{"id":1193,"date":"2009-11-03T16:23:16","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T16:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=616"},"modified":"2009-11-03T16:23:16","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T16:23:16","slug":"salt-and-light-vern-riediger-july-1209","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1193","title":{"rendered":"Salt and Light – Vern Riediger – July 12\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salt and Light<\/h3>\n

Vern Riediger<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scripture Reading:\u00a0 Matthew 5: 13-16; \u201cSalt and Light\u201d<\/p>\n

13\u00a0 You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?\u00a0 It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.<\/p>\n

14\u00a0 You are the light of the world.\u00a0 A city built on a hill cannot be hid.<\/p>\n

15\u00a0 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.<\/p>\n

16\u00a0 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jesus refers to his followers as the salt of the earth.\u00a0 Salt is being referred to here, not as a seasoning, but as a means of preventing food from spoiling.\u00a0 Consider how the environment is affected by our ability to act as salt in a decaying world.\u00a0 In the same way that salt preserves food, are Christians being called to preserve the natural environment?\u00a0 An intriguing argument perhaps.<\/p>\n

As some of you know, I majored in geography while at university, and so I have long recognized humanity\u2019s ultimate dependence on nature.\u00a0 Mathematics, however, was where my highest secondary school grades were achieved.\u00a0 How is this relevant for today\u2019s service?\u00a0 Let me \u201cdraw you a virtual road map\u201d on how global society got to where it is today (the abridged 7 minute version), and thereby identify some of today\u2019s key environmental concerns!<\/p>\n

CHECKPOINT 1:\u00a0 There are over 6.75 billion people on earth today.\u00a0 To put this into perspective, more people have been born on earth in the last 50 years than in all of the preceding 5,000 years!\u00a0 The Club or Rome\u2019s 1972 book \u201cThe Limits to Growth\u201d modelled the consequences of a rapidly growing world population and finite resource supplies.\u00a0 Is our global society\u2019s insatiable demand for resources now outstripping the limits of God\u2019s creation?\u00a0 No wonder countries are fighting for the world’s remaining resources \u2013 oil, clean fresh water, and yes, even fish which may be gone by 2050.\u00a0 Do the math!\u00a0 The earth simply does not have infinite supplies of the natural resources our western society demands, especially if all nations want to live the North American lifestyle.\u00a0 You\u2019ve heard of our \u201cenvironmental footprint\u201d, and how if everyone lived like North Americans, we would actually need 3 or 4 planets to sustain ourselves?\u00a0 There is perhaps no better example of our unsustainable consumption of a resource than oil, which takes us to …<\/p>\n

CHECKPOINT 2:\u00a0 The world\u2019s addiction to oil!\u00a0 The industrialized world\u2019s unprecedented economic growth during the last 100 years has been based in large part on increasing availability of cheap oil.\u00a0 The world currently consumes between 83 and 85 million barrels of oil a day, so when you hear that a new reserve of a billion barrels has been discovered, remember that the world consumes 1 billion barrels in a mere 12 days!\u00a0 At our current rate of consumption, we would go through 1 trillion barrels in about 33 years!\u00a0 By the time we are extracting the last drops, oil will no longer be cheap.\u00a0 The peak of oil discovery was passed in the mid-1960s, and the world started using more oil than was found in new fields for the first time in 1981.\u00a0 Today we are using 3 to 4 barrels of oil for every barrel we find, a clearly unsustainable situation!\u00a0 So why is our addiction to oil so important to the natural environment?\u00a0 Well that takes us to …<\/p>\n

CHECKPOINT 3:\u00a0 The burning (consumption) of fossil fuels, including oil, is the primary source of carbon and other harmful emissions into our atmosphere.\u00a0 The Ontario Medical Association estimates smog-related premature deaths in Ontario total 5,800 annually, so air pollution and smog have very direct impacts on public health.\u00a0 Virtually all climate scientists (except those on oil company payrolls) agree that the carbon released from fossil fuel burning is what is driving global climate change.\u00a0 Many of the world\u2019s leaders this week reached consensus on trying to prevent global warming beyond 2C; well the Arctic has already witnessed a 2C rise over the past 25 years, and the Northwest Passage in the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free (for a short period of time) as early as the summer of 2012!\u00a0 Over the last 5 years, the melt rate of the Greenland ice-cap has become 2 to 3 times faster.\u00a0 Every year, we hear about more ice-shelves collapsing both in the Arctic and in Antarctica.\u00a0 So what you ask?\u00a0 On to …<\/p>\n

CHECKPOINT 4:\u00a0 The direct and indirect consequences of climate change are far-reaching and many, and include:<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 Rising ocean and sea levels, which are already impacting a range of countries including the Netherlands, Great Britain, and low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean which are gradually being submerged;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 Increasing volumes of climate change refugees, which will impact national immigration policies; for example, New Zealand accepts refugees from low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean that are drowning;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 Ocean \u201cdead zones\u201d void of life resulting from atmospheric carbon deposits into these \u201ccarbon sinks\u201d; coral reefs off many continents are also threatened, and many are dying; ultimately, the food chain dictates that as ocean life is threatened, so eventually will life on land;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 Threatened fresh water supplies; while ocean levels rise, many interior bodies of water are drying up due to higher evaporation from higher temperatures; after glaciers and ice caps melt, they no longer act as sustainable fresh water sources for those regions; only 2.5% of the world\u2019s water is freshwater;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adverse impacts to agriculture, as crops are destroyed either by heavier rains, drought, or more extreme weather events; this in turn affects global food supply;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Impacts to habitat ranges of many species as climate regimes shift; as climate changes in an area, so do the plants and animals that inhabit those areas; some species move out while new ones move in \u2013 witness the pine beetle in B.C. which has destroyed many forests there; less mobile species may become threatened, or face extinction; reduced biodiversity threatens to disrupt food chains;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 Threatened cultures, especially ones that depend on certain species for their own survival (e.g., the Inuit culture);<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 Possible increases in new viruses in Canada; similar to plants and animals, viruses also move with changing climatic conditions.<\/p>\n

Business-as-usual trends will lead to a troubled and unsustainable future, with many very real impacts that are serious moral and ethical issues for Christians who seek to be good stewards of the planet.<\/p>\n

How can TUMC make a difference?<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 Do we want to create a \u201cStatement of Environmental Values\u201d?\u00a0 Many provincial government ministries, such as my own, are required to post such a statement on the Internet for public review and comment.\u00a0 Is this an opportunity for TUMC to \u201cbe a light\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0 The “Green Energy and Green Economy Act”, passed by the provincial legislature on May 14th
\n, aims to create an environment that supports the generation of energy from renewable instead of fossil fuel sources;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do we want to put solar panels on our church roof?\u00a0 The GEGEA hopes to support such initiatives in Ontario;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 What about tapping into geothermal energy from below our building?\u00a0 There is more than an underground stream below us;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 The goal would be to reduce TUMC\u2019s carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

While the environmental concerns I\u2019ve shared are not a comprehensive inventory of challenges, I trust my message has in some way engaged you.\u00a0 What does it really mean for Christians to be the \u201csalt and light of the earth\u201d?

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Salt and Light Vern Riediger \u00a0 \u00a0 Scripture Reading:\u00a0 Matthew 5: 13-16; \u201cSalt and Light\u201d 13\u00a0 You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?\u00a0 It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14\u00a0 You are the light of the world.\u00a0 A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15\u00a0 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}