Day 2: Smoke, Gas, and Drought
Chapter one outlines the various issues facing our common home, the Earth. In the first two sections alone, Pope Francis calls forth many facts (such as “Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity” from paragraph 24) without any citations. I considered writing down each unsupported fact and documenting it, but then I realized I need to go to work tomorrow morning and already skipped some chores to write this. Instead, I’m going to touch on some specifics of the three main issues discussed in this section: pollution, climate change, and water scarcity.
Disclaimer: I realize that not everyone has access to a campus library or the resources of a large research company, and thus, most of the articles I’m going to cite won’t be available in full text. In these cases, I’m going to try to supply some other fact sheets from reputable sources.
Pollution:
Most of us know about those big evil industries that produce pollutants** and likely, couldn’t name them nor do we have a clue how those behemoths can be stopped. So instead, let’s focus on one of the “smaller” scale pollutants Pope Francis mentions:
Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths. People take sick, for example, from breathing high levels of smoke from fuels used in cooking or heating.
I don’t think, as Americans, we realize this one. Sure Dad might hack a lung making BBQ for 4th of July, but that’s only once (or eight) times a year. I had the opportunity to teach about cool, environmentally friendly engineering a few years back and we used this clean-burning stove as an example. They have some interesting (read: heartbreaking) assertions on their website that I was unable to fact check. I did however find this EPA article on health effects of wood burning stoves and an article on indoor air pollution from the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The EST article has its first page open access and mentions that a non-airtight stove can release 8 ppm carbon monoxide (CO) in the air. According to this handy chart by Iowa State University, that is close to the maximum allowable concentration for an 8-hour period in any year but not enough to set off your smoke alarm. Admittedly, the article doesn’t really support the idea that wood burning stoves are oh so terrible. However, imagine that stove being completely open, stuck in a small house, and with a woman laboring half the day over food, which is common in other countries. Then you can see what a problem that build-up is.
Climate change:
I think everyone already has an opinion on this one: whether its scientifically or politically based, I can’t be sure. So instead, I’m just dropping some fancy Nature and Science articles. These two journals, by the way, are some of the most well regarded in industrial and academic fields.
From Science, we have a comparison of various green house gases, their contributions, and how they are effected by human activity.
This Nature article discusses modeling climate change to see what factors are historic and which are man-made.
Again, those of us in well watered areas don’t really think of this one (until we’re knee deep in it, right California?). I definitely never thought about it until meeting my best friend in the engineering program, who was interested in water purification technology and making a difference through Engineers Without Borders. If she didn’t remind me frequently enough, I also heard of this charity while at college. Water is Life Kenya will easily open your eyes to the effects of water scarcity, and how each of us can do our part to help one another. The charity was started by a woman who wanted to make a difference and now they currently serve 20,000 people.
If the personal accounts of lives being transformed by water don’t tug at you, I do have some science on the topic: in the late 1990s, the Internal water Managemt Institute released an article studying the projected water supply and demand for 118 countries for a 35 year period. The conclusions of the article include grouping the countries into absolute water scarcity and economic water scarcity. The absolute water scarcity group include places without sufficient resources to meet their need by 2025. The economic water scarcity grouping is for those countries that could meet it, if they did major redevelopment to use all of their available water. Large sections of the Middle East and southern Africa are denoted as absolute, with most of Africa and South America noted as the least likely to have sufficient water in the economic water scarcity group. All of that to say that water scarcity is no joke.
Ok, so all the articles aside, there’s enough literature on these topics alone to make your head spin. I tried to touch on some pro-active groups that are helping to face the human need with technology. But that doesn’t really answer the global need. Baby steps are likely in order.
I want to leave with two theological assertions made in this section:
“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.” (para. 23)
“ We have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production capable of preserving resources for present and future generations, while limiting as much as possible the use of non-renewable resources, moderating their consumption, maximizing their efficient use, reusing and recycling them. A serious consideration of this issue would be one way of counteracting the throwaway culture which affects the entire planet, but it must be said that only limited progress has been made in this regard.” (para. 22)
I think these are the best take-home points of this section/ From the first, we need to see these natural resources as a common good, meant for all people, so that we can start preserving them for our brothers and sisters as well as ourselves. And as for the second, we need to look hard at our actions and the way we participate in a throw-away culture. Not to blame the culture for our actions, but to take accountability and begin to change our own habits. Hopefully the culture will follow.