The one where a Lutheran agrees with the Pope

Recently, I've been in conversation with a local organizer from NextGen Climate who is rallying support from faith leaders in Yolo County for SB 350. I wrote this letter to the editor in response to Pope Francis' recent encyclical. 

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As a Lutheran, I don’t often agree with the pope. After reading Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on climate change, however, I must. 

For too long in the United States, religious rhetoric surrounding the environment has been denial of climate science and ignorant arrogance with regard to its catastrophic effects on the poor and vulnerable. This must change.

For people of faith like Pope Francis and myself, there is a moral imperative to reduce and reverse the effects of climate change. Since we understand ourselves to be connected to all of creation, we are called to protect and preserve it. Pope Francis reminds us that our Scriptures, “bear witness to a conviction which we today share, that everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice, and faithfulness to others” [2.II.70]. 

The saying goes that as goes California, so goes the nation. It is my hope that California will pass legislation including SB 350, which will reinforce our role as a leader in the fight against climate change. SB 350 calls for a 50% reduction in emissions, a 50% increase in energy efficiency in buildings, and that 50% of California’s power come from renewable sources, all by 2030. 

We have the power to make substantive changes—we must. Join me in prayer for our planet and its leaders, and in telling California’s leaders to vote yes on SB 350 and other protections for our world and its inhabitants.

Casey Kloehn, M.Div

Program Director, Lutheran Episcopal Volunteer Network

I hate to break it to you, but your pessimist progressivism is conservatism.

I take issue with people who call themselves progressives, and then go about their days with negative attitudes about what that means.

During the 2010 midterm election, I was talking with some friends about for whom we were voting. The two of them (who shall remain nameless) claimed that because they so disliked the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, they were going to vote against him. One said she was voting Meg Whitman, the other said he was voting for Chelene Nightingale, the candidate from the American Independence Party. One had been fooled by Meg's claims of being able to "fix" California's economy overnight, and the other had yet to understand that a vote for a third party in the state of California hurts progress -- it keeps votes from Democrats and shrinks the margin by which they lead. I understand that this two-party system is far from the ideal democratic process, but when only 5% of the vote is split between four of those parties, it is clear that they are not making a change just yet. If you consider yourself progressive, it is in the interest of progress to elect Democrats over Republicans. Sometimes you have to work with what you've got to show the world where you'd like to go.

Yesterday, my mom bought a hybrid car. It's beautiful and shiny and gets better gas mileage and spews lower emissions than her previous car. The owner's manual has a special addendum just to explain all the hybrid stuff. I tweeted about driving this beautiful machine and a friend responded that hybrid batteries have a larger carbon footprint than the carbon offset of that hybrid car in a lifetime. For one, we did our research and that claim is just plain outdated. Hybrid and electric technology have come so far so quickly -- each new model offers more efficiency, fewer emissions, and greater environmental responsibility. But let's just say for a moment that her claim had been correct. It is in the best interest of the conscious, progressive consumer to buy things that are moving in the right direction. If we refuse to buy hybrid or electric cars until they are 100% perfect, research and development is never going to get to 100% perfect. We have to buy the latest effort to show that we are interested in the next one. And certainly, my mom did not buy the first hybrid car on the market. But other people did, and that made way for the one my mom bought yesterday. Continuing to buy fuel-inefficient cars does not show up in reports as "waiting for the best electric car" but rather as "uninterested in electric technology" -- and that hurts progress.

Similarly, I have the same conversation with every person I explain my selective omnivorism to. I am mostly a vegetarian, but I buy responsibly produced meat and dairy products, and I encourage everyone I know to do the same. Most people tell me that it would be more responsible to be a vegan -- that way I'm not participating in meat production at all. But the way to reform the meat industry is not to remove myself from it entirely. Supporting responsible farmers is a much clearer vote for progress in meat than abstention from meat-comsumption all together.

If you want to make a change in the world, removing yourself from the front lines is not the way to do it. Consume consciously -- you vote every time you buy anything. And don't be afraid to talk to other people about it. You didn't spontaneously come to know what you know about progressivism, so you need to pass it on, yourself.

When you are dissatisfied with progress, you need to participate in the only ways available. Waiting around for a better option is unproductive, and in the meantime, you do not move forward. Your inability to function in the current progressive climate makes your action conservative. So get it together, would you?

Not a great first.

My mom made turkey meatballs for dinner tonight. One of my all-time favorite things that she cooks. Yum yum yum.

But I didn't eat a single one.

Why is this? Mom made the meatballs with Foster Farms ground turkey. And we all know that in the fight against factory farms, Foster Farms is one of our greatest enemies. So, while my parents and brother ate their fill of one of my favorite foods, I ate leftover organic, grain-fed, free range, happy chicken from last night. This was the first time I ever opted out of something that was being cooked at home for something more responsible. Not that I usually just eat the morally questionable meat in question -- that's certainly not the case. This is just the first time that my mom chose to make turkey meatballs for dinner even though Costco was out of organic turkey.

All summer we have been buying organic and local and I really thought my parents were beginning to get this movement. That they were beginning to care about what they were eating and where it was coming from. I swear, every item that we regularly use and "O" organics makes, my mother has purchased. Our pantry is like an "O" mini-mart. The other night, we made chocolate chip cookies from all-organic ingredients (except the chocolate chips. Nestle Tollhouse reigns supreme at Chez Kloehn). Mom wasn't sold on them being as good as "regular," though Dad, the official taste-tester, had about four. I guess she's just been letting me play this sustainable game, and followed along with the demands (for the most part) all summer. I thought I could move nine days from now and know that she and Dad were sitting down to a mostly organic, local dinner.

Apparently I am deluded. This is very disappointing.