat affected by “hopium” (holding on to false hopes that prevents us from accepting reality). “We” are most probably not going to prevent the coming collapse resulting from overshoot.

But we (you and I) can work to push the collapse further into the future.  

_____

** We watched this on Amazon Prime (at a nominal charge), and then discovered that the DVD was available at our local library. In addition to the two books published with the same titles as the two movies, and several earlier books, Gore is also the author of The Assault on Reason (2007, 2017), Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (2009), and The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change (2013).

Note: The Buttry Center for Peace and Nonviolence at Central Seminary in Kansas is offering a five-part course titled “Creation Care in a Changing Climate: Doing Our Part to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Please click here to learn more about this course, and if you would like to participate, you can register there. (Courses such as this can help with doing what I suggest in the last sentence of this article.)

The Best of Times, or the Worst of Times?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....” So began Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), the historical novel set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. That was then, but what about now?

Pinker’s Rosy Picture

Steven Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard University. His latest book was released last month under the title “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.”

Pinker, born in Canada in 1954, is also the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). In that book as well as in his new one, Pinker writes how despite all the “doom and gloom” talk that surrounds us, the world is getting better in almost every way.

“A perfect future,” a review of Pinker’s new book, was published in the Feb. 24 issue of The Economist. It concluded, “Mr Pinker’s broad point is surely right. Things are not falling apart. And barring a cataclysmic asteroid strike or nuclear war, it is likely that they will continue to get better.”

The chances of an asteroid strike are completely unknown, but nuclear warfare is seemingly a distinct possibility in the near future—and that certainly would obliterate Pinker’s rosy picture of the present state of the world.

Picturing a Nuclear Arms Race

“Making America Nuclear Again” was the title of the cover story of the Feb. 12 issue of Time magazine. The lead article, posted online on Feb. 1, is “Donald Trump Is Playing a Dangerous Game of Nuclear Poker.”  

Author W.J. Hennigan contends that the Trump Administration “is convinced that the best way to limit the spreading nuclear danger is to expand and advertise its ability to annihilate its enemies.” In addition, DJT “has signed off on a $1.2 trillion plan to overhaul the entire nuclear-weapons complex.”

Citing the Trump Administration’s “Nuclear Posture Review” as one of its reasons, in January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the movement of the Doomsday Clock hands 30 seconds closer to midnight—the closest to ”doomsday” it has been since 1953. (See this article.)

Since then, just last Thursday President Putin of Russia claimed that Russia was developing new nuclear weapons that could overcome any U.S. missile defenses. This Washington Post article pictures what clearly seems to be a new nuclear arms race.

Picturing a Nuclear-Free World

Do you remember ICAN? It seems not to be widely known, but it is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—and it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2017.

Perhaps it can be said that ICAN is seeking to use “reason, science, humanism, and progress,” which Pinker emphasizes in his new book, to picture a world much different than the one now developing because of the belligerence—and fear—of the political leaders of North Korea, Russia, and the United States.

Partly as a result of ICAN’s advocacy, in July 2016 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was approved by the United Nations with affirmative votes by 122 (out of 193) member nations (with 71 not voting). (Here is a link to the treaty’s full text.)

When, or if, the TPNW is ratified by fifty UN members, it will become international law—with nuclear weapons being outlawed just as chemical and biological weapons have been in the past.

To date, only five nations (Cuba, Guyana, the Holy See, Mexico, and Thailand) have ratified the TPNW, but 56 have signed it.

So which is it? Is this the best of times or the worst of times? With ratification of the TPNW perhaps it could be the former.

10/10 in Japan: 1905 and Now

The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics was on October 10, 1964. To commemorate that date, 10/10 was observed from 1966 to 1999 as a national holiday called Taiiku no Hi (Health and Sports Day in English).

(Since 2000, Sports Day has been celebrated yearly on the second Monday in October.)

A hundred and ten years ago, 10/10 was significant for another reason: The Treaty of Portsmouth, which was signed on September 5, 1905, was ratified by the Japanese Privy Council on October 10 (and in Russia four days later).

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 was fought between Russia, an international power with one of the largest armies in the world, and Japan, which had only recently emerged from 250 years of isolation. That war is unique in that the warring nations fought over, and only on, the territory of two neutral countries, China and Korea.

That conflict also saw history’s greatest battles between two nations in terms of numbers of troops and ships prior to World War I. (Http://portsmouthpeacetreaty.org/ is an excellent website about the War of 1904-05 and the peace treaty.)

President Theodore Roosevelt helped broker the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the war—and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the first American to win that prestigious prize.

But the Japanese public was greatly upset. As some historians explain the situation, Japan won the war but lost the peace. Or as James Bradley writes in his book The Imperial Cruise (2009), “For the second war in a row, Japan had won all the battles but afterward was shamed by White Christians” (p. 303).

(Ten years earlier Japan had defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.)

Today, 110 years after the ratification of the Treaty of Portsmouth, is seems that there will not be a lot of peace/anti-war activity going on in Japan. But there were many such protests in August and September.

Last month Japan’s parliament passed a package of eleven bills, dubbed “Peace and Security Preservation Legislation,” allowing the Japanese military (now known as the Self-Defense Forces) to fight on foreign soil, something that has been banned in Japan since World War II.

The upper house of the Japanese parliament gave final approval to the controversial legislation on September 19, despite fierce attempts by opposition politicians to block the move.

Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Japanese are against the changes, and on a scale rarely seen in Japan, before the bills’ passage, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in almost daily rallies showing their strong opposition toward the bills.

August protest in front of Japan's Diet Building

Back in 1968 when I joined the faculty at Seinan Gakuin University, there were many student protests against the Vietnam War, against the upcoming (in 1970) renewal of the United States-Japan Security Treaty, and for the return of Okinawa to Japan.

In Aug. and Sept. this year, the protests on campus at Seinan Gakuin against the “security bills” before the Japanese Diet was mostly by faculty and staff and led by Dr. Ichiro Sudo, Dean of the Department of Theology.

Christians in Japan were among the loudest opponents of what are now enacted “security laws.” Most Christians have also been among the most vocal in opposing suggested changes to Article 9 of the Japanese constitution.

Article 9, in the new Constitution adopted in May 1947 and which Prime Minister Abe now seemingly wants to change, outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes.

As of 10/10/2015 many Japanese fear that Article 9 is headed for the dustbin.

What Would King say about Ferguson?

Fifty years ago today, on Dec. 10, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was 35 years old, and at the time was the youngest person ever to be given the Peace Prize, which was first awarded in 1901.

King gave an acceptance speech upon receiving the prodigious prize on that December day, and on the 11^th he delivered the Nobel Lecture. 

From 1960 until his death in 1968, King and his father were co-pastors of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (That is also where one of King’s funerals was held on 4/9/68.) Last Monday (Dec. 1) Attorney-General Holder met with community leaders of Atlanta in Ebenezer BC.

That gathering was publicized under the name “The Community Speaks: A Service. A Forum. A Place to be Heard.” Prior to that meeting Ebenezer Church’s Facebook page explained,

This service is designed to provide a sacred space for interfaith prayer, solidarity, communal lament, and constructive outlets for community involvement that furthers the work of social justice locally, nationally and globally.

What would King have said last week if he had been there at Ebenezer? (If he had not been assassinated, at age 85 he might have been.)

King would, no doubt, have expressed great sadness at the shooting death of an unarmed black teen-ager. And it is most likely that he would have also expressed grave reservations about the grand jury’s refusal to indict Darren Wilson.

Doubtlessly, King would also have decried the violence that has marred the protest in Ferguson and elsewhere. As he did in the 1950s and ’60s, he would have appealed for nonviolent demonstrations.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, King declared that “nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time,” and that it is necessary for humans “to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

King also declared in his Nobel lecture, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral.”

Further, “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.” And then, “Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

If King were to have come back, Rip van Winkle style, to Ebenezer last week, he would quite likely have expressed great disappointment that the racial situation has not improved more than it has since 1964.

In his Nobel lecture, King talked about racial injustice, poverty, and war. Sadly, not very much has changed in 50 years.

In that lecture, King spoke about how we humans suffer from

a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers [and sisters].

King’s acceptance speech was full of hope, though. To some that may have sounded then, and maybe especially now, as “liberal” or humanistic optimism. But there is a distinct difference between hope and optimism.

King was not, and most likely would not today be, optimistic about race relations in the country. But he was hopeful then, and as a man of deep Christian faith, he would be hopeful now.

That hope rests partly in people of good will truly seeking freedom and justice for all. 

Remembering Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson died 90 years ago, on February 3, 1924. It has been said that “the world we’re all living in today was essentially created by President Woodrow Wilson during his Presidency.” Certainly, he is a man well worth remembering.

Wilson was born in December 1856 and called Tommy until adulthood. Woodrow was his mother’s maiden name.

Like many children who later became people of note, Tommy was a PK. At the time of his birth, his father, Joseph, was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Staunton, Virginia. (The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum is now located in Staunton.)

In July 1912, Wilson was nominated for President on the 46^th ballot of the Democratic Convention, after William Jennings Bryan, who had been the Democratic candidate for President three times (and most recently in 1908), threw his support to Wilson.

Having defeated William Howard Taft (R), the incumbent President, former President Teddy Roosevelt (who ran this time on the Progressive, “Bull Moose,” ticket), and Eugene Debs (who ran for the fourth time as the Socialist Party’s candidate), Wilson was inaugurated POTUS in March 1913.

Soon after his election, Wilson reportedly said, “God ordained that I should be the next president of the United States.” Commenting on that statement in his 2003 book on Wilson, H.W. Brands remarks, “Though Wilson had chosen a different career from his father, he was as orthodox a Presbyterian as the Reverend Wilson.”  

In December 1913, Wilson became the first President in over 100 years to deliver the State of the Union address to Congress in person—and largely for that reason an article in the Washington Post recently called it the fifth best of all time.

One of the early accomplishments of the Wilson administration was the enactment of a national income tax. (The original tax was quite modest, though: 1% on incomes over $4,000 and rising to 2% on incomes over $20,000.)

In another influential act that is prominent yet today, Wilson led in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System (“the Fed”) in December 1913. The following year, he pushed the founding of the Federal Trade Commission, which, again, is still a valuable agency in American society.

Wilson “rewarded” Bryan with the premier cabinet appointment: Secretary of State. But Bryan, who embraced a “biblically inspired pacifism,” left that position in 1915, partly because of disagreement with the President over the “Great War” in Europe.

Still, for two years after World War I began, Wilson preserved the neutrality of the United States. The slogan, “He kept us out of war,” helped him to be re-elected, narrowly, in 1916. The following year, however, he decided that entering the war was unavoidable.

In January 1918 Wilson articulated a 14-point peace plan, and that was the basis of the war-ending armistice in November. The last point was an appeal for what came to be called the League of Nations (about which I will write again soon).

Wilson’s efforts for peace, including his call for the founding of the League of Nations, led to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.

His greatest political disappointment, though, was the opposition of the U.S. Senate, which refused to approve the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

Presidents sometimes have goals and ideals that exceed the capacity of Congress to legislate or the general populace to support. That was certainly true for Wilson.

And that may well be true for the current President, who perhaps has more in common with Wilson than any other previous President.