How Small is $13 Billion?

How small is $13 billion? Rana Foroohar, in her Curious Capitalist column recently (Time, Nov 4, 2013) writes of the $13 billion settlement JPMorgan Chase will pay the U.S. government over alleged misdeeds in selling mortgage-backed securities….those wonder things that were a root cause of the 2008 financial deal. The trouble with that $13 billion is that it’s not only nothing to JPMorgan (they earned that same amount in profit in the first 2 quarters of 2013) but Foroohar argues, and I have heard others say the same in the last year, the financial system today is not safer than it was before the great collapse. Today, for example, 5 years after the crisis, only 40% of the so-called big reform law (Dodd-Frank) rules have been established. What’s troubling to me is that these financial problems are both systemic (bank and financial infrastructure of policies and procedures and laws) and personal (JBMorgan has a person as the CEO, Jamie Dimon, not a “system”), and although the “system” hides behind its complexity to do its damaging, not to say also evil, bidding and although the person hides behind the “system” to do the same, both are fundamentally human constructions that can be understood, addressed and changed. Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda writes in her compelling new book, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation (2013), “while structural evil may be beyond the power of individuals to counter, it is composed of power arrangements and other factors that are humanly constructed and therefore may be dismantled by other human decisions and collective actions.” I may not be able to go out today as one person with dismay and anger and change the way JPMorgan Chase pays its fines or does its business, but we together can. We set up the laws (and let’s be thankful we live in a nation of laws even as skewed as they can many times be) and we can take them down and change them. Moreover, we are the stakeholders in the companies that are justifying their actions that are devastating the economic and environmental landscape with being bound by fiduciary responsibility to provide a monetary profit for us. It’s not them. It’s us. We are either doing all this damage or we are allowing it to happen. We need people in business and finance that have the brains for all the complexity to also have the heart to make it right. We need government officials with the wherewithal to listen well and act with courage. We need a people who can smell a rat, stop their own complicity in the mess, stop buying products and investing in companies that have exploitative and unsustainable practices and start electing officials willing to govern (and pay the price of non-election in the next cycle if need be) instead of grandstand.

"The loss of honeybees would leave the planet poorer and hungrier, but what's really scary is the fear that bees may be a sign of what's to come, a symbol that something is deeply wrong with the world around us. 'If we don't make some changes soon, we're going to see a disaster,' says Tom Theobald, a beekeeper in Colorado. The bees are just the beginning.'" (Time, Bryan Walsh, August 10, 2013) These are ominous words. "....something is deeply wrong with the world around us." What to do? Well, don't simply carry on thinking you can't do anything. Find a care niche. That one thing you care alot about....and do something with it. In yesterday's (Aug 11) NY Times we see the news about how western U.S. cities have been taking action to build incentives to get folks to get rid of their lawns and install xeriscape landscaping: "This is how officials here (LA) feel about grass these days: since 2009 the city has paid $1.4 million to homeowners willing to rip out their front lawns and plant less thirsty landscaping." Where I live (Central Florida) we have been talking about our drawing down on the Florida Aquifer for years now, but the regulations and the penalties for not abiding by them are way too weak. We should be banning lawns here. A few years ago I removed about 1000 sq. ft. of my back lawn and replaced it with drought resistant plants....Mexican petunias, red grass, vibernum, palm. I need to do more. I really don't need any lawn. That being said, I also don't actually water much. Because of our rainy season this year I don't think I've turned on the sprinklers since May. But there are plenty of folks who seemingly run their sprinkler systems year round without regard for the weather conditions. We can do better. I know that the bees and the draw down on water are not directly related. The point here: find your care niche and do something. For me, right in front of my eyes and what I can directly impact: my water usage.

Know Your Numbers

Know your numbers. For your health. For our health. Some info from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) : Last week for the first time since recording started in 1958 at the NOAA Mauna Loa, Hawaii research station, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million . It marks an important milestone because Mauna Loa, as the oldest continuous carbon dioxide (CO₂) measurement station in the world, is the primary global benchmark site for monitoring the increase of this potent heat-trapping gas. Before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, global average CO2 was about 280 ppm. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated between about 180 ppm during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. Today’s rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that occurred when the last ice age ended.* Another number from last week: 70,000. The new Telsa Model S sedan has breakthrough technology for zero emissions and high performance and received the Consumer Reports near perfect review. Okay. But it costs $70,000. So, we know, the prices of all the electric vehicles need to come down. And they will. In the meantime, buy them if you can, drive less if you have a conventional hydro-carbon car, ride your bike and walk more. It will help all our numbers. *More details on the 400 ppm especially for those skeptical that human activity (e.g. emissions from vehicles and manufacturing, et.al.) is raising the CO2 rate or that CO2 rates are a cause for things warming up. Taken from the NOAA website: “Carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning and other human activities is the most significant greenhouse gas (GHG) contributing to climate change. Its concentration has increased every year since scientists started making measurements on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano more than five decades ago. The rate of increase has accelerated since the measurements started, from about 0.7 ppm per year in the late 1950s to 2.1 ppm per year during the last 10 years. ‘That increase is not a surprise to scientists,’ said NOAA senior scientist Pieter Tans, with the Global Monitoring Division of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. ‘The evidence is conclusive that the strong growth of global CO2 emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is driving the acceleration.”’

I follow Christ and am part of the Lutheran tribe of followers. As such I have shared some thoughts directed out of that relationship and urging those that gather around that denominational campfire to be true to their tradition for a most urgent need. I invite all tribes along. Earth (Day) Lutherans The fact that Martin Luther was an environmentalist, as I am claiming here, might stir those of us who respect him for his laser-focused passion for justification by faith to pay attention to going-green strategies this April 22 Earth Day. Oh, of course Luther was not green politically or scientifically. No issues of conservation or preservation versus economic development dotted his landscape. No species survivals demanded ecological balance. Rather, Luther’s environmentalism was theological. The reason we human beings pay attention to care of neighbor and creation is because we are freed by God in Christ not to be concerned about that which we sinfully focus - our standing with God – and freed by God in Christ to be concerned about that which God passionately focuses – the welfare of all the created order. Luther famously put it this way: God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does. Today I would respectfully amend Luther (by fast-forwarding from his time to ours) as we realize our neighbor is all of humanity’s home: God does not need our good works, but our neighbor and natural world do. Why not this Earth Day 2013 be true to our Lutheran heritage and get busy with your congregation’s environmental stewardship? Check our Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC) (www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org) for resources to get started if you are beginning or advance if you are on your way. LRC’s Energy Stewards Initiative and LRC’s partnership with Greenfaith in the Greenfaith Certification Program (www.greenfaith.org) are excellent and rigorous ways to get going (right now there is a 50% tuition subsidy available for ELCA congregations for the Greenfaith Certification Program). Be a good Lutheran this Earth Day! Follow Christ into God’s passion to bless and heal the world! Rev. Dr. Johan Bergh P.S. I serve as the Lutherans Restoring Creation Coach for the Greenfaith Certification Program. Email me if you have questions or interest in LRC or GF.

A National Research Council report released last week concludes that the US could halve by 2030 the oil used in cars and trucks compared to 2005 levels by increasing efficencies in gas powered vehicles and relying more on cars that use alternative power sources (see NY Times Sunday March 24, 2013 Life After Oil and Gas by Elisabeth Rosenthal). What we are seeing is that the science is there. Or here. At issue in the main is the political and social will to do anything with the science we have. Listen to Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the main author of the Research Council study published in the journal Energy Policy: "It's absolutely not true that we need natural gas, coal or oil - we think its a myth. You could power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The biggest obstacles are social and political - what you need is the will to do it." What this tells me is that we need to ramp up the story-telling of our environmental liberty from fossil fuel dependence with the facts of just what is indeed possible....so that we continue to change our public's attitude toward the impossibility of making significant change for the good. Too many think "we can't do that...we need too many machines, buildings, vehicles that use fossil fuels....we can't change." Let's continue to look for and tell success stories of change. In this Holy Week....we see again, perhaps need to be and are reminded again that the Tomb is empty. This means life change is a gift and new life always possible.