Uniting to help the environment

What with all the bad news these days---from the Middle East (ISIS) to the NFL (domestic violence) ---it’s nice to hear some good news. This one comes from Mother Nature herself in cooperation with some people intent on helping her.

It seems the ozone layer is getting better.

A team of 300 scientists working for the United Nations has concluded that the ozone layer is showing the most significant recovery since 1989. The ozone layer has been thinning since the late 1970s. That’s because human-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigerants and aerosol cans released chlorine and bromine into the atmosphere, destroying ozone molecules 30-50 miles high in the air. When scientists warned the public of the danger, countries around the world agreed in 1987 to phase out CFCs.  It took time but voila, it actually worked--- at least partially. The ozone layer isn't completely healed, by any means. Scientists calculate that it’s still 6% thinner that it was in 1980, and a yearly fall ozone hole appears above the extreme Southern Hemisphere.

But this is a sign of hope. It’s not just that we have a healthier ozone layer that can better shield us from skin cancer and crop damage. This news underscores the fact that people working together can halt an environmental crisis.

Professor and chemist Mario Molina, who along with F. Sherwood Rowland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their study on the diminishing ozone crisis, said the news about the improvement in the ozone level is “a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together.”

That should certainly invigorate those heading to the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit next week. Such a meeting is urgent: The U.N. reported recently that atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases surged to another record high in 2013, the increase from  2012 being the biggest one in 30 years.

The U.N. Climate Summit plans to bring in over 100 heads of state, along with CEOs and other leaders from around the world. The U.N. Secretary General is optimistic that the Summit will jump start U.N. climate treaty talks.

The Summit will be preceded on September 21 by what is being called the People’s Climate March. Thousands of demonstrators from more than a  1,000 organizations  representing millions of people will march in New York City, demanding that world leaders  take action to address human-driven climate change. They are hoping the march will do for the environmental movement what the 1963 March on Washington did for the Civil Rights Movement. The demonstrators won’t have a list of demands but simply want world leaders to realize the absolute necessity of taking action against global warming.

The People’s March is a result of grassroots activism. World leaders and big corporations still don’t seem to get that people really do care about the environment in general and global warming in particular. They are wearied with dilly dallying world leaders and governments.

Working together, people can make a difference.

Indeed, they already have.

A few months ago local communities in New York won their appeal over the billion dollar fracking industry. Fracking is a technique used to extract gas from deep within the earth. Some believe fracking has resulted in damage to the environment including poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and earthquakes.

Dryden, New York’s Town Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner said, “The oil and gas industry tried to bully us into backing down, but we took our fight all the way to New York’s highest court. And we…won.”  Sumner hopes the court’s action will inspire people in other states who are “trying to do what’s right for their own communities.”

Indeed, communities in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California are taking action to guard against the environmental and public health threats of a deregulated fracking industry.

And in my little part of the world, a group of Catholic nuns, the Sisters of Loretto in Marion County, Kentucky, led the charge several months ago, galvanizing opposition that defeated a proposed pipeline carrying potentially hazardous materials through Kentucky.

Neither the nations that banned CFCs, nor the communities in New York that opposed fracking, nor the Sisters of Loretto were certain their efforts would bear fruit.

But they did it anyway because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Let’s hope the actions of the people gathering for the People’s Climate March and those convening at the U.N. Climate Summit will bear fruit as well.

If nations lose this opportunity to unite against global warming, our earth may, in the not so distant future, have little fruit to bear.

Road rage, air rage: a common cause?

The driver cut in front of me, honking his horn while sticking his middle finger out his car window, pointing it in my direction. 

“What’s he so mad about?” I remember asking myself.

I had apparently failed to move fast enough when the light for the right-turn lane signaled green.

That wasn't the first time someone had so visibly disapproved of my driving.  I admit I’m not NASCAR driving material. I once had a friend tell me that driving with me was like being a passenger with Mr. Magoo at the wheel.

But I somehow felt that if the road rage guy could have met me, maybe let me buy him a cup of coffee, he wouldn't have been so enraged.

It’s easier to lash out at people when we depersonalize them. 

I’m not the best shopping cart driver either. I’m sure I've been guilty of blocking an aisle without realizing it, and several times I've almost collided into another shopper as I've turned a corner too quickly. But I've never had anyone in the grocery store gesture to me like the road rage guy did. In the supermarket, we work it out with a simple smile and an “Excuse me.”

I suspect the same is true for the recent incidents of air rage on commercial flights.

In one instance, a man was using the Knee Defender, a small plastic device that airplane passengers can use to keep the person seated in front of them from reclining their seat.  The flight attendant asked the man using the Knee Defender to remove it. When he refused (at 6 ft. 2 in. tall he said if the person in front of him reclined, he couldn't use his laptop), the passenger in front of him threw a glass of water on him. That flight from Newark to Denver was diverted to Chicago.

Another flight from Miami to Paris was diverted to Boston when one man began screaming at the passenger in front of him because of the reclining seat.

A lady on a flight from New York to Palm Beach, Fla., decided to relax by doing a little knitting (How do you get knitting needles on a plane?) and reclined her seat.  But the lady in the seat behind her had rested her head on the tray table. She didn't appreciate being smacked on the head with the reclining seat. A shouting match ensued, and the plane was diverted to Jacksonville, Fla.

I’m not a frequent flyer, but I've flown enough to know traveling by air is no fun anymore. By the time passengers take their seats, they've waited through a security line, removed their shoes, had their belongings checked, submitted to a scan and in some cases been patted down, boarded a crowded plane and quickly squeezed into a seat with limited space. (Airlines are packing more seats on planes, shrinking the space for travelers.)

Air rage is just waiting to happen.

Both road rage and air rage have this much in common: They require a degree of depersonalization.

I've never read about an airline passenger screaming at the person seated next to them because someone invaded their elbow space. It’s easier to imagine evil motives in that person seated in front or behind you that you can’t see than it is in the person whose shoulder touches yours.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, passing by you in a blur or hidden behind tinted windows, they can easily become a jerk, plain and simple, rather than what they might really be were you to meet them in the grocery store: a frazzled single mom perhaps or maybe an exhausted construction worker too tired to pay attention.

The man who used the Knee Defender later admitted he had not handled his anger appropriately, told his sons he wanted to be a better father, and encouraged them to learn from his failure. And the lady whose head rested on the tray later said she was overly emotional because two of her dogs had just died.

If passengers could see their agitators as people---people with dogs and cats, and children, people who have failed and want to do better---perhaps they would be slower to get angry and quicker to be kind and gentle.

I hope people remember that when they see me getting in the driver’s seat of my car.

Will the real straw man please stand up?

Sometimes seemingly small matters turn out to have bigger implications than you originally thought.

Take for example the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority’s preliminary approval for state tax incentives for the Noah’s theme park in Northern Kentucky.  It seems like a small matter, especially in light of the fact that the park will likely boost tourism in the area.  

Who could possibly object to that?

The Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Indeed the organization is making a big deal about it. As reported by Tom Loftus of the Courier-Journal, Americans United objected in a letter to Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear that the theme park’s parent organization, Answers in Genesis, engages in religious discriminatory hiring practices since applicants must profess “…that homosexuality is a sin on par with bestiality and incest, that the earth is only 6,000 years old, and that the Bible is literally true in order to be considered for the job.”

But Ark Encounter (Noah’s Ark theme park) has not yet written their hiring policies.

Ken Hamm, President/CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis, noted that much in a recent blog, accusing Americans United of setting up a Straw Man. A Straw Man is what one side in a debate does when one party attacks a position not held by the other side, demolishes it, and then claims to have refuted the opposition.

Since Ark Encounter hasn't determined its hiring practices, Americans United, according to Hamm, has set up a Straw Man: “Because the Ark Encounter hasn't even set up its hiring policies yet and has not employed anyone, AU has written to the governor and other state officials to tell them we will be breaking laws (even though no laws have been broken), and, therefore, we should be denied the tax refund incentive,” says Hamm. 

However, Americans United noted that Answers in Genesis’ website has a job posting for a computer design technician specifically for Ark Encounter which stipulates that applicants need to supply a written statement of faith regarding their beliefs about creation and stating that they must agree with Answers in Genesis’ Statement of Faith.

If that policy is still in place, Americans United certainly has a right to be concerned, and Hamm is being disingenuous.

Hamm argues that that his organization should have hiring practices that include a statement of faith from applicants. Answers in Genesis, just like Americans United, have, according to Hamm, “the freedom because of the Statement of Faith of the organization to require employees to adhere to that statement.  I’m sure AU wouldn't want to employ a biblical creationist like me as its head, and AiG wouldn't employ an atheist!”

But it is here that Hamm misses the point and in doing so sets up a Straw Man himself, for Americans United’s letter to the Governor was not to object to either Answers in Genesis’ or Ark Encounter’s statements of faith. It is the concern that a religious organization will receive tax incentives while maintaining religious discriminatory hiring policies. (Ark Encounter would be eligible for sales tax rebates of up to $18.25 million over 10 years.)

Let’s be clear here: This is not an “atheist vs. believer,” or a “secularist vs. religious” issue, though Hamm may want you to believe otherwise.

Americans United is not the only organization that objects to tax incentives for organizations that promote religion.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty advocates that “taxpayer funds should not be used in a way that advances or promotes religion…”

Baptists have historical roots as a persecuted sect in 17^th century England and Colonial America. They experienced firsthand the danger of a united church and state. Like the founding fathers, they understood that separation of church and state is the best way to protect liberty of conscience.

The larger issue, therefore, is whether a theme park promoting a particular religion and its views about the Bible should receive tax incentives at all, no matter what their hiring practices are.

Receiving tax dollars to promote religion is no a small matter.

That’s the real issue here. If Muslims, or Hindus, or Buddhists or any religious group wanted to establish theme parks celebrating stories in their sacred books and at the same time wanted to accept tax incentives, the objection from Americans United would, I hope, be the same.

It should be.

Plain and simple.

There’s no Straw Man in that.