On Earth as it is in Hell

The sign in the middle of an Austin intersection said it all:  “Satan Called.  He wants his weather back.”

Yes, Texans have been suffering, and some perhaps are praying that the Devil would go back to hell with his fires, drought, and blistering heat.  They’re not alone, are they? Virtually everywhere, we are dealing with increasingly extreme weather, and it’s costing us heavily. But Texas is a special case.

Sign in Austin, TX street

How bad is it?  The statistics are numbing.  How fast can you bake cookies on a car dashboard in Waco?  How many consecutive days over 100 in the state?  How many billions in farm drought losses? How many counties declared disaster areas by the USDA?  How many cattle starved or destroyed? How many Texas wildfires visible from the International Space Station? How many hundreds of Texas homes destroyed by fire?

The answers are discouraging.  213 counties (almost all of them) are USDA disasters.  Forty-one straight days saw 100 plus heat.  $5.2 billion in agricultural losses, and counting. Texas wildfires this year have burned an area the size of Connecticut.  Since last Sunday, 1,626 homes have been destroyed in one Texas county alone. 

 

But maybe it’ll better better tomorrow, right?  Um, wrong.  Texas’ State Climatologist tells us it will likely be worse next year.  “I’ve started telling anyone who’s interested,” says Texas A&M’s  John Nielsen-Gammon, “ that it’s likely that much of Texas will still be in severe drought this time next summer, with water supply implications even worse than those we are now experiencing.”

135 years of TX heat/rainfall records: 2011 is the runaway winner (loser?)

Not everyone is interested, as Texas’ governor reminds us in his speeches.  But how long will he be able to ignore the scientists?  Not long, because there’s a word for drought that lasts multiple years: Dust Bowl.  In fact, “dust-bowl-ification” has become standard lingo among climatologists.

And if you think Texas scientists are simply wallowing in pessimism, I’ve got sobering news.  Research by scientists at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now tells us that we can’t reverse these weather effects of green house gas concentrations for more than 1,000 years.

There's no soil moisture left to create rains or slow fires

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon.  The result will be persistent and irreversible weather that is “comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in .. southwestern North America.”  That means Texas, among others.

And there’s a word for a Dust Bowl that stays around for 1,000 years:  Desert.

In case this hasn’t sunk in, 1,000 years is about 50 generations.  Fifty!  Name one terrible thing you can do today that your descendents will still be suffering for in fifty generations.  Not that easy, is it?

As you know, many of us pray this prayer every day: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  What a shock to look up from our prayer and find that our super-sized Western lifestyle has contributed to the conditions for hell on earth for us and for our distant descendants?

Is it too late to give Satan his weather back?  For the sake of countless generations to come, we must find an answer to that question. And perhaps we might rethink our prayer for God’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

‘Our Heavenly Father, may your name be honored; May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day the bread we need, Forgive us what we owe to you, as we have also forgiven those who owe anything to us. Keep us clear of temptation, and save us from evil.’   Jesus' prayer, from Matthew 6

More Images from Texas drought

Blackened skies over Texas, burnt homes

Drop the garden hose and run

Fenced livestock can't escape

Measures of soil dryness at top of scale for almost every Texas county

 

 

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You Are Now All Under Arrest …

“… No one may leave the secured area.”

With that, U.S. Park Police Lt. Marshall snapped off the megaphone, and walked back to the armored SWAT truck.

137 of us stood or sat completely still, in five ranks, with our backs to the White House’s iron pickets.  The time was 11:31, Thursday morning.  Ministers, retirees, college students, programmers, and farmers among many others awaiting search, handcuffing, and the paddy wagons bound for Anacostia and processing.  The first to go was a wheelchair-restricted woman named Lolly, who was taken away to thunderous applause of all of us awaiting our own turn, and of the hundreds of onlookers across the avenue in Lafayette Park.

Lolly, the first to be arrested

Next to me stood my brother, Christopher Elwood, a Presbyterian minister.  For the next three hours, our steadily diminishing band hoarsely belted out familiar tunes, reworked on the spot with lyrics to urge President Obama not to approve the Tar Sands pipeline from Canada to the Gulf.

 

The tar sands have been called the world’s filthiest fuel.  NASA’s lead scientist has warned that if the pipeline is built and the tar sands are mined, then for the global climate, “it’s game over.”

We were at the White House for many different reasons.  Most of us were older with kids, and nearly half could have been grandparents.  Most said they were there for them: the kids and grandchildren.  (For me, it was a little beauty named Clara Mae.)

137 lawbreakers demanding the President protect the earth

There were indigenous people who testified to skyrocketing cancer and illness rates in the tar sands region.  They told of hunting elk and moose which were covered with sores from toxic waste.  They told us of the utter destruction of their lands and waterways.

There were Midwesterners who rely on the Oglala Aquifer, over which the proposed pipeline will carry the toxic diluted bitumen.  They recounted the dozens of spills which have already plagued a smaller pipeline carrying tar sands fuel.  And they told of the Republican governor of Nebraska who has just come out against the tar sands for similar reasons.

Clothesline Report editor John Elwood

But all of us are indigenous to the earth that God has made for us.  And some of us were keenly aware that we are only tenants, and that this planet belongs to Him.  Even more, the Christians among us affirm that the earth is not principally our inheritance, but Christ’s.  We stood at the White House gates out of allegiance to the Savior to whom all things belong.

One placard captured a reality seen by all: “There is no Planet B.”

It took about three hours.  One by one, we were led away.  132 was Ted, a father from Portland; 133 was Tony, a recent college grad from Colorado.  Then the officer pointed at me.  As the plastic cuffs were tightened behind my back, I heard a few hands clapping, and my brother’s voice:  “Well done, John.”

Rev. Christopher Elwood

I looked back, and there stood Chris, solemn, smiling.  Two young men stood beside him: Sam, a college sophomore from Ohio; and Jeff, a systems programmer from DC. The final three to be taken.

As they led us to the wagon, the crowd behind the police barricade sang: “It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom, it’s the song about the love between my brothers and my sisters….”

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

More Tar Sands Action Photos 
All photos courtesy of Josh Lopez and Shadia Fayne Wood

Protesters crossing Lafayette Park to the White House

There's a law against this: Standing for climate justice

All kinds of people come together against tar sands pollution

Women first:  They arrested the men last

Dignity: Charles, a foreign affairs expert in his 70's

Never stop singing: Young man added his voice to ours while led away

Behind the barricade: Onlookers demanding a stop to the pipeline

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A Tar Sands Photo Album

A few days ago, I posted about the Tar Sands pipeline that President Obama is going to decide whether or not to permit.  Today, I thought I'd share some pictures to give you an idea of what's involved.

My Father's boreal forests

Almost one-third of the world's forest area are the massive sub-arctic boreal forests of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. 

The Lungs of our Father's Planet

The sub-arctic forests are so massive that they absorb huge amounts of carbon, and provide an irreplaceable source of oxygen.  But with the warming climate, the number of days with extremely cold temperatures has decreased, allowing better survival for tree-damaging insects such as the spruce-bark beetle.

But to some, the forest is simply in the way...

You can't get at the tar sands with all those life-sustaining trees in the way. The first step is to cut them down.

This used to be a rich ecosystem...

Here is an aerial shot of the results.

And here's what we're after...

With the trees gone, men can dig up the tarry substance under the soil, the results of eons of decay of plant matter -- carbon stored beneath he surface.  But it takes a lot of energy to turn it into oil, resulting in much greater emissions of CO2 than conventional oil.

To get it, we're clearing a massive area of God's boreal forest...

The area to be cleared is larger than the states of North Carolina or New York.

And when we're done, here what our Father's forest looks like...

Not a living thing remains on the blackened landscape.

Here's my Father's pristine northern river

The Athabasca River runs right through the tar sands region, and its water is diverted to process the mined tar sands so they can be shipped by pipeline.

Toxic water is stored in tailing ponds along the Athabasca

It takes centuries for the heavy metals in these tailing ponds to settle to the bottom.

Here's what the Athabsca's pristine waters look like afterward

The tailing ponds contain much, but not all the contaminants from processing bitumen for shipping through pipelines.

Here's what those toxins do to our Father's creatures in the river

Most pictures of tumorous and deformed aquatic life in the Athabasca are too nauseating for polite company.

Here's the route of the proposed pipeline bringing all that bitumen to the Gulf

A small pipeline already runs to the Midwest.  The new one will enable production and emissions to triple, and will take it to Houston, where the oil can be shipped abroad.

Here are some who care about our Father's world, being arrested

So far, more than 250 people who care about stewardship of the creation have been arrested at the White House this week. (Note: The final tally was 1,252 arrested.) They are demanding that our government protect the creation and withhold  permits for the pipeline.

Here is a congressman from our Father's state of Texas

Rep. Joe Barton has rejected the warnings issued by the National Academy of Science about severe global consequences from human-caused climate change.  The rest of the Texas delegation regularly votes with him against measures to protect God's creation.

Here is a Texas longhorn, emaciated from the crippling drought

So far this year, the drought, now predicted as a regular part of the new Texas climate, has cause $5.8 billion in agricultural losses, complete with the destruction of entire herds of cattle, and a USDA disaster classification in 215 Texas counties.

Some impacts are felt far from home

The increased heat and changed weather patterns has devastated the Horn of Africa.  We have watched in horror as failed rains have led to mass starvation in Somalia.  Climate models predict further drying and crop failures in the increasingly hot world of the next several decades.

Here's the man whom God can use to stop this

For the tar sands pipeline to be built, President Obama alone has to sign the permit.  He knows the scientific facts.  But he also knows the political facts:  Oil lobbies are already advertising heavily, equating the pipeline with prosperity and energy security.  But there is no prosperity and security in a world ravaged by reckless disruption of the systems our Father created to sustain His creatures.  Only short-term profits for a few wealthy and powerful people.

But this place belongs to our Father, not to them or anyone else.  And we belong to Him as well.  That's why we will be at the White House to ask the president to do the right thing.  Maybe you will join us?  Click here to find out how!

See you in Washington!

J. Elwood



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Help Us Stop the Tar Sands Pipeline!

Yesterday marked the first day of a two-week series of protests at the White House.  Here at the Clothesline Report, we’re following it closely, because three of us Elwood men will be there in about a week adding our voices to an effort to stop a terrible threat to our Father’s world.

What could be so bad as to make you travel to Washington and engage in civil disobedience, you’re wondering?

President Obama must decide this year whether or not to permit a huge pipeline splitting our entire country, from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, to carry “diluted bitumen,” a black gunk steamed out of Canadian “tar sands,” to be refined into oil by Gulf Coast refineries.  Powerful business interests are spending uncounted millions funding political campaigns, lobbying and advertising for the project, and they stand to reap unbelievable profits.

 

Protesters at the White House yesterday, before arrests

But North America and the rest of the world will suffer unimaginable losses if the project is permitted to go ahead.

And the oil money isn’t being wasted.  Hillary Clinton seems to have been won over.  The majority in Congress has long since drunk the tar sands Kool-Aid.  And now, the White House seems to be leaning their way too.  They’ve got the power and the money pulling for them.  We protesters have the facts … and we have our bodies.

The facts?  We don’t know of a single climate scientist who doesn’t regard the Alberta tar sands as anything other than a global-scale disaster.  According to the director emeritus of the Woods Hole Research Center, “the tar sands project is the exact antithesis of what the world needs.”  And NASA’s lead climate scientist has warned that if the pipeline is approved, “it’s essentially game over” for the climate.   More on that below.

Priest being handcuffed yesterday and led to jail

Our bodies?  So far, 162 peaceful protesters have been arrested; those bodies carted off in DC police vans.  This won’t stop for two more weeks, so I suspect that a lot more will see the inside of the Washington correctional system.

So, what’s so bad about the tar sands?   

Tar sands are pretty much the heavy gunk they sound like, and making liquid fuels from them requires huge amounts of energy for steam injection and refining. Canada is currently producing about one million barrels of oil a day from the tar sands, and that is projected to triple over the next two decades, if the pipeline gets built.  That means a huge increase in the amount of CO2 and toxins, far above the impact of traditional crude oil.

This used to be a virgin boreal forest in Alberta. Runoff water is toxic.

Studies vary, but no one disagrees that oil from tar sands results in huge increases in CO2 emissions compared with conventional petroleum.  Consultants for the oil companies say that it’s “only” 15% worse, while scientists’ estimates range from 36% worse to more than 200%.  Depending on whose numbers are most accurate (DON’T bet on the oilmen for transparent disclosure!), it would be like buying a Prius for the carbon benefits of 50 mpg efficiency, and then finding that you’re actually getting worse efficiency than a Hummer.

Getting oil out of the tar sands takes a whole lot.  Here’s a smattering of what you have to do:

First, lease (almost for free) from Canada 54,000 square miles of untouched boreal forests (the size of North Carolina) used by indigenous peoples, and cut down every single tree;

Then, dig deep open pit mines and scoop out the tar sands using massive earth-moving equipment;

Then, divert scarce western water to the tar sands, water which becomes contaminated with toxins through the process;

Then, use copious amounts of clean-burning natural gas to convert the water to steam, to be injected into the gunk to separate the bitumen from the clay;

Then, pump the resulting sludge into a 36” pipe to run all the way across the U.S. to the Gulf Coast;

On the way, bypass Midwestern refineries which could refine the stuff for domestic consumption, but instead cut through Native American lands, and over the crucial Oglala Aquifer to the Gulf of Mexico;

And upon arrival, refine it into petroleum products at refineries substantially owned by the Saudis, for shipping anywhere in the world they choose.

Machinery of destruction

All it needs is for President Obama to authorize the massive pipeline.  And because it’s such a terrible idea, you’d think that he would never allow it, right?

Wrong.  Money talks.  The money and power that’s persuaded a majority in Congress to repeat the silly claim that climate scientists are all lying to us, that same money has the President’s ear as well.  He wants to be reelected, and he knows the power of the oil and coal lobbies.

But Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have shown us that money and power don’t control everything.  Sometimes, peaceful protesters taking to the streets can have a dramatic impact.

 

That’s why we’re going to Washington.  We’ll be at the White House on September 1.

Won’t you come with us?

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

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Gov. Perry Listens to Dad

And that’s why he’s not worried.

“As my dad says, it’ll rain,” declared the governor in reassuring tones, after touring devastated Texas farms last week.  “It always does.”

Now it’s a good thing to listen to your dad, especially in areas where he’s an expert.  Perry’s father was a west Texas rancher.  We assume that means he is an expert at ranching.  But we were unable to find any record of expertise in climate science. 

 

Cookies and biscuits baking on a car seat in Texas

Texas, however, is positively crowded with expert climatologists.  For starters, we’ve got the U.S. Drought Monitor, which tells us that 99.7% of Texas today is in drought, and 98% is in the grip of either “severe, extreme or exceptional drought.”  The state is on track to break the annual record for most days above 100 degrees.  Local TV stations regularly shoot footage of steaks broiling or cookies baking on car dashboards.

You won’t find much argument: Texas is extraordinarily hot and dry.

94% of Texas rangeland is now classified by the Monitor in “poor to very poor condition.” Farmers have lost 30 percent or more of their crops in 2011. The loss led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare a natural disaster in 213 Texas counties.  Texas farm losses now exceed $5.2 billion, according to Texas A&M.

Yacht on Austin's Lake Travis appears stranded on the prairie

But Texas’s atmospheric scientists have much worse news:  Droughts are already becoming the new normal for Texas, and Dust Bowl conditions will only get worse in the next few decades.  And it is in large part due to increased carbon emissions, a fact that oil-rich Texas will have a hard time confronting.

“Texas is going to get hotter and drier,” said Malcolm Cleaveland, a professor at the University of Arkansas who led a research team in 2007 looking into climate trends for Texas. Indeed, rainfall modeling shows that rising temperatures and more arid conditions over the last few decades are likely to increase in the next four decades.

Texas’ own climate scientists from Texas A&M, University of Texas, Rice and Texas Tech (see the list below) have warned that by 2050, Texas will likely have become a desert, largely as a result of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions.

98% of Texas in severe, extreme or exceptional drought

The governor's response?  “It’s all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.”

So do I have this right? The man who wants to be president is listening to dad, the rancher, for his climate science advice?

In case you have a few minutes… 

…Here’s a partial list of Texans who Gov. Perry’s not listening to:

Jay Banner, professor, Jackson School of Geosciences and director, Environmental Science Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
Donald Blankenship, senior research scientist, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Kenneth Bowman, atmospheric sciences department head, Texas A&M University
Sarah D. Brooks, associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Ginny Catania, assistant professor, Earth Surface and Hydrologic Processes, The University of Texas at Austin
Ping Chang, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography, Texas A&M University, and director, Texas Center for Climate Studies
Don Collins, professor and director of environmental programs in geosciences, Texas A&M University
Don Conlee, instructional associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Kerry Cook, professor, Climate Systems Science, The University of Texas at Austin
Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Robert Dickinson, professor of geological sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
André Droxler, professor of earth science and director of the Center for the Study of Environment and Society, Rice University
Robert Duce, distinguished professor emeritus, Departments of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University
Craig Epifanio, associate professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Rong Fu, professor, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Charles Jackson, research scientist, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Rob Korty, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
Katharine Hayhoe, associate professor and director, Climate Science Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Mark Lemmon, professor of planetary sciences, Texas A&M University
Shaima L. Nasiri, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University
John Nielsen-Gammon, professor, Texas A&M University and Texas State Climatologist
Gerald North, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography, Texas A&M University
Richard Orville, professor and director, Cooperative Institute for Applied Meteorological Studies, Texas A&M University
R. Lee Panetta, professor of atmospheric sciences and mathematics, Texas A&M University
Jud Partin, postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Terry Quinn, research professor and Director, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
R. Saravanan, professor, Texas A&M University
Gunnar W. Schade, assistant professor, Texas A&M University
Courtney Schumacher, associate professor, Texas A&M University
Russ Schumacher, assistant professor, Texas A&M University
Istvan Szunyogh, associate professor, Texas A&M University
Fred Taylor, senior research scientist, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Michael Tobis, research science associate, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Ned Vizy, research science associate, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin
Thomas Wilheit, research professor, Texas A&M University
Ping Yang, professor and holder of the David Bullock Harris Chair in Geosciences, Texas A&M University
Renyi Zhang, Professor, director of the Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, and Holder of the Harold J. Haynes Chair in Geosciences, Texas A&M University

Dad must be a really persuasive guy!

Thanks for reading, and may God bless you.

J. Elwood

"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." Proverbs 12:15

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