On Climate Change - Jeremiah Speaks Again

When I saw Greta Thunberg exclaim “how dare you” at the United Nations, I had a very strong negative reaction.  My instinctive reaction was to retort “How dare you!”  How dare you, a mere teenager tell us we’re destroying the planet and your generation and future along with it.  You should be in school learning how to solve the problems brought about by man-made climate change instead of gallivanting around the world telling us to do something.  How dare you have the audacity at such a young age to preach to us.  I suspect my initial reaction was the same reaction experienced by many, and possibly most, middle class white males living in rich countries.  Fortunately for me, I had the sense to stop, reflect, and ponder whether my initial instinctive reaction was warranted.  And upon reflection, I realized my reaction was understandable, but completely wrong.

My journey to my about-face was rooted in my Christianity, surprisingly enough.  This is because I had a nagging suspicion someone else, long ago, had delivered a similar message although for a different reason.  That teenager was a guy named Jeremiah.  Jeremiah made it into the Bible.  He even has a book that bears his name.  Millions of Christians, many of whom are climate change deniers, revere Jeremiah because he is in the Bible, but without actually understanding what it would have been like to experience the real Jeremiah 2,500 years ago.

You see, Jeremiah was a teenage nobody.  Judging from his writings, were he around today he would have almost certainly been prescribed Prozac, Lithium, or some other anti-depressive, antipsychotic medication.  He would have been deemed a fruit cake.  He was a very lonely and unhappy, and possibly disturbed child who grew up to be a lonely, unhappy, and possibly disturbed adult.  He claimed God spoke to him – something which Greta does not claim but which led many of Jeremiah’s contemporaries to conclude he was nuts.

As a teenager, Jeremiah said to the people of his time that they were doomed.  He said they would die by the thousands if they did not listen to him and amend their ways.  He said those who did not die would suffer tremendously through famine, disease, rape, and enslavement.  Most of those who heard him had the same reaction I did when I saw Greta.  “How dare you?” they asked.  Imagine telling us we’re doomed and our children have no future.  Who do you think you are?  You’re just a teenager.  You should shut up and let the adults work things out.  Jeremiah responded by saying that it was the adults who had brought the nation of Judah to the breaking point.

Sound familiar?

I suspect many who revere Jeremiah today would have stood in line to curse the real Jeremiah when he was alive.  After all, no one likes to be told they are responsible for stuffing things up.  No one wants to hear if they don’t change, tens of thousands will die.  No one likes to be told by a teenager “How dare you!” 

And so the adults tried to shut Jeremiah up.  To make matters worse, Jeremiah was the Hebrew Shakespeare.  His writings represent Hebrew literature at its peak.  His puns and poetry were highly witty and extremely cutting toward his opponents.  Imagine if Shakespeare were a writer for South Park and you pretty much have Jeremiah.  The adults even went so far as to try to kill him.  They imprisoned him.  They mocked him.  Ultimately, though, this young teenage kid was right.  The adults failed to listen and tens of thousands died, their women were raped, and their children, the ones who were not slaughtered, became slaves, just as Jeremiah predicted.

When I reflected on Greta, I thought that perhaps she was a modern day Jeremiah.  Yes, she does not claim to get messages from God, but aside from that, her message is essentially the same as Jeremiah’s was, and my initial reaction was exactly what Jeremiah’s enemies reaction was.

The fact is scientists have been telling us about man-made climate change for decades.  No one listened to them.  This is partly because they published their findings in scientific journals like good scientists do and no one read them.  After all, few make the time to read scientific journals and even fewer have the IQ required to understand what they read if they were to read a journal.  And this is sad, but it explains why no one listened.  That is, it is sad few have the IQ required, but it is even more sad that cold hard science on this subject, which is like a wrecking ball destroying the fortress of climate change denial, has been largely unheeded, unappreciated, and unnoticed.  And with no one listening, virtually nothing was being done, and even now, there is very little being done.

Since scientists, through no fault of their own have failed, we need a modern Jeremiah to awaken us out of our climate change lethargy.  Perhaps a young teenager asking “how dare you” is exactly what we need.  Because you know, it just might be, that Jeremiah is right once again.

At a practical level, there are two types of actions we can take to combat man-made climate change:  actions which require science and technology, and actions which don’t require much or any science and technology.    For example, science and technology need to kick in to allow our civilization to continue at its current levels of power consumption.  Renewable energy, can help, but it cannot at this time fill the entire gap between our needs, and what fossil fuels supply.  Science and technology are needed to help us eliminate the micro plastics already in our oceans.  Science and technology are required to help us produce crops with less water consumption, and so on.  So my caution to the young people skipping school to protest our inaction regarding man-made climate change is to study hard, because it is the scientists who will really help with climate change.  Don’t entirely discount school because we need you to climb the shoulders of the scientists who have gone before you to help clean up the planet.  In short, there are some things holding hands and singing Kumbaya won’t fix.  It’s cold hard science we need.

Having said that, though, there are things we can and should be doing now which we are not doing.  For one thing, we could ban deep ocean mining.  For another, we could move our farmers away from traditional irrigation practices to micro irrigation techniques which will use vastly less amounts of water for agriculture.  We could mandate all new buildings be green buildings, and so forth.  We could dedicate resources into renewable energy research on a scale the US dedicated resources to reach the moon in the 1960’s.  There is so much we could do that does not require a science degree.  And it is precisely these things we are not doing.

Enter the modern Jeremiah.  What will it take for old middle class white males like me to listen?  Let’s wait until more evidence for man-made climate change comes in.  Jeremiah is telling us we don’t have time to wait.  Let’s let the UN figure it out.  Jeremiah reminds us the establishment is precisely why we are here where we are now. 

Once, long ago, a teenage boy who suffered from depression and possibly worse, asked “how dare you” and the adults did not listen.  Catastrophe was the result.  It strikes me that the words of Don McClean in his classic song Vincent are apropos here.  “They would not listen, they’re not listening still.  Perhaps they never will.”   But if the adults won’t listen, it appears the children are.

Greta said to us “How dare you!”  And to this we must respond:  How dare we not listen.  How dare we not pay attention.  How dare we not try with all our might to reverse the destruction we are unleashing on our world.  After all, whenever a Jeremiah shows up, catastrophe is just around the corner.