Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

June 7 2015

SLEEPWALKING into UNPRECEDENTED, ALL-ENCOMPASSING COLLAPSE

Christopher Clark wrote a book with the title The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. In it he traced how mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals led to a war that nobody wanted but nevertheless happened. The war caused another war, 1939-45. The after effects of both conflicts still live on witness the current chaos in the Middle East which might yet be the catalyst for something even bigger. The two wars inflicted hundreds of millions of casualties.
Today we are in a somewhat similar situation, except that the stakes are stupendously higher: instead of casualties in the hundreds of millions, now the fate of the entire world is in the balance, imperiling the lives all of the more than Seven Billion humans that live on the earth plus all that lives and moves and has a being.
Below follows an article sent to me by my youngest brother in the Netherlands and written by Dr. Jan de Boer. I fully share the pessimism or rather the sober-minded view of this academic.
The remainder of this article is a free translation from the Dutch, interspersed with some personal observations where indicated. By the way, Dr. Jan de Boer is head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics Division of the Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam.

“COMMENT TOUT PEUT S’EFFONDRER”

(My comment) “I better translate that. In Canada we have two official languages but for many French is as foreign as Dutch – well not quite since Quebeckers speak French all the time. ‘HOW EVERYTHING CAN COLLAPSE’ is what it means.”
The French phrase is a title of a book written by two French scientists, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens. These two men predict that the collapse of our civilization can no longer by prevented and will take place sooner rather than later.
Of course we have heard all this before. More than forty years ago (1972) Dennis Meadows wrote a report for the Club of Rome – the entire report is available free on the web, just look for “Limits to Growth”. Looking back into history we learn that civilizations arise, shine and die. That also applies to our situation. Dennis Meadows investigated five important developments: accelerated industrialization, enormous growth in population, wide-spread malnutrition, rapid disappearance of irreplaceable natural resources and degradation of the environment. The model may have been incomplete and far from perfect, but the fundamental issues dealt with in the report were so important that the conclusions were utterly relevant.
They were:
1. If the current trends in growth in the world population, in industrialization and climatic deterioration, in food production and depletion of natural resources continue without change, then the limits to growth in this earth will be reached within one hundred years. The most likely result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decrease in both population and industrial capacity.
2. It is possible to alter growth trends and to shape a situation where ecological and economic balance can endure far into the future. This condition of world-wide equity would have to be shaped in such a way that the primary material needs of every person can be satisfied and every person has an equal opportunity to develop his or her individual possibilities.
3. If all countries decide to aim for that second outcome instead of the first, the possibility of success would be greater the sooner it is implemented.
My comment: “The book LIMITS TO GROWTH was a rude awakening for me when I first bought it in 1972. That same year I read another book dealing with life after death, a Dutch one with the title “STERVEN…. EN DAN?” (After death…what?) Both totally changed my outlook on life. The first one convinced me that we live in a finite world. The second told me that life after death is not in heaven but in the New Creation. If there ever was a turning point in my life, it was in 1972. Subsequently in 1975 we relocated from urban St. Catharines, Ontario to rural Tweed, some 300 km to the north-east, 200 km from both Toronto and Ottawa where I bought 20 hectares of mixed vegetation and built an energy efficient dwelling.”

Back to de Boer.

The book – Limits to Growth – caused quite a stir in the world but the vested interests prevailed with the result that generally speaking the world having eyes lost the ability to see, and having ears was no longer able to hear the cries of creation (blinded by the idol of economic growth, I might add).
More comments: “the ‘eyes and ears’ are the exact words of Psalm 115. The rulers of this world – like true fanatics – lost their way but redoubled their efforts.”
The opportunity to avoid a general, world-wide – collapse and with it the demise of the entire human civilization has not been grabbed. On his 2011-12 European tour Dennis Meadows was more pessimistic than ever: “It is too late for a lasting development, we must prepare ourselves for unimaginable great crises: it is of the utmost importance to establish small flexible systems, or do what I prescribed in my book: “Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future.” We will survive as a human race but the question is for how many and under what conditions.
Now more than 40 years after the publication of LIMITS TO GROWTH the authors of COMMENT TOUT PEUT S’EFFONDRER present a very readable, well documented and scientifically responsible analysis of our current situation in the world. Their basic conclusion is that
we have reached the limits.

The French authors show with numerous examples that we never will experience the ‘normal’ situation of the preceding decades. The motor of our carbon-driven-industrial society, consisting of the marriage between energy and money, is sputtering and is about to quit altogether. We have reached the limits.
The era of the surplus of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end witness the expensive energy from unconventional fuel, such as Canada’s tar sand fuel obtained at great environmental expense. Having renewable energy – which also requires a lot of energy to manufacture- basically does not alter the picture.
All these circumstances point to the impossibility to regain the economic growth of yesteryear which will deliver the fatal blow to an economic system that is based on growth to pay for social benefits and debts which will never be repaid.
In addition the physical, exponential and linear expansion of our civilization has irreparably damaged the complex natural system upon which our way of life is based. There the limits have already been breached. The warming of the climate and, especially, the collapse of biodiversity, indicate severe difficulties not only in the food supply but also in the social -, commerce-, and health systems: resulting in massive relocations of populations, in armed conflicts, epidemics and famines. All these symptoms are already plainly visible.
Finally the ever more complex systems on which we rely for food, water and energy require an ever expanding energy supply. These infrastructures as such are interdependent and are extra vulnerable because of their aging conditions with the result that small interruptions can imperil the stability of the entire world-wide system. Their rippling effects can cause disproportionate damage.

Here are a few statistics illuminating the absurdity of our civilization living on a planet that is tiny and has limited possibilities:

1. A GDP (Gross Domestic Product) say of China with an annual growth of 7 percent means economic activity that doubles every 10 years. After 50 years this indicates a volume of 32 times the current Chinese economy, involving a volume of almost 4 times the entire current world economy.
2. A person born in the 1930’s has seen the world’s population increase from 2 billion to more than 7 billion. In the course of the 20th century the consumption of energy has grown by 1400 percent, the mined industrial minerals increased by 27 times and the building materials by 34 times.
3. An average increase in the temperature of the climate with 4 percent means that it will rise 10 degrees on the continents. Take note: NASA is of the opinion that we are well on the way of a planetary increase of 6 percent.
4. Scientific research has shown that 90 percent of the biomass of large fish has disappeared since the Industrial Revolution.
The time has come to prepare ourselves for a different society if we want to avoid a total catastrophe.
The three aforementioned factors: the approach of the limits to growth, the exceeding of these limits and the growing complexity are irreversible and in combination can only lead to a catastrophe. In the past the numerous collapses were limited to a number of isolated regions. (I might add that this was well described by Jared Diamond in his book COLLAPSE.)

However the globalization of our civilization has been accompanied by systemic global risks with the result that for the first time in human history a collapse of an immense, almost global scale can be predicted.
That collapse will not take place at once, but, depending upon regions, cultures and, naturally the environment, will occur with various speeds and develop and be expressed in different ways. When? In 10 years, 20, at most 50 years. Both authors are convinced that the present generations will see this happen. I too am of that conviction.
In our carbon-based – industrial societies only a very few people can survive without a supermarket, a credit card or a gasoline station. When in a civilization the majority of the population no longer has a direct contact with system EARTH (soil, water, wood, animals, plants, you name it) then these people are totally dependent on the artificial structure that maintains it. When that same structure, still growing, still powerful but also ever more vulnerable collapses, something that is totally inevitable, that simply means that the very lives of innumerable many cannot be guaranteed.
No wonder both authors propose that now is the utmost time to prepare ourselves for a responsible transition to the approach of a much different society of the future. This transition is the implicit acceptance of the demise of our carbon-fuel dependent industrial society and the promotion of new small ‘low-tech’ systems, independent of any other model or configuration.

This so necessary transition will temporarily have two systems, one that is dying and one in a state of being born, possessing a positive vision of the future, a prerogative for mobilizing both the people and their creativity.
Regarding the collapse of our carbon-based industrial society, both authors are doomsayers, yet optimistic for the future, perhaps, however, not in their hearts to avoid coming through as being too pessimistic. They understandingly want to generate hope and confidence in a different but livable future.
That also is the weakest and not really plausible part of the book. Jan de Boer – the author of this book report – is convinced that the transition from the carbon-based industrial society to a different community will be completely catastrophic as in densely populated and urban areas the vast majority of the population will perish through hunger, internal strife and sicknesses aggravated by radiation from the inability to maintain the nuclear power generating stations.
Perhaps we may share with Dominique Bourg in hoping – and certainly no more than that – that in that tumultuous chaos there may emerge some small determined ecological clusters able to maintain sanity, not unlike the monasteries in the early Middle Ages when the Roman Empire disintegrated and massive tribal movements ensued. Perhaps from there a new more egalitarian and environmentally respectful society may emerge.

My final comments:

We are indeed sleepwalking into the final judgement. The Bible has foretold all this, especially in Matthew 24 and most of Revelation. Repeatedly it warns to ‘come out of the system lest becoming victims (Rev. 18:4). The Bible has a very realistic view of humanity: our nature has never changed. The people of the world will always seek the short term benefit, guided by the Great Adversary whose sole aim is to destroy God’s creation. I believe that those who see creation as God’s work of art and dearly love it – just as God does (See John 3: 16) – will be part of the New Creation that Jesus will usher in.

A little book by Naomi Oreskes of Harvard and Erik M. Conway of the California Institute of Technology with the title of THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION says essentially the same, even though there the timeline is set in a more distant future. So does Paul Ehrlich.

More about that next week.
See also my book “Day without End,” free on the web.

May 31 2015

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.

Almost everybody knows that there is something like The Lord’s Prayer. In our church reciting it is routine, introduced as the prayer the Lord taught us. I don’t think that the Lord really appreciates the sometimes mindless mumbling that is the result, the automatic mouthing of words that is the logical outcome from a weekly routine. I think the Lord meant that we use the words as an example of how we should pray, and so develop our own style of praying rather than merely repeating words that have become too familiar.

I believe that one line sets the tone for the entire prayer. After the introduction (Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name) that line is the phrase “Your Kingdom Come.” It comes first for a definite reason. In our life every single act, every thought and idea, indeed THE goal in our life should be dominated by the coming of the Kingdom. And what is that goal? It is the new creation that Christ is preparing for us and will give us when he returns.

The Chinese have a saying: “If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk; if you want to be happy for a week, kill a pig; if you want to be happy for a month, get married; if you want to be happy for life, be a gardener.” I would expand it with: “If you want to be happy for eternity, for this life and the life to come, follow Jesus’ advice “Seek first the kingdom and everything else will fall into place.” That kingdom is the new creation to come. That certainly involves being a gardener, which is possible for everybody even in a high rise: now already surround yourself with plants: use the balcony for outdoor planting, grow simple lettuce plants or tomatoes in addition to flowers, of course.

But I digress. My headline is FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.
Some translations use the word DEBT. It would be nice if our debts were forgiven – and by that people assume the money they owe, which, generally, is substantial. More about that later because DEBT in the money sense is something Jesus did not have in mind at all when he gave us The Lord’s Prayer. I prefer the word ‘TRESPASSES’ because it is more in line with the original meaning.
We often see signs which say “trespassers will be persecuted.” This means that when we go beyond that sign, we enter into forbidden territory, something we do all the time. Let me start with an everyday example.

When I walk into a grocery store, smart merchandizing displays the fruit and vegetable isles first. I always look where the produce originates. If it comes from China, I never buy it, because I know that it usually is heavily polluted. If it is available I buy organic. Why? Because I don’t want my body to unnecessarily trespass into the health system. Our first duty as a human being is to treat our body as holy: prevention is better than healing. Medical healing involves the government, as least in Ontario where healthcare is financed publicly and is the largest single expense in the provincial budget. Since in my opinion the economy no longer will grow, will most likely shrink, that also means that tax revenue will go down and so will the money available for the health care system. Often bad health is the result of bad habits. I emphasize the word ‘often’ because we all know many examples where cancer strikes seemingly at random and where tumors appear in the most unlikely persons.

This week the Canadian Cancer Institute predicted that cancer would increase by 40 percent in the coming years, mainly because of an aging population. I believe that when we indulge in unhealthy practices, we are in a trespassing situation which we must avoid and for which we must pray for forgiveness.
Basically there are two types of sins: sins of commission and sins of omissions. Smoking, bad eating habits and excess drinking are sins of commission. We commit sins of omissions when we ignore matters we are supposed to do or fail to learn. I think we, as modern persons, have a gross deficit of creational knowledge. By and large we know very little which foods are good for us and which ones are bad. We are what we eat for good or ill. Our wrong living habits have caused a new situation called “metabolic syndrome.” Here is a frightening statistic: “More than a third of adults in the U.S. suffer from “metabolic syndrome,” which involves a combination of risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.” That means that in the foreseeable future the health system will be inundated with sick persons, waiting times will skyrocket and health care deteriorate. The best insurance to avoid that is acquiring a thorough knowledge of what is good and what is bad in nutrition and general living habits. Also, I believe that it is the Christian thing to know as much about creation as possible. It’s in our very own world, here exactly where we now live, where we will enjoy eternal life. Then there is:

Environmental Debt

My study Bible explains the words of FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES by commenting that this applies to our MORAL sins. That is so typical of church-talk, so anthropocentric or ‘man-centered’. There’s much more to it than that. Take Plastic which I hate with a passion. I am not referring to credit cards. I mean plastic as in bags and in wrapping. It often ends up in the world’s waterways, the oceans and rivers and so is choking our future in ways that most of us are barely aware.
Plastics are now one of the most common pollutants of ocean waters worldwide. Pushed by winds, tides and currents, plastic particles form with other debris into large swirling glutinous accumulation zones, known to oceanographers as gyres, which comprise as much as 40 percent of the planet’s ocean surface — roughly 25 percent of the entire earth.

The calamitous consequences of humanity’s “plastic footprint” are many, some known and some yet to be discovered. We know that plastics biodegrade exceptionally slowly, breaking into tiny fragments in a centuries-long process. We know that plastic debris entangles and slowly kills millions of sea creatures; that hundreds of species mistake plastics for their natural food, ingesting toxicants that cause liver and stomach abnormalities in fish and birds, often choking or starving them to death. We know that one of the main bait fish in the ocean, the lantern fish, eats copious quantities of plastic fragments, threatening their future as a nutritious food source to the tuna, salmon, and other pelagic fish we consume, adding to the increasing amount of synthetic chemicals unknown before 1950 that we now carry in our bodies. By using plastic we are trespassing into the territories where the sea life is, which we killing by the billions: 90 percent of large sea animals are gone!! Simply frightful. Forgive us for trespassing into areas where we have no business. When I recycle my plastic- even I cannot avoid using it because it is everywhere- where will it end up? In the ocean?

The problem is compounded by the aquaculture industry, which uses enormous amounts of plastic in its floats, nets, lines and tubes. Think about that when you eat fish. The best way to combat the use of plastic is to grow your own food which eliminates packaging, the major source of plastic, or by going to farmers markets.
Primary Productivity

There is such a thing as Primary Productivity. It points to the original natural resources available to the human race. In the very early human stage when only a few million people roamed the earth and their diet was gathered from the existing fruits and wild animals, the so-called hunter-gathering stage, Primary Productivity was 100 percent. Nothing of the earth was disturbed. The seas were in a pristine state, the air was sweet aroma and, as Genesis, the first Bible book, tells us, some people lived almost One Thousand years: Methuselah clocked in at 969 years, thanks to pure air, food and water. Today cancers are proliferating, soon shortening the overall life span, while general poor health sets the stage for a devastating pandemic. Now Primary Productivity is approaching 50 percent, meaning that we humans have deprived all other creatures of almost half their habitat. No wonder species disappear in droves.
Forgive us our environmental trespasses, in the same way that we forgive those who trespass against us. We all are in the same boat. There is not a person in the Western world that can plead innocence here. We have allowed ourselves to be sucked into such a dangerous situation that there is no longer a safe exit.

Thanks to us trespassing into the space of the large animals, we have almost eliminated them all. Thanks to the use of pesticides, especially eonicotinoid, we have managed to kill half the honey bees that pollinate our fruit trees. The paradox is that by using that particular poison which is supposed to kill bad insects only (so that our factory farms are can prevent flies and other pests from harming the Monsanto seeds) we are well on the way of committing global suicide. Those are the unintended consequences of promoting a life that is supposed to be free of intrusions by nature.
There is a lot of truth in the saying “Trespassers will be persecuted.” This past week those US states that deny Climate Change are being persecuted with storms, tornadoes, deadly floods. I don’t know why India must suffer from lethal heat with thousands dying: that poor country, among the poorest in the world.
So what will be the after effect of

Monetary debt.

Right now, we’re living in a make believe world as debt is the main source of growth. Without a pick-up in final demand a lot of bad debts are never going to be repaid. Thanks to excess capacity in the commodity production bad loans will proliferate throughout the system. That means that governments must keep on issuing new loans to cover old loans. Look at all the money that Chinese banks have invested in real estate: there’s no way that they are going to be repaid. China is bankrupt.
You want to see real growth in the U.S. economy? Forget about real estate, technology or manufacturing: The real American and Canadian growth industry is debt. While gross domestic product has lingered in the 2 to 2.5% growth range for years, the level of debt as measured through credit market instruments has exploded. As the nation entered the 1980s, there was comparatively little debt—just about $4.3 trillion. That was only about 1.5 times the size of gross GDP. Then a funny thing happened. The gap began to widen during the decade, and then became basically parabolic through the ’90s and into the early part of the 21st century.
Though debt took a brief decline in 2009 as the countries limped their way out of the financial crisis, it has climbed again and is now, at $58.7 trillion, 3.3 times the size of GDP and about 13 times what it was in 1980, according to data from the Federal Reserve’s St. Louis branch.

Forgive us our trespasses which are much more than moral matters. By trespassing on the life of animals we have killed almost half of all living; by trespassing in the air we have killed almost half of all bees and birds as well as poisoned the very air we breathe; by trespassing on the seas we have soiled the seas beyond repair and killed the animals there in unprecedented numbers.

We are heading for Armageddon not only economically but ecologically as well as spiritually, as by and large the church and whatever is left of the Christian press fail to see the signs of the times.
Our fervent prayer should be FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES. Lord have mercy. Maranatha, Lord come quickly.

PRETENSE

MAY 24 2015

Or is it PRETENCE? That too is acceptable because the one with the “S” is American while the one with the “C” is English. In Canada both versions are current because we not only are a country with two official languages, in our English we also enjoy a double solitude, where both the American and the English spelling are used. However as far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it is the same in both spellings.
Pretens(c)e is defined as: a false reason or explanation that is used to hide the real purpose of something. It can also mean an act or appearance that looks real but is false.

Let me start with an economic matter. Governments pay out wages and pensions which are increased in line with the inflation rate. For governments the lower the inflation rate, the easier it is for them to balance the books. Even though they prefer inflation to deflation, they don’t want to see prices go up too much, so they manipulate the inflation rate. In Canada and the USA and I presume everywhere in the Western world they have changed how it calculates inflation more than 20 times since 1978. Each and every change drove down the official inflation rate, masking what was really happening as prices rose and your wealth eroded. Right now the official rate is under 2%, but if they were to switch back to the way inflation was calculated in 1980 we would have seen 7% to 8% inflation in recent years.

In other words, as far as inflation is concerned, we live in ‘pretense’ times.

Interest rates are another pretentious issue. It used to be that they were calculated based on the inflation rate with an added 2 percent for administration and real gain. Thus if the inflation rate were 3 percent, people like me with a bit of savings, would earn 5 % on their money. Today we are lucky to get 2-3 percent, and some banks charge people for holding their money. Basically those of us who have a few dollars invested actually get a negative return.

In other words, money wise, we also live in “pretense” times.

What is true about interest rates is also applicable to the unemployment statistics. There too it is beneficial for the rate-setting agencies to have a low figure: it looks good to the outside world, it saves money because it limits the payment of Unemployment Insurance. In the widely reported unemployment rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the US BLS) only counts those who have looked for a job in the past four weeks as unemployed. Once they haven’t looked for a job during that time they are no longer counted as unemployed. As a result, the real or true unemployment rate is much higher. If those who want to work but cannot find a job are counted, in April 2015, the real unemployment rate was 10.8%, exactly double the widely-reported unemployment rate of 5.4% in the USA.

In other words, employment wise, we too live in ‘pretense’ times.

We and our machines.

We are changing. Anyone who has been to a party where everyone was using a cell phone can attest to this reality. Modern technology is already rewiring the way the human brain works. Sixth-graders who went five days without any digital screen exposure did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who spent hours every day looking at their electronic devices. When a New York Times reporter asked Steve Jobs how his kids liked the iPad he said, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
It’s clear that technology has intruded deeply into our lives. If we do not act now, we will lose our ability to communicate with each other and the ability to enjoy meaningful employment. We are in the process of losing our humanity. And that’s exactly what the Great Adversary wants. Satan believes that technology is unambiguously good: it is “the wellspring of human progress.” Yet thanks to “progress” no net new jobs have been created in 15 years at a time when the American population increased by 40 million.

In other words, ‘progress’ means the opposite: pretense rules.

Should I mention Iraq?

Thanks to American politics and the entering of Jeb Bush into the presidential race for the Republicans, Iraq is back, especially now that ISIS, that radical, utterly evil, totally satanic bunch of fighters – in the name of religion – is gaining ground. You may remember the younger Bush, the son, George W. who, in his relative inexperience, was duped by the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld into a war with Iraq, playing up the theme that Father Bush has left it unfinished, even though the general staff warned against it. Pretense entered there as in no other war. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. If there ever was a war launched under false pretentions, it was this one.
The invasion of Iraq is a crime at par with some of the World War II crimes, with the difference that the aftermath is still being felt today and will be for years to come, perhaps will lead to nuclear war as Saudi Arabia is said to be ready to purchase a nuclear bomb from Pakistan in response to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In other words in politics ‘pretense’ ruled then, and still rules now.

The pretense of battling Climate Change

We recently passed 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; business as usual will take us up to 1,000 ppm, raising global average temperature (from a pre-industrial baseline) to as high as 5.4 degrees Celsius. According to a 2012 World Bank report this will lead to “extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise,” the effects of which will be “tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions,” stalling or reversing decades of development work.
But that’s where we’re headed. It will take enormous effort just to avoid that fate. Holding temperature down under 2°C — the widely agreed upon target — would require an utterly unprecedented level of global mobilization and coordination, sustained over decades. There’s no sign of that happening, or reason to think it’s plausible anytime soon.

Here is reality. Politicians want good news. They want to hear that it is still possible to limit temperature to 2°C. Even more, they want to hear that they can do so while avoiding aggressive emission cuts in the near-term — say, until they’re out of office.
Climate scientists feel pressure to provide fake figures. While I am writing this in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, scientists are protesting because the Harper regime is muzzling them. Governments don’t want to hear the truth. There is not a politician on earth who wants to tell his or her constituents, “We’ve probably already blown our chance to avoid substantial suffering, but if we work really hard and devote our lives to the cause, we can somewhat reduce the even worse suffering that awaits our children and grandchildren.”
Many climate experts are now arguing that 2°C is an inadequate target, that it already represents unacceptable harms. We are facing a situation in which limiting temperature even to 2°C requires heroic policy and technology changes, which won’t happen, because the status quo rules.

In other words, in Climate Change too, ‘pretense’ rules.

Is the church any different?

The nation of Israel was in exile for 70 years when a remnant returned to the old country and Jerusalem. Malachi – the name means “my messenger’ – was the last Old Testament prophet. The book is short -4 chapters – and ends with “The Day of the Lord”
That was God’s final message to his people about 500 years before Christ started his mission. During that interval the church was supposed to prepare the people of Israel for the ‘sun of righteousness with healing in its wing’ (Malachi 4: 2) describing Jesus, the firstborn of creation, humanity personified. God granted the people of Israel 5 centuries to prepare for Christ’s coming. Over these years the church devised all sorts of statutes and regulations, making religion a matter of strict observance to rules and outward appearances. Its weakness was revealed when the three magi appeared from far away, following the star, looking for information where the heavenly king was born. The then priests and bishops and theologians knew the exact location, but refused to connect the dots, because it did not fit into their organizational setup. The baby-king did not conform to their expectations, and, when he went public after 30 years, they arrested, judged and killed him because he flouted their ecclesiastical rules. The then church utterly failed to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

Theologically speaking, the church then lived in ‘pretense’ times.

On October 31 1517 Martin Luther, the Catholic priest turned whistleblower, attached 95 theses on the front door of his church in Wittenberg, Germany. On the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth in 1983 – he was born in 1483 – my younger brother, my wife and I were in Wittenberg. On the steps of the church, in front of the very door where he had affixed his defiant statement, were two young people shooting up drugs, perhaps a metaphor for the state of religion in what was then the former East Germany.

We are more than 30 years beyond 1983 and very close to the 500th anniversary of October 31 1517, commonly called “Reformation Day.” During the 500 years prior to Jesus’ mission, the church failed to prepare for his coming. On the contrary it crucified the Savior. Now, 500 years after Luther shook up the Roman Catholic Church a remarkable man has emerged: Pope Frances who is using his office to take on Capitalism and infusing both Roman Catholics and Protestants with courage to take on the forces that are destroying creation. I wholeheartedly endorse the Pope’s valiant efforts to battle those who are bent to destroy LIFE for the sake of money.

The Final Battle

It is THE battle of the 21st Century and that at the very time the world is more confused and confusing than ever. We’re now in a post-imperial, post-colonial and, in many places, post-autocratic age. Large sections of the world are in total chaos. Just as the oceans increasingly have dead zones where life has gone extinct so the earth too is filled with regions where nobody can live anymore. No one wants to touch these disorderly zones because when they do, they suddenly are responsible for feeding tens of millions extra mouths, and that while money at home is running out as well. The West prefers them to die quietly.
I pray that the Pope will be successful. We are engaged in the last battle: the battle where the rich West fights on two fronts: the West versus the Climate, and also that same West fighting the world’s poor: a war in which we all are losers. We pretend to help the climate. We pretend to assist the poor. In the final analysis we do nothing else but protect our temporary relative advantage. We try to be the first. Somewhere in the Bible it says that the first shall be the last. We are so dependent on fossil fuel and electricity which powers our Internet and computers, that, once these cease to function – and some hostile virus will cause this – within three days we are totally dysfunctional. We pretend to be invincible. In reality of all the people ever lived, we are the most vulnerable.

How about the Church now?

The church is supposed to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and tell the world of the Kingdom – the New Creation – to come when Christ will appear again.
Sorry to say, the church today almost without exceptions, still clings to the Heaven heresy.
I admire Pope Frances whom I believe will be much in the news this year. Will he tell the people, will Christianity at large tell the world to prepare for the Kingdom to come? Will the church’s main message be, in line with Christ’s teaching, both in word and action, to prepare for the transition into the pure, pollution-free, pristine planet that is about to come?

Or will humanity kill creation, just as it did with Jesus when he came? The French saying comes to mind: Plus ça change, plus ça la m?me chose: The more humans change, the more they remain the same.

MAY 17 2015

RESILIENCE

Where are we?

It seems to me we are in a state of denial. Everywhere I see signs that business as usual is no longer possible.
Of course the reigning mantra all over the world is still the pursuit of economic growth. It bears repeating that only total fools and economists believe that infinite growth can take place in a finite world. Politicians, banking on an ignorant public, also keep on proclaiming this fallacy as a God-given right. Jeb Bush – aspiring to be the next Republican president – said last week: “My focus is going to be about how we, if I run, how do you create high sustained economic growth.” This Bush (Number III) also has no feeling for language. The naked truth is that all governments stand and fall with this gospel. No growth or even worse negative growth puts a stop to the entire welfare state from which most of us are benefiting immensely. We want growth. We need growth. The financial wellbeing for all of us except the very wealthy depends on governments being able to pay pensions for the elderly, medical bills for everyone, support disabled persons and small children, all items totally dependent on economic growth. And all that at the time when cities everywhere are clamoring for untold billions of tax money to install subways and rapid transit and dealing with aging bridges and crumbling highways.
We seems to be blind to the obvious fact that we live in a world that is rapidly wearing out, is suffering from lung cancer, is becoming emaciated by the constant clamoring for more, is drying out as wells are depleted, aquifers being emptied, topsoil being stripped, trees being eradicated. Yes, those trees. We can live without food for 30 days, without water for maybe 48 hours, but oxygen we inhale every minute. Killing trees is like choking ourselves, a most cruel death, but that’s what we are doing.

Why do we act so suicidal? Now that the majority of the people live in cities, people have lost touch with the once living, now dying earth. Also all governments are big city institutions, so the plight of the earth goes unnoticed. The church? It long ago lost the Gospel of the earth.

We must quit wishful thinking. Pollution will persist. Weather will get worse.
Don’t for a minute believe that suddenly Big Business will stop polluting, stop making cars, stop drilling for oil, stop felling trees, and the media, TV, radio, papers, stop advertising. Don’t for a minute believe that the majority of the earth’s inhabitants will stop driving cars, stop fueling up, stop being influenced by the Boob Tube. Mass conversion is not happening and no longer can happen: we have simply gone too far. We have built an infrastructure based on an infinite supply of life-destroying fuel. All our suburban and exurban houses and high rise condos need power, need four-wheeled transportation: there is no going back, there only is the unavoidable abyss.
So what should we do?
Resilience is the key, especially spiritual resilience, belief that we await a new earth, thanks to Christ. The word ‘resilience’ comes from the Latin verb ‘resilio’ which means ‘spring back’. Resilience is required when threats arise. We then know how to cope with them. Resilience involves being aware, honestly assessing the situation. Only when we come to terms with the true state of affairs can we prepare ourselves to some extent.
Forget about Sustainability, the modern buzz word. Sustain what? Our current way of living? It’s exactly that sort of energy-rich life that has brought us where we are today, with the CO2 count now exceeding 400 ppm, part per million, up from 280 where it was before the Industrial Revolution, guaranteeing Clime Change Disaster.

Oh, yes, I know that Jesus said that “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” using KJV language, the KJV standing for the 1648 King James Version of the Bible. My NIV, the New International Version, says it a bit more plainly. The passage comes at the very end of Matthew 6, part of the Sermon on the Mount. There it says “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” supposedly indicating that we should not make provisions for tomorrow’s different future. Jesus in the preceding texts – verses 25- 32 – tells us not to worry of what we shall eat or drink, or where we will get our clothes. He then says something that has thrown us all for a loop: He tells us that our priority in life is ‘to seek the Kingdom’. Supposedly if we only had concerned ourselves with implementing the Kingdom option we would have never ended up where we are today.
So what does it mean when Jesus says that “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and you’ll never have to worry about food or drink or clothes or shelter” as all that will come automatically when we pursue the Kingdom goals.
A long time ago I happen to listen to what is called the Christian Radio and heard a preacher proclaim that if we pray, read the Bible, go to his church, tithe especially to his program and his church, then God would bless us. That has been the essential message in the Bible belt. I was brought up with the then gospel truth that Home, (Christian) education, Church and other Christian organizations comprised the Kingdom.
The confusion about the Kingdom is almost total. Fortunately J. H. Bavinck, in his old-new book Between the Beginning and the End: A radical Kingdom Vision has cleared up the misunderstandings. Here are his words:
“In the first place we must realize that God’s Kingdom has a cosmic character, which means that it comprises the entire world as we have come to know it. Not only are we humans part of that Kingdom, but it also includes the world of animals and all plants. Yes, even the angels are part of this wider context: they too have a place in the harmonious totality of God’s Kingdom.
“This implies that all parts of the world are attuned to each other. Nowhere is there a false note, a dis¬so¬nant that disturbs the unity, as everything fits harmoniously into the greater scheme of the totality. This applies both to each individual specimen but equally to the various circles or spheres found in creation. The celestial bodies have their orderly trajectories and do so according to God’s royal will, obeying his voice, and so, in their course they sound a melodious note in the great concert in which all creatures participate. The mountains rise up high above the water satu¬rated earth, their summits piercing the clouds; they stand there in proud loftiness but even these mountains are nothing but servants of Him who has planted and secured them by his power. On every page the Bible makes plain that the meaning of creation lies only in the one overarching motif: the motif of God’s Kingdom. That is why Scripture and Creation are never at odds: they always form a unity where the one reinforces the other”

Even now the world as we know it, as we experience it every day, the trees, the air, the water, the soil, the animals, and us humans, comprise the Kingdom, now distorted by us sinners. To follow Jesus’ words: “To seek the Kingdom and its welfare” is the first and foremost task of the Christian. Pretty radical stuff!! Yet the essence of Christianity!!
And there is where ‘resilience’ comes in, the capacity to ‘spring back’. Today we have shaped a society totally dependent on fossil fuels. Once they are gone – or once we are forced to foreswear them because of its highly poisonous nature – we have nothing to fall back on: no chance to spring back, no resilience whatsoever.
I can’t tell you what to do, but I can ask questions. What does it mean to pursue the aims of the Kingdom? Does it mean to go totally green? Remember the Kingdom is God’s creation. “Seek first the Kingdom” essentially means to do everything for the benefit of creation, God’s Holy Temple. Does that mean a total paradigm shift in whatever we do? We now realize that the Carbon-rich road is ‘the way of death’. Resilience means having an alternative, possessing the only alternative: the way of life eternal.

Let me give my thoughts free rein. God’s creation has all sorts of back-up systems. It is ‘resilient’ to the nth degree, but only if we live according to the rules of the Kingdom, as outlined in the covenant God made with us. What are these rules? Micah 6: 8 tells us what the covenant requires of us: “To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.”
To act justly not only applies to humans of whatever race and orientation, but also to trees, soil and air. To love mercy applies not only to humans of whatever race and orientation but also to animals, cows and chickens. To walk humbly with our God also involves obeying his laws in creation, following his rules for preservation, for permanence, for eternal sustainability.

Let me make some more guesses. Being resilient means freeing ourselves from having carbon-slaves. The USA fought a disastrous war within its borders to abolish human slavery. The North was victorious, and the Africans became African Americans, yet basically still remaining second class citizens. Slavery today is thriving more than ever. Over the years the Western World acquired a totally different form of servitude: engaging the carbon-based slaves that heat and cool our houses, and that make it possible to travel in comfort by car or by air. The American Civil War was the bloodiest USA war ever. Now the Universal bondage depending on carbon-based fuel has become the War against creation with the potential to wipe out most of the world’s people and species, because of the total lack of resilience: there is no Plan B, no back-up system.

Jesus tells us that to seek first the Kingdom which will guarantee us food, shelter and clothing. Do we really believe Jesus’ words?
The Gospel is a very down-to-earth affair. We are told to love our neighbors as ourselves and God- his work of art, his creation – above all else. Using substances that endanger our lives is the opposite of loving ourselves. Loving creation means getting to know where and how creation can help us to survive. Creation is there to serve us, and we are there to serve creation. Forget about dominion. I am told that the Hebrew verb used by God in his charge to Adam and Eve to cultivate the earth is the some word that Joshua uses in his farewell address to the Israel people: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Back to the “Seek first the Kingdom” mandate that Jesus gave us. It is not surprising that the church has not pursued this. It is perhaps his most puzzling statement. Perhaps seeking the kingdom was possible in his age and time, when matters were simple and straightforward. Then all food was organic, damage to creation minimal. Then people lived in community, often sharing food and residing close to each other, with weddings that lasted 7 days, funerals that involved the entire community.
Today matters are so different. It used to be that in my neck of the woods, before automobiles, people depended on their neighbors. From where I live I can see across the road a house where a trucker lives who parks his rig there on weekends. I don’t have a clue what he looks like. The only people I really know are the ones I see in church on Sundays and often during the week for various activities, and they live all over the place.
So how do we go about seeking the Kingdom together and, as a community, seek salvation? Frankly I must confess I have very little to say about it.

I have headed this column with the word Resilience. The word ‘resilience’ implies that we have our defenses ready, that we know what to do when the ‘last things’ start knocking at our doors, when the Apocalypse comes calling without warning, the prelude to the coming of the perfect Kingdom.
Sorry for not being more clear-cut. I am as much at a loss as you are, perhaps even more so, but it is a situation I am struggling with because I know one of these days or years we are confronted with Collapse. Will we be ready? Will I be ready?

MAY 10 2015

TIPPING POINTS

May 10 1940 is a date I will never forget. Seventy five years ago on that day I woke up with the news that Germany had invaded my country, the Netherlands. The weather was fabulous and, as an almost 12 year old, I remember sitting on a little brick wall in front of a large open space, watching the contours of the inner city, while a single German plane hummed overhead. The next day my younger brother and I walked to the Great Market of Groningen – 45 km from Germany – watching the victorious Hitler army entering, fully mechanized, trucks full of fierce-looking soldiers and lots of motorcycles with attached side-seats: already a military brass band was playing up-beat marches in the center of the square.
The Netherlands- and Europe- was never the same after that: a true tipping point. So, what is a Tipping Point? It is “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.”
Why do I broach this topic at this time? Frankly I feel in my bones that we are on the verge of momentous changes in society. I know that Malcolm Gladwell has written a book with the title of Tipping Points. I have not read it, but looked up a summary, and that was enough. My approach will be completely different.
There are some famous sayings referring to Tipping Points such as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and “the last drop that makes the cup run over”. That indicates that Tipping Points are unpredictable and usually caused by very small and unexpected events. This makes me wonder whether my prediction that a huge global tipping point is at hand, is wrong. On the other hand, I trust my gut feelings.

I chose the topic because of what I wrote in my daily journal based on a bible text. On April 28 the text was Jeremiah 31: 33, where it says that “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”
Here is what came out of my pen: “To have the law in our minds and written on our hearts is not something that comes out of the blue, but has a long time in the making: it is the end result of something that has accumulated over the years. One of the blessings of growing older is that we can gain more knowledge which may lead to wisdom, but only when there is a willingness to listen to God’s voice and an openness to see his creation as holy. To me this suggests that somewhere in my life there was a tipping point – call it conversion- which came unannounced but now keeps on arriving as I learn more and more.” So far my Journal entry.
Part of my ‘conversion’ involved a new lifestyle, not only a proper diet and a work-out regime, but also peace of mind and loving myself, my fellow humans as well as all of creation. The Greek word for ‘conversion’ is ‘metanoia’ which literally means “a turn-around of one’s mind,” thus a drastic change. And, indeed, over the years my new life has involved swearing off smoking, starting a running regime, becoming a vegetarian, moving from the city to a rural place and building an energy efficient home, heated with wood and equipped with solar panels. I know ‘conversion’ is different for each person. We all have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because having the law of the Lord written on our hearts and minds is a matter of many facets.

A Biblical Approach

The Bible, the Old and New Testament, contains many tipping points. One of them starts smack in the beginning. In Genesis 4: 14 Cain, after killing his brother Abel, complains to God that “whoever finds me will kill me.” That is a clear indication that Adam and Eve were not the first human beings. I think that they were taken by God out of the existing human race, at a certain tipping point: that point being the time where humanity was at a crucial juncture, where they were about to do irreparable damage to creation. So God singled out Adam and Eve to make a significant change, placed his law in their hearts and put them in a pristine park where they could learn how to live eternally, in a steady state – gatherer- economy without damaging creation. We know it did not work out.
The next tipping point came when Noah was chosen to make a new beginning. Again the old, old story: people forgetting about the God-Creator and out to enrich themselves at the expense of others and creation. So Noah was chosen to start a new beginning.
The Tower of Babel was another example how an altogether new society came into being, one that led to world-wide emigration, fomenting new ideas and new forms of art. We should not underestimate the changes wrought by the emerging of new languages and new culture. We now experience the opposite as dying languages spell the death of old cultures. The inroads of the English language as the Lingua Franca, as the expression goes, means cultural stagnation, a tipping point toward death. Somewhere in the Bible Jesus mentions that in the House of the Lord are many mansions. That to me suggests great cultural variety. The Lord loves immense choice and fecundity in everything. Every snowflake has its own pattern: every human being is unique. Our secular world wants uniformity, something we have to fight: Long live diversity, “Vive la difference”, as the French say. The Tower of Babel Tipping Point back with us in the form of racial strife everywhere.
The Exodus was another tipping point. When Moses led the expanded clan of Jacob – also named Israel – out of Egypt a new nation was born which, to this day influences the course of history in very significant ways. For this people which God called his own and out of which his Son would come forth – yes, Jesus was 100 percent Jew – the temple was their life, because God ruled them directly – something we call a ‘theocracy’. However, the notion that they were God’s people gave the Israelites a feeling of superiority, making them believe that nothing could possible end this state of affairs. After all, the Ark was God’s very symbol, placed in a temple room accessible only once a year by the High Priest. How could the temple possibly be taken! Yet it happened. In the year 587 Before Christ the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem was a dramatic tipping point. Today we can compare it to 9/11, the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 where too the USA encountered a crisis from which it will never recover.

The Central Tipping Point

The central tipping point in the history of the world is the coming of Jesus, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. Without His sacrifice there would never be hope for a renewed world and the return of the redeemed of the Lord. When he died the curtain in the Temple ripped from top to bottom, spelling the end of Judaism and the beginning of the Gospel for all people.
We are now in the Last of Days. All other tipping points after Jesus must be seen in that light. The year 313 was one of them, when Christianity became the official religion in the Western World with Emperor Constantine adopting the New Way. Another came when, in 1517, Luther on October 31 pinned his 95 theses on the church in Wittenberg and so openly challenged the degenerated ecclesiastical regime of that day.

Is the election of Pope Frances a tipping point? Good question. His priority to go to bat for the poor and to agitate against Climate Change has upset the billionaires who now refuse to donate big bucks to such projects as the $175 million renovation of the New York City cathedral, annoying the local cardinal who prefers a monument in his honor. Remember the definition of Tipping Point: “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.” The Pope is influential but when it comes to changing the minds of people, he is powerless. So there is no tipping point there.
We now await with a degree of trepidation the future Tipping Points, heralding the Second Coming. There are several minor ones waiting to happen. Water is one of them.

By now, just about everyone in California and elsewhere knows that it requires a gallon of water to grow a single almond, or that much of the green stuff we eat and the fruit we consume comes from the Sunshine state where no water means no food. Water certainly has the potential for an enormous Tipping Point, but so has the dying off of bees. Remember Peak Oil? It’s still very much with us today and will soon also become a real threat to the world’s well-being. Should I mention Climate Change? Loss of top soil? A pandemic? Global Debt?

The Tipping Point of All Tipping Points is soon to come: the Second Coming of Jesus. Handel in his oratorio “The Messiah” has an aria which has been taken directly from Malachi 3: 2, “But who can endure the Day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap…..Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace.”
Revelation 18 specifically points to today’s capitalists: (verse 11) “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her (the source of their ill-gotten gains) because no one buys their cars and ATVs and Apple watches, and Gucci bags and Rolexes……….. they will weep (verse 19) in one hour the economic system has been brought to ruin.”

In 1972 I had a personal Tipping Point reading “Limits to Growth” by Dennis Meadows. Recently that same author was interviewed by the German weekly Der Spiegel.

Der SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Meadows, 40 years ago you published “The Limits to Growth” together with your wife and colleagues, a book that made you the intellectual father of the environmental movement. The core message of the book remains valid today: Humanity is ruthlessly exploiting global resources and is on the way to destroying itself. Do you believe that the ultimate collapse of our economic system can still be avoided?

Meadows: The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great that they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.

My comments: He says that Capitalism has a momentum of its own that is unstoppable, with the inevitable result of collapse.
Meadows continued:
You see, there are two kinds of big problems. One I call universal problems, the other I call global problems. They both affect everybody. The difference is: Universal problems can be solved by small groups of people because they don’t have to wait for others. You can clean up the air in Hanover without having to wait for Beijing or Mexico City to do the same.

Global problems, however, cannot be solved in a single place. There’s no way Hanover can solve climate change or stop the spread of nuclear weapons. For that to happen, people in China, the US and Russia must also do something. But on the global problems, we will make no progress.

With a growing population and a growing average per capita consumption, both energy demand and pollution keep rising, until a crisis occurs. We may have good intentions, but we utterly fail when it comes to solutions. And if we fail with regards to energy, we fail when it comes to the climate and our broader living environment, also known as the earth.

All this means that the return of the Lord will be preceded by immense disasters, the likes of which the world never experienced before. Even though the Day and the Hour are not known, Jesus told us to be on the alert because the signs are all too evident.

MAY 3 2015

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” – Churchill

Many people now are beginning to consider moving away from California, Nevada, Arizona and other drought-stricken regions. But where should they go? Many people now are beginning to consider moving away from ocean front as hurricanes, typhoons, weather in general will make it extremely hazardous to live near large water bodies. But where should they go? Many people now are beginning to consider moving away from fire-prone forested areas. But where should they go?
We are entering a period of serious consequences. The Global Warming of the atmosphere increases the number of times temperatures reach extreme levels which, in turn, evaporates more water from the oceans. It is from this hotter, wetter background that extreme weather events emerge. To make it worse heat waves and prolonged rainy periods, hurricanes and tornadoes will also occur more often anywhere and everywhere.
Tens of millions of people will be affected: Thirty Eight Million live in California alone and many other millions in Arizona with Phoenix and Nevada with Las Vegas, all situated in deserts, all artificially sustained by disappearing water. Perhaps California can turn to the ocean and desalinate the Pacific, but only at enormous cost in both money and pollution. Already monthly water bills there run into hundreds of dollars. Perhaps the BIG ONE will hit the West Coast as it did in 1906 near San Francisco which killed 3000 and destroyed almost the entire city. When that does, the earthquake will rupture the water supply system and deprive untold millions of one of life’s most needed resources.

And then there is the problem of rising oceans with the Cities of New York, Boston and the entire Florida Peninsula at risk. Add another 50 million there. And that is only in North America. The Netherlands is almost entirely below sea level.
We have entered a phase in the life of the world were anything is possible. Millions of people around the globe have already been on the move: forced by war, by drought, by desertification, by just too many people crowded out by tired soil, by relentless sunshine, by dry wells, by greedy landlords. James Lovelock, in his book The Revenge of Gaia writes: “We have driven the Earth to a crisis state from which it may never, on a human time scale, return to the lush and comfortable world we love and in which we grew up.”

How long can we still exist in a world where, in order to feed ourselves and to equip us with our toys and weapons we have already abused close to 50 percent of the Earth’s surface? Mother Theresa, that saintly woman, in 1988 said, “Why should we care about the Earth when our duty is to the poor and the sick among us. God will take care of the Earth.” That sounds pretty pious, and, yes, Jesus gives us that very same advice (see Matthew 25: 35-40). But that was at a time when the entire world had less than 300 million people, a number the earth could easily support. Now we have 25 times that many, and in the Earth God gave us – this Holy place- our greed is causing poverty and sickness, is fostering famine and desertification. That’s why our Christian priority must change: yes we must help the environmental refugees, now numbering in the millions, but our first commitment is to remedy the cause, is fighting Climate Change. This year 2015 will be a decisive one for the world. From every direction perils threaten: economic, ecological, environmental, and electoral.
While I am writing this tears spring in my eyes. My heart is heavy. This year we will see another UN sponsored meeting on Climate Change: COP 21. The “21” stands for the number of previous ‘climate’ meetings, held somewhere in the world. In the year 2000 I was present at the COP 11 in The Hague. It was possible for me to attend this 10 day long gathering because one of my brother lives in that beautiful city where 40 percent within its boundaries is mature forests. To me COP 21 (the acronym stands of Conference of the Parties) conveys the age of maturity. Having reached the age of ‘21’ makes persons totally liable for their actions, because it indicates a coming of age and ability to embrace responsibility. If the previous 20 meetings are any indication – they accomplished little or nothing – then Number 21 might well be the last one. Why meet when nothing concrete happens? The airlines benefit and hotels and the food caterers as thousands of delegates from 198 countries gather to debate, pose for the TV cameras for the benefit of the home crowd, and make empty promises. The situation boils down to dollars and cents: economic growth is required to pay for the trillions of debts contracted to pay for pensions and health benefits in an aging world. The basic problem is that infinite growth is not possible in our finite earth.

The world faces painful dilemmas. Carbon-based energy is the culprit. We as a civilization are all too much like somebody addicted to a drug that will kill us if continued and kill us also if suddenly withdrawn.

Here is what the French Foreign minister writes. He will chair the next UN COP 21 in Paris.
“The climate has always posed threats to security. Climate disruption upsets the full range of economic and social equilibrium — and it therefore threatens countries’ internal security.
“In France, for example, historians have shown that disastrous weather in 1788 caused the food crisis that contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution. More recently, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc that led to disturbances in civil order and the deployment of the army on American soil.
“Beyond borders, climate change can stoke international conflict over the control of vital and increasingly scarce resources — particularly water. Examples of this include the tensions among Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Nile and its tributaries, between Israel and its neighbors over the Jordan River basin, and among Turkey, Syria and Iraq over the Euphrates.”

We know the consequences. We refuse to face them.
We are entering a period of consequences.
Matthew 24 in the New Testament warns us that the last of days will see (verse 7) “famines and earthquakes in various places. Verse 8:”all these are the beginning of birth pains,” signaling the onset of the New Creation.
This past week I saw a striking picture in the Guardian: A Buddha image amid the broken bricks from a collapsed temple in Nepal where thousands were killed. This for me was a symbol of the crumbling of religion everywhere.

I am old enough to remember the years leading up to World War II. Everybody knew that something ominous was opening up, but ‘appeasement’ was the word most in vogue. Chamberlain, returning from a trip to Hitler in his retreat somewhere in Bavaria uttered the famous words, ”Peace in our time.” That was in 1939. We know what happened: this was followed by a war which claimed 60 million lives.
Today we are in a similar situation, except that the stakes are immensely higher: the lives of the entire 7+ billion world population are at stake.

The earth is fighting back and, believe me, the earth will come out the winner. Again the Socrates dualism is rearing its devastating head. The earth is not pure dead matter. The Psalms repeatedly picture our world as a living entity: mountains leaping like calves, trees clapping their hands, hills jumping for joy. Romans 8 features the most human-like comparison: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (verse 22). I love that sentence.

One of the most telling Bible passages is Isaiah 24, “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up and very few are left.”

What does it mean: the everlasting covenant?
It all goes back to the beginning, to Genesis 9. There are these marvelous words, “I now establish a covenant with you…. And with every living creature that was with you, the birds – now down by 50 percent – the livestock – now imprisoned as so much poisoned meat – all the wild animals – also down by half or more – every living creatures on earth – yes, fish, whales, polar bears, you name them.
A covenant is a treaty between people of equal status such as in marriage. In this creational covenant God treats us as equals, giving us charge of the Living Earth, but we have broken the covenant: that’s why matters are backfiring on us: Climate Change is the result, one of the many disasters we face.
In the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, God laid out how we as ‘owners’ of the world should live. Yes, I say ‘owners’. Psalm 115:16 explicitly says that “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to humanity.” By granting full possession of the earth the Lord laid down a few ground rules. A small example found in Deuteronomy 20: 19, involving trees. “When you lay siege to a city… do not destroy its trees.” Trees are life. I simply love Revelation 22, which starts with the amazing words: “The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” I have read somewhere that we, in North America, enjoying the highest standard of living, need 4500 trees each to provide us with oxygen. People elsewhere need much less. To combat Climate Change we need trees, and, I am sorry to say, my country Canada, has the highest tree-killing record in the world, all in the name of Economic Growth. Lack of trees causes erosion, which forces people to relocate. Just last month saw almost a Thousand Africans drowned in the Mediterranean Sea: looking for greener pastures.

The word ‘Mediterranean’ means ‘in the Center of the Earth’. The entire history of the world has taken place around the shores of that sea. History started there. Will it also end there? The drownings there are a symbol of a world that is disappearing. Europeans have exploited the African side of that region, have for the longest time seen its black population as inferior, equal to animals, and treated them as such and their lands as well. Now these people are desperate: we have brought them the Western religion, destroyed their tribal cohesion, disrupted their sustainable way of life and now they come knocking at Fortress Europe, asking for repayment which we are denying because in spite of its riches, the European Union with 500 million people has never been more indebted than today.
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

Just as the fallen Buddha image in Nepal indicates, we have abandoned our Gods and have fallen for worthless idols that are out to destroy us. The Bible is pretty outspoken on this score. The Five books of Moses describe the Flood, because of the godlessness then. It tells the story of Sodom and Gomorra, destroyed because of its wickedness. It relates the disappearance of the 10 tribes of Israel, and later the exile of the 2 remaining tribes because they abandoned the Covenant. Both Matthew 24 and Revelation outline the ultimate destruction, already now evident everywhere.
The real climate that has to change is the climate in our hearts. That is something the COP 21 will not deal with. COP stands for the Conference of the Parties. All these parties, 198 of them, lack a unified view. The rich will want to retain their riches – the reason why Europe doesn’t want desperate Africans. The poor want to emulate the wasteful Western life. Stalemate is the predictable outcome. COP should stand for Christians Opposing Pollution. Polluting is the misuse of the name of the Lord, and, says Exodus 20: 7: “the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

Beware: we are entering the period of consequences.