The Sandy Scourge

Georges and Gertrude Ngoka visited us here in Northern California last spring from the Republic of the Congo as part of a US tour, and made many friends. We belong to the same church, Disciples of Christ. Earlier this month, when they heard of Hurricane Sandy, they sent a letter to their American friends:

At a moment when the attention of not only the people of America, but also the world, is on your presidential election, a natural disaster or Hurricane Sandy, hits your country as well. The amount of damage done makes us talk of a cyclone rather than a storm. The situation that you are facing does not leave us indifferent, for we are One in Jesus Christ (Unity in diversity).

We pray not only for the lives touched directly and indirectly by this scourge, but also for other living beings and things – the wildlife and plants along the east coast of your country. As soon as I grasped the immensity of the damage, I asked all our pastors to organize prayer vigils in their respective congregations. The day that we have designated for everyone to come together for prayer is this Thursday, November 1. Here in Brazzaville, the women of the church will organize an all-night vigil from Wednesday to Thursday uniquely for this situation.

Finally, our deepest sympathy to Global Ministries, churches around the country and the American people for the loss of lives and for those in mourning.

Rev. Georges Ngoka
General Secretary and Legal Representative
Church of the Disciples of Christ in Congo, Brazzaville

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­__________________________________________________________________________________________

American exceptionalism was a big topic in the election. We’re better, smarter. Maybe, even God likes us better. No apologies.

Which often makes us paternalistic and patronizing to the rest of the world. Since we are obviously so much better off and more fortunate than anyone else, it is our duty or obligation to bestow some small bounty on poor “foreign” nations not so blessed. We church people give little donations to “overseas” missions. Our government give an equally tiny share of our vast military-bloated budget to foreign aid and relief.

So it is humbling and moving to be the receiver, not the bestower, of concern and blessing. Us, in need of prayer and concern from those poor folks in Africa?

(Like the first time I met a missionary from another country TO America; that was a shock.)

Well, duh. We are seriously in need of prayer and concern and a lot more from any and all who might send it our way. I was touched by Georges’ concern.

Two things especially. His naming that the “scourge” of Sandy would hurt and kill not only human lives, but “other living beings and things – the wildlife and plants of the east coast of your country.” And that women of his church held an all night prayer vigil for us and our troubles. Would I do that for them?

Hurricane Sandy whipped up not only waves and beachfronts but also stormy arguments and affirmation that climate change is real. It seemed like these drenched and marooned and homeless New Yorkers were climate change converts. I’ve lived in New York – those folks are strong minded and stronger willed. They also think the world revolves around them. So if they didn’t believe in climate change before, they do now. Look what happened to us!! This must be climate change. Now fix it! Right now!

As hopeful as are the election results, so do many Americans see this as a possible and crucial moment when we could have a real national conversation about climate change and actually rise to the challenge. Obama can now be bolder; he even mentioned climate change in his victory speech election night.

Many leaders and organizations are calling on him for fast bold leadership on this issue. The New Yorker Magazine editorial “Magical Thinking” congratulated Obama on his victory and went immediately to a challenge that he help the nation move beyond the kind of “magical thinking” personified in the Republican anti-science, backward looking denial of so much that is real and pressing. Editor David Remnick wrote, 

The German insurer Munich Re estimates that the cost of weather-related calamities in North America over the past three decades amounts to thirty-four billion dollars a year. Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, has said that Sandy will cost his state alone thirty-three billion. Harder to measure is the human toll around the world – the lives and communities disrupted and destroyed.

“If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it,” Obama said, when he clinched the Democratic nomination in 2008, future generations will look back and say, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Those generations assuredly will not.

Although Obama, unlike his predecessor, recognized the dimensions of the problem, he never pursued measures remotely equal to it. To his credit, his Administration has directed ninety billion dollars to investments in clean energy, and has secured several billion for energy-conservation upgrades; he got Detroit to agree to better gas-mileage standards, and finally introduced CO₂ emissions standards for commercial trucks and buses. For the most part, though, the accumulating crisis of climate change has been treated as a third-tier issue.

Last week, in his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned climate change once again. Which is good, but, at this late date, he gets no points for mentioning. The real test of his determination will be a willingness to establish a sustained sense of urgency. There will always be real and consuming issues to draw his and the political class’s attention: a martial scandal at the C.I.A, a fiscal battle, an immigration bill, an international crisis. But, all the while, a greater menace grows ever more formidable...

This election hinted at the defeat of a certain kind of magical thinking. It was defeat for the ideas that deficits can be reduced with across-the-board tax breaks. It was a defeat for Rovian analysts who defy statistics and infer from the “enthusiasm” of rallies that their man will win in a landslide. It was a defeat for the fantasy that the President was born in Kenya and has a secret socialist agenda.

But Obama must now defeat an especially virulent form of magical thinking, entrenched on Capitol Hill and elsewhere: that a difficulty delayed is a difficulty allayed. Part of American exceptionalism is that, historically, this country has been the exceptional polluter and is therefore exceptionally responsible for leading the effort to heal the planet...

There’s that exceptionalism again. Not just in how great we are, but how polluting and how responsible we are. From 3000 miles away here in California, it is easier for me to say that Sandy seems to have blown in some good news as well as death and destruction. Maybe we can now as a nation accept not just that science but also the effect and the responsibility.

And accept that we really are all in this together. I am more hopeful about that, thanks to Obama, and in a strange way to Sandy. Both of these powerful forces got my new friends Georges and Gertrude to think of us, to remind us about our wildlife and plants suffering as much as we are, and to stay up all night to pray for us.

That’s a start.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter