Sounds of Silence

Hi, PDX!

That 4-years-late White House report on climate change (see previous post) includes the following language:

Finally, climate change is very likely to accentuate the disparities already evident in the American health care system. Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured.

Increasingly, those categories describe my wife and me.

A February 2002 report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, titled "Degrees of Danger--Health Effects of Climate Change and Energy in Oregon", found much the same. Six years ago...

When the scientists are essentially telling us that climate change comes down to a matter of looking out for the poor and loving our neighbors as ourselves it reminds me of the lyrics of that Simon and Garfunkel song "Sounds of Silence":

And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls...

So even the scientists are telling us what would be the Christ-like thing to do. Then why for so long has addressing climate change been considered an idolatrous thing to do by so much of the church? Why is it still in many circles a sound of silence? And why, for God's sake (literally) has that been true of a so-called born again White House? Born to what?

Father, forgive us; for we know not what we do.

Shalom,

Pastor Roger