Thinking in the bigger picture, I think Dr. Katharine Hayhoe has many good ideas:
https://www.katharinehayhoe.com/faqs/#carbon-footprint
In the small picture, I would say keep an emergency kit that is tailored to the type of climate disaster that could happen in your area. That way you can help others, and be less of a burden to your emergency response infrastructure.
I have cousins who can testify from hard experience that both of those denials are utterly without basis.
It always suprises me that many conservative Catholics are often promoting cigars, or even selling them as part of their merchandise.
Matt Fradd, prominent Catholic author and partner of Chesterton & Co. Cigars has announced the release of the Pints With Aquinas exclusive in-store cigar produced by MBFUMA in Nicaragua.
A cigar is our giant NO to a world that doesnât want us to think for ourselves, that merely wants us to comply.
But:
the Roman Catholic Church took an official position against smoking and its harmful health effects in the Popeâs Bull of Indication of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, calling for all Christians to abstain from consuming tobacco.
âThou Shalt not Smokeâ: Religion and smoking in a natural experiment of history
Pope Francis ordered a ban on the sale of cigarettes inside the Vatican from the beginning of 2018 because of health concerns, as explained by the former Holy See Press Office Director, Greg Burke: âThe motive is very simple: the Holy See cannot be cooperating with a practice that is clearly harming the health of people.â
No Tobacco Day: Pope Francis reiterates the need to care for life
So much for magisterial authority.
Wow â thatâs quite the bit of justification! Itâs basically âI like them so I donât care if theyâre bad for me and others â to heck with that âlove my neighborâ stuff!â
At least they didnât try the old âcigars are safer than cigarettesâ bit â that hasnât been true since the latter got filters, and even then the difference was where cancer was likely to strike: cigarettes in the lungs, cigars in the mouth. As for second-hand smoke, cigars are worse because much of second-hand cigarette smoke has been filtered twice, once by the filter and then by the smokerâs lungs.
Thatâs been slipping in the U.S. for several generations; the attitude of âSo what? Iâll do it my wayâ played a bit part in the âAmericanismâ heresy denunciation over a century ago.
Christians donât believe itâs only ancient literature anymore than they believe Jesus was just a man. Itâs fully ancient literature and fully Godâs word. Just as Jesus never ceased being truly God at any point, despite His humanity, the Bible also never ceases to be the word of God. Is the expectation that the Bible can do âGod stuffâ different from Jesus being able to do âGod stuff?â
Can we say the message is 100% true if the Holy Spirit is not forcing the writers to say what it wants and if it can force that, it can force other content as well.
One might easily suppose our doctrine of the Bible as both the word of God and word of man is contradictory when any sort of inerrancy is involved (even if itâs only the message). But some want to have their cake and eat it too.
Sounds true and correct. The problem arises when we cease reading what the text says, and instead read into it what we want it to say, And to understand what the text says, we must read it as it was written, as ancient literature, and with the meaning the author intended in his cultural context. Now, once we have that message, the Holy Spirit can guide us in how to apply it to our lives.
I feel there are a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions in that hermeneutic. I am not saying itâs totally wrong or that I donât follow it when studying but what scripture meant then may not be what it means today or the message that the Holy Spirit wants us to get.
Maybe we simply read it and let the Holy Spirit speak to us today and worry about its meaning now as opposed to what it meant to iron-aged goat herders. Stories are polyvalent and the authorâs thoughts can be irrelevant to the meaning readers glean. If the Bible is read as narrative this may be the case. And given its inspiration by God, its meaning can transcend that of the human authors who lack the foresight of God.
Sure. I think inspiration starts in childhood as the Spirit chooses someone and takes a lifetime preparing him so that when the time comes to write the message is just what was wanted with maybe a little nudge here and there.
What it means now is what it meant then; the difference lies not in the meaning of the text but the application.
Thank you for that! It brought tears to my eyes, too.
It was a holiday today in Canada - I went to a park and got a cold drink and read for a bit at a picnic table. Near where I was sitting a young lady parked her car (in the shade) and left the engine idling for at least a half hour before I left. It was a warm day - about 80F - but not dangerously hot. There was a breeze, and it was pleasant in the shade. I take it that she wanted to have the A/C running while she looked at her phone.
My question is: should one tactfully confront such a person for wasteful use of fossil fuels? Or, am I being crotchety? The reason I ask is that this isnât the first time Iâve witnessed this - I seem to see it multiple times every summer. My impression of young people is that they care very much about environmental issues. I was wondering if Iâm being hypocritical. I have no doubt that by getting a cold drink, I used electricity from the power grid, which uses fossil fuels (although we have nuclear power here in Ontario). But arenât there economies of scale there?
I think we should continue to work at reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, but I think it may be a long time before we can eliminate them completely. In the mean time, I would be very happy if we humans would at least think carefully about how and when we need to use fossil fuels. It seems to me that we could do a lot by simply economizing and/or planning our lives a little better.
I would honestly be highly dismissive of you and tell you to leave me alone if I didnât know you. Iâd probably view you as a quack. Others might appreciate you for enlightening them and thank you for your concern. I wouldnât. Iâd tell you not to waste your own fossil fuels going to a park and stay home.
I think itâs a great question. I appreciate your sensitivity, both ways. Itâs hard to really come at things that situation, especially from a stranger. I remember reading in Greg Boydâs âCross Visionâ about how important it is to come to someone as a friend and really care about them firstâand maybe another way would be to kindly talk to them, enjoying the countryside, and if you hit it off, ask (as you did to us)ââwhat do you think is a great way to save the environment?â That way, she wonât feel that youâve targeted her, unintentionally. She may or may not come to that conclusion on her ownâmaybe sheâll point out something the rest of us do, that may have more importance than we realize. Youâll have made more than one victory, thoughâas with us, youâve treated her as a friend, youâve asked her opinion and showed respect to her.
Thank you for your discussion. NowâhmâIâm going to have to idle my car less, and buy fewer beverage containers! Now Iâve learned from you.
My rule of thumb is that if you have to ask then the answer is usually no, you shouldnât confront them. However, if it is someone you know then the rules are very different. If I saw a stranger doing what you describe I wouldnât confront them, but if it was a friend or family member I would absolutely say something, tactfully of course.
And yes, we are probably all being hypocritical in some fashion. One example is how much meat we eat in wealthy Western countries. Eating further down on the food chain would do a lot of good for the environment. Knowing this, I still eat my unfair share of meat.
For guidance, would you if he was a 250 pound tatted dude that did not appear to be the type who takes kindly to eye contact? In general, my own policy is that unless a literal crime is in progress, to leave idlers, hospital door smokers, jay walkers, and traffic weaving cyclists on stolen bikes, to their own devices or the relevant authorities.
âO God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.ââSerenity Prayer
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