IF the Church declares that Greenism is the new Word and ignoring it is a sin, THEN that is the day I leave.
This would constitute worship of the created, rather than the Creator. IF that’s the case, why not just be a pagan?
How about the 10 Commandments, and “Thou shalt not kill” – would that be cause for people to leave the Church (or leave staying in place, asleep in the pews)? That to me is a serious commandment, and if AGW is real, then we are indeed killing people well into the future (a portion of our CO2 emissions can stay in the atmosphere for up to 100,000 years).
I didn’t need 95% scientific certainty, and neither did JPII when he first called on us to mitigate AGW.
I felt really bad back in 1990 when I came to understand AGW was likely, 5 years before it reached 95% confidence in scientific studies. I started reducing our household GHGs through energy/resource efficiency/conservation and was surprised to find we could reduce by about one-third cost-effectively, saving us $1000s over the decades since, without lowering our living standard (even increasing it a bit), even tho I’d been willing to sacrifice. (I’m not counting our living within 1 to 2 miles of work, since we had been doing that already since the 1970s when there was an energy crunch, and we became aware of peak oil and entropy).
Then in 2002 we moved to Texas for new jobs, and were able to get onto Green Mountain’s 100% wind-generated electricity, and reduced our GHGs even further – at first we paid about $5 more per month, but now we are paying about $5 less per month, as the rates for dirty electricity have surpassed our wind-energy rates. So financially that was a break-even deal.
And then 3 weeks ago, after our old clonker was going to cost much more to fix than it was worth, we bought a Chevy Volt and have been driving solely on our wind-generated electricity. Now a Volt is very expensive…we paid some $42,000 for it, but I have figured we’ll be saving enough on driving the Volt that within 7 years it will make up the difference in what we would have paid for another car we were considering, and go on to save us more and more each year…assuming we live that long. If someone drives more than us (more than 5,000 miles a year), then they could make up the difference between a Volt and another car even faster.
We actually had money to buy the Volt bec we had always bought old cars for cash over the past 43 years of our marriage (10 cars for under $1000, 3 above that), and saved on our low driving, and on our many other environmental measures, and so this is the first car we bought on credit. We could have paid cash, but the car loan interest was much lower than on some of our other investment loans, so we’re paying off those other loans first, then will pay off the Volt loan.
So I feel pretty good that we are on the right track to reducing our GHGs. My husband is now talking about installing solar panels on our house.
We feel very good to be on this right and righteous path of reducing our harms to people and others of God’s creatures. We don’t feel bad or sad or economically harmed or oppressed, but increasingly free and able to do God’s will.
I just want to express, there is really no harm done in doing the EC (environmentally correct) thing…or at least harms are reduced. Please have no fear about communism or economic collapse (which may be more likely if we fail to mitigate environmental problems). Be not afraid. Do what is right and perfect, as our Father in Heaven does.
