Lessons from New Zealand

Every experience carries with it the opportunity to learn new ways—or reinforce old ways—of living our lives as followers of Jesus Christ.

In late February and early March, Jeanne and I took part in our “trip of a lifetime” to New Zealand, which included a 13-day walking tour on the south island.

 

 

1. One step at a time, together: We did lots of hiking (what Kiwis, or New Zealanders, call tramping). Some of this involved covering what Kiwis call “gentle slopes” but feel pretty steep to a Kansas native. We walked every day, some treks longer than others. Over one two-day stretch, we walked about 22 miles over fairly rough terrain, with some steep switchbacks.

Our group consisted of 10 people, plus our guide, and another guide joined us at each location. The hikes were not hurried but were steady. We stopped to learn about plant and bird life. We conversed or simply walked in silence. We made it by putting one foot in front of another, not dwelling on how far we had to go but walking in the present moment.

Walking together provided an innate encouragement. We walked at different paces, but no one was left behind, and there was no judgment expressed toward those of us who walked slower.

2. Learning new perspectives: Although nine of our group members were from the United States and one from Britain, we brought different perspectives and experiences. We grew very close and were saddened to part company at the end of our tour.

Meeting new people is a reminder of the richness of human experience. We grow as we see the world with new eyes.

Being in a different country and culture brought its own learnings. New Zealand is a small country (only 4.5 million people) and has a different take on things from the U.S. empire’s perspective of dominance. We shared with the group the news about the shootings in Newton and Hesston, Kan. Our New Zealand guide and the British man simply said they did not understand the obsession with guns. Both their countries have strict gun laws and almost no gun deaths.

3. God’s beautiful, hurting world: We saw beautiful sights (ocean shores, rainforests, mountains, valleys) and were awestruck by God’s handiwork and the diversity in nature. We also learned about the effects of climate change. We saw glaciers that our guides told us were twice as large only 10 years ago.

Kiwis treasure their environment and are committed to caring for it as much as possible. If only we could do as well here.

Unlike my life here, we spent much of our time outdoors. We often forget that Jesus did as well. Yielding to the weather, rainy or dry, cold or warm, is an exercise in faith, living in reality.

4. Healthy habits: This trip reminded me of the importance of such healthy habits as walking regularly, being in nature, meeting new friends and gaining new perspectives.

As we walk our Christian life, we seek to do so fully aware of God’s presence with us. Walking under God’s sky among forests, mountains and shores was a helpful reminder of that.

Scientists judge climate change reporting

Reports keep coming out about climate change. For example, despite the record snowfalls in the eastern United States, December 2014 through February were the hottest winter (or summer in the Southern Hemisphere) ever recorded, since such records began being kept in 1880. Yet some articles play down such findings.

Now a group of climate scientists is reviewing articles and trying to counter some of the misinformation being published. Calling themselves Climate Feedback, the group includes scientists, oceanographers and atmospheric physicists.

The group is making use of a browser plugin from the nonprofit Hypothes.is to annotate climate journalism on the Web, writes Laura Dattaro in “How Climate Scientists Are Annotating Climate Reporting” at cjr.org, the website of Columbia Journalism Review.

“Readers with the plugin, or with a link created through it,” writes Dattaro, “can read an article while simultaneously reading comments and citations from a cadre of experts. Click on the headline, and you’ll see an overall rating, based on the article’s accuracy, fairness, and adherence to evidence.”

Climate Feedback lists about 25 scientists who contribute criticism, and more can apply as long as they’re actively publishing climate research.

Dattaro gives a couple of examples of articles the group has critiqued. The first one was an article by Steve Koonin, a theoretical physicist and former BP scientist who now heads NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, which was published in the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday Essay section last December.

“Koonin argued that it’s too early to shape climate global policy because the specifics of the science are not settled,” writes Dattaro. Climate Feedback uses a rating system much like that for rating movies: four points (rather than stars) is the top grade. Six scientists gave this article a rating of a half point, which places it between “poor” and “very poor.”

Another Wall Street Journal column got a similar review. Danish author and analyst Bjorn Lomborg, has been accused of having links to the Koch Brothers, who are notorious for funding misinformation around climate science, writes Dattaro. Lomborg claimed “climate-change alarmists” are ignoring a wealth of climate data that “are actually encouraging,” to the detriment of us all, according to the review.

A major spokesperson for Climate Feedback is Emmanuel Vincent, a climate scientist at the University of California, Merced’s Center for Climate Communication. He says he wants to see a more scientific point of view on what is said about climate change. “Climate change has been taken a little bit outside of the realm of science,” he says.

Many magazines employ fact-checkers (though fewer than used to), but Vincent says that’s not how he sees his group. According to Kattaro, he says “the ultimate goal isn’t to fact-check but to foster more scientific thinking in journalists and ultimately build more communication between the two parties.” The group often makes responses on articles in the comments section of the magazines where the articles appear.

New York Times climate reporter Justin Gillis says: “We’ve seen some pretty serious misrepresentation of climate science in certain news outlets. I would hope those outlets would take the comments seriously.”

Editors still make the call about what gets published. Vincent’s hope is that journalists and scientists will be more critical in their work and will “listen to each other (while also informing the reader),” writes Dattaro.

Unfortunately, too many readers aren’t interested in facts, only ideology.

When the powers drag their feet

In Kansas, where I live, we have experienced a second consecutive summer of extreme heat and drought. We are not alone. People I talk to keep hoping this is an anomaly, a simple weather pattern that will change and bring cooler, wetter weather next summer.

Would that it were true. But the overwhelming evidence from climate scientists around the world is that climate change is happening. And “an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases—produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests,” according to a report in the New York Times.

Furthermore, “global emissions of carbon dioxide jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010” (5.9 percent). This trend, scientists fear, “will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.” 

Meanwhile, political powers have generally put the brakes on taking any kind of concerted action to address this problem. The United Nations can’t agree on a plan, and the U.S. Congress is influenced by money from fossil fuel companies and ideological foes to the idea that humans contribute to climate change.

A growing number of businesses recognize that short-term profits aren’t too helpful when long-term survival is in question, and there are some hopeful changes being made. But unless the majority of political powers get on board and make significant changes in the production of greenhouse gases, the heat and droughts and storms will likely continue.

I say likely because science deals in probabilities, not certainties. Many people seem to think that if something isn’t certain they don’t have to worry about it, especially if it means they’ll have to change how they live.

There has been an established scientific consensus about the role of climate change in causing weather extremes, but a recent paper by James D. Hansen, a prominent NASA climate scientist, and two co-authors has gone further in tying specific weather events to climate change.

According to the paper, published online on Aug. 6, “scientists can claim with near certainty that events like the Texas heat wave last year (see photo above), the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003 would not have happened without the planetary warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases,” writes Justin Gillis the New York Times.

The paper argues that “the percentage of the earth’s land surface covered by extreme heat in the summer has soared in recent decades, from less than 1 percent in the years before 1980 to as much as 13 percent in recent years.”

In an interview, Hansen says that “the change is too large to be natural,” and adds, “It’s just going to get worse.”

The response of his scientific colleagues, however, was split. Some experts agreed with the paper’s findings, while others were not persuaded that specific heat waves could be tied to global warming.

One climate scientist, Andrew J. Weaver, “compared the warming of recent years to a measles outbreak popping up in different places. As with a measles epidemic, he said, it makes sense to suspect a common cause,” writes Gillis.

While the powers drag their feet, what do we do? Ignore the evidence and hope for the best? Let the next generation take care of it?

Perhaps what we do individually seems small, insignificant. But Mennonites and others have claimed we are called to be faithful, not just effective. Let’s be faithful.