Obama in Copenhagen: From an Embarrassment of American Riches to a 'Great Turning'

While it is nice that President Obama will appear in Copenhagen, a touch of good time at the end of talks on climate change (and not just as a sidebar to collect his Nobel Prize in Oslo), keep in mind that, as In practice, what is leading to Copenhagen is a lump of coal.

I say this because, in order to save face, his administration simply made up a number for a gradual reduction in U.S. due to emissions of CO2. But the President is going to Denmark with any of the companies U.S. Congress as evidenced by objective, not U.S. policy for action on climate change. Furthermore, the administration made modest number is embarrassingly far more modest than the reduction schedule radical climate change science and the "decent opinion of mankind" (the old Jefferson Standard), both now claim.

None of this, I stress, is the fault of the president. The reality and the reputation of the United States as an energy hog going back centuries. Seventeenth-century European, settlers simply could not get out of the abundance of what they saw on these shores from their small boats: forests incredibly high, which immediately began to strip and burn. The rich coal seams in the eastern hills after the revolution of steam power unleashed here, followed by a flood of black gold after 1859, Edwin Drake strikes oil in Pennsylvania. Things got completely out of control when small-scale (what we would today call "sustainable") gave way to agriculture, industrial agriculture boosts oil, making a practice that enriches the soil when done correctly in an industry extraction nightmare in itself.

Dominion-lite

Faced with inexhaustible resources, Wendell Berry observed, Americans bought a "cheap energy mind" that is very much alive and in force despite any service we provide to the lips and ecological conservation of the planet. Of course, bad religion plays an important role in this since, historically, most Christians in America, probably bought in the idea that God gives humans "dominion" over the order of creation (Gen . 1:28), who invites us to "fill the earth and subdue it."

The later the Christian idea of human land management is a bit better. Dominion-lite "is what I call it. In the theology of the administration, we are still in charge, but we must ensure it does not totally trash things immediately. It's still really well in reducing the ancient trees, for example, while we make sure to leave some new pine seedlings between the massive trunks dead.

Both the "domain" and the views of government responsible not only reflect an anthropocentrism without examination, but a fundamental and decisive premise that what happens here on planet Earth, not so much. And it is this small planet, pretty as it is not our ultimate home. As the old gospel tune whistling says, "The angels attract me open sky, because I can not feel at home in this world, nothing more."

The Bible assured Americans that God created human beings "a little lower than the angels", with Europe and America, even humans favored over others because (c'mon - look!) Landed on all this wealth. What eventually happens to the energy-rich-people whose lifestyles are fed, literally, organic life on earth of the past in the form of oil-is that these people grow up addicted to energy in unlimited applications. There is no doubt that Americans' concern in the fable, the lack of stability in our lives is deeply linked to the ability of internal combustion engines to power a "cabin" on all four wheels on the pavement. One case even one can say that all our other addictions are bright and qualified, to some extent by underlying addiction to oil.

Copenhoggin '

So if cheap energy and cheap energy mind that got us into this mess, how are we to find a way out?

The only way out is unethical, and at every level of what it means to live ethically. We could start at the top with our president's mission in Denmark. He gets there with the embarrassment of riches not consumed, one could say the stolen wealth that Americans enjoy. It also comes with the Nobel Peace Prize in his pocket, and surely knows how much the future peace of the world depends on a more fair and more moderate of land resources.

There would certainly be a wave of protests from the Energy Hog Lobby back home, but the president could do the ethical in Copenhagen, could announce that the U.S. not only put on a diet of aggressive energy, but also the head of the developed world in making the huge investments required (a) to compensate the poorest and most vulnerable to emergency needs that are now facing because climate change, and (b) to allow poor countries to leave behind their way to a clean energy future.

This scenario is highly unlikely, of course, but is not unimaginable, and is a good thing to imagine. In relation to national public policy, the ethical way is even clearer and more feasible. Reducing emissions We must build a powerful public voice to say that industry-sponsored "cap and trade" approaches to reduce emissions are not only flawed but fraudulent that the only way to abandoning the overdependence on fossil fuels is the mandate imposed by sector, coupled with strong carbon tax, without which we will not turn over all. This is how adults deal with the real and present danger posed by addiction to cheap energy. And at least some adults need to begin to speak.

Surviving or thriving?

Then there is the personal moral challenge of life on earth more lightly. In this case, alert to the religious leaders can do much more, and that could help lift the blanket of fear of turning Great necessary that we have to be around. See Too many people burn less energy and reduce their carbon footprint as a sacrifice. Wise leaders know that faith is the opposite: that greater stability winning (in the original sense of stability: the non-movement) will become a form of blessing. They know they pay more attention to the world on foot, not mounted, for example, or perhaps by planting and tending a garden, backyard could open people's minds to a greater reverence and humility and joy.

We can picture this return to the mainland on earth as a kind of spiritual homecoming, as a much needed and long delayed healing the deep wound that Americans gave to ourselves when we dig into our hyper travelers. True, not really going to intensify the climate change challenge without learning how to direct our desires, but also know that redirect our desires to what is more beautiful and more nourishing than mindless consumerism is a very good thing.

Artists and visionaries have always known that stripping is not essential and distracting to see and celebrate what is beautiful and true. Now the rest of us are about to take the same trip. And although we do more by necessity than by choice, however, to expect to enjoy to enjoy it deeply in our bones, so to speak. The hair-shirt scolds climate change tell us that a radical change in our energy consumption is only survive on a planet that is already more than four times the human population which led in 1900. And yes, this radical change is human survival. However, our deepest religious sensitivity is also known to be flourishing spiritual significance.