Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rabbi Michael M. Cohen, of Manchester Center, who is rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center and teaches at Bennington College and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.
[I] turn 60 soon. One of the great mysteries of life; we don’t know when we cross the halfway point of our lives. Reaching 60 gives time to pause; will I leave this world a better place than I found it? All of us, no matter how active, must answer that we are found wanting. But Rabbi Tarfon reminds us: “It is not our responsibility to finish the work, but we are not free to desist from that work either.”
Sixty is the time when most people look forward to becoming grandparents. As our children can attest, I am indifferent to them having children. I am an optimist by nature, hence my speaking in support of the climate change resolution at our town meeting. I am also a realist and worry about the chaos climate change unchecked will produce. I am not so sure I wish my potential grandchildren, or anyone’s grandchildren, to experience such calamity. Theologian Karen Armstrong writes, “The death camp, the mushroom cloud, and – today – the wanton destruction of the environment reveal a nihilistic ruthlessness at the heart of modern culture.”
A response to climate change is government action and international treaties. If one is predisposed against both of those it becomes convenient not to believe climate change is human caused. This is called bias assimilation. Most of us are guilty of it to some degree. Too often it allows us to oppose a position solely because it is perceived as liberal or Democratic, conservative or Republican. I ask those who allow their opposition to Big Government and international treaties and who therefore cast aside the vast majority of scientists who have concluded we are responsible for climate change to pause and ask — are you willing to roll the dice for an ideology at the cost of the lives of your children and grandchildren? The International Organization for Migration calculates 200 million climate change refugees by 2050; we see how the world struggles today to deal with much lower numbers.
One may respond, not all scientists agree. You are correct. In front of the Northshire Bookstore it states, “Nothing is Written in Stone.” That saying carved in stone begs the question. Nothing is absolute. Even truth itself is not entirely objective. In civil cases the bar of judgement is a preponderance of guilt, and in criminal cases the standard of judgement is beyond reasonable doubt. In neither case do we require 100 percent as the standard. The same is true of science. Jacob Bronowski wrote: “Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.” Science is the best we conclude based upon the evidence before us at a moment in time. Could it be wrong? Yes, that has always been true of science. Einstein showed Newton it is not written in stone. If we had listened to the minority voice we would never have sent humans to the moon; if we had listened to a minority opinion we would not have the cures for many illnesses. We only make progress, do the right thing, make the right choices when it comes to science, when we listen to the majority voice within science. To do the opposite is to turn our backs on the preponderance of evidence saying beyond a reasonable doubt this is our understanding and this is what we should do. To act otherwise is to march to the tune of a different drummer that will only lead to disaster when it comes to the life of future generations.
Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins was asked about seeing the earth from lunar orbit. He answered, “It projected to me, at least, a feeling of fragility. And that was a surprise to me. I didn’t — you know, trotting on the Earth’s surface for 39 years — I didn’t think it was very fragile. But from 200,000 miles away: quite fragile. And that was my first impression.” We are easily deluded the earth is not fragile. Every day the sun rises and most of us find food to eat. This third small rock from the sun, is a complex interconnected, finely tuned system providing the narrow parameters for life. Said Thor Heyerdahl, “We … in spite of our supermarkets and superjets, have not become supermen or superwomen who can cut off the umbilical cord to nature and survive alone as an independent species.” In our finite perspective we sometimes fail to see and understand the infinite connections and we can easily ignore the dangerous climate changes happening. Petra Kelly comments, “Whatever we do to the earth, we do to ourselves! Learning that we are not outside of nature, but part of it — that is the essence of ecological politics.”
The air we breathe does not belong to the Green Mountain State. it often comes from the Midwest and continues to New Hampshire and beyond. The water of the Battenkill River flows into the Hudson River and then into the Atlantic Ocean; touching other continents. Hence the need for government action and international treaties. Martin Luther King said, “All I’m saying is simply this: that all humankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny … John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: No person is an Island, entire of itself; every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main … And then he goes on toward the end to say: any person’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
The bell is tolling for us. How we respond to its call will answer have we worked to leave this world a better place? As Hamlet said, “The readiness is all.”
