Global Change

‘Basta Smog’ by Holly_In_Inland Empire

Global Disasters

05 March – This is the pastoral text of Fr Reuter: ‘Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.’ The terrible thing about the Gospel is: it is true!

The other day, 04 March, Fr Reuter told us: ‘The sword is a symbol of the pistol, the rifle, the sub-machine gun, the artillery piece, the atom bomb.’ The weapon of destruction changed, but the weapon remains the same: it remains a destroyer. Only the models of the weapon differ: the end is the same. Violence begets violence.

Now, here’s a modern conundrum: There is a terrible sword hanging over the head of all mankind and it is not the atomic bomb and it is not threatening as a physical sword would. The question is: Why would it threaten us with the utmost violence – that is, the annihilation of the human species – when we have not done it violence? He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

I’m talking of course of Climate Change – the ice caps are melting, the seas are rising, the temperatures are decreasing here and increasing there, the typhoons are wreaking more havoc everywhere – and we ask what has man done to deserve a terrible fate starting in this generation? And we’re not even talking about God’s wrath at all.

This is Mother Nature at her worst. That is because we have been her worst sons and daughters. We have polluted the air, among other things we could pollute. For instance, our cars contribute the most carbon dioxide that depletes the ozone layer in the atmosphere that filters out the ultraviolet rays that would otherwise strike the earth and heat it up to our destruction. Which is what is threatening us right now: annihilation by water (cold) and by air (heat).

Violence begets violence. Pollution is the violence we have been bringing on Mother Nature, and she is responding in kind with global warming and global cooling – climate change. Climate change is unstoppable, said a report by the United Nations, but not without mitigating factors that can be injected into the system to prevent global disaster.

Holly’s photo of the Mona Lisa and a sign against smoke getting into the eyes of everyone, is a powerful statement of the need to preserve the species (that would be ours) and at the same time preserve as much as possible the balance of nature that our warm bodies have been accustomed to and not bring it to extremes in both directions at once.

Climate Change will yet make either heroes of most of us, or martyrs of all of us.