After Climate Despair
Matt Frost
This essay by Matt Frost is the climate change piece I (Phillip) have been waiting for: a learned discussion that accepts the claims of climate science, but dissents from the “brooding pessimism and delusional optimism” of popular climate activists and enthusiasts.
Warming is happening and it’s a problem, Frost says. But the consensus view that dealing with our carbon problem involves “imposing equitable austerity via globally coordinated government fiat” is an empty hope. The technological solutions currently on offer are either “prohibitively expensive” (think bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) or “wildly reckless (like pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to block sunlight).”
Frost suggests two paradigm shifts in the discussion:
Replace the austerity framework with an abundance
one: “Our climate approach should presuppose that we are the benefactors of a burgeoning future population, not the progenitors of an ascetic cult formed to dole out a dwindling stock of resources.”Shift from seeing carbon emissions primarily as a human consumption problem to a waste management problem. Instead of storing captured carbon elsewhere in the atmosphere, we need solutions for disposing of carbon to its original home in the lithosphere. “Disposal of sewage and household waste are ordinary parts of civilized life, and carbon disposal could be as well.”
Read “After Climate Despair” at The New Atlantis. You might not buy it all (I certainly don't), but it's a refreshing reframing of the discussion.
The Tree of Life
BibleProject
BibleProject's newest theme video on the tree of life sheds light on both of Eden's mysterious trees (as well as all the other times God meets his people near special trees). But more than that, it is a stirring example of the way the Bible can be read with an eye for its continuity from cover to cover, not just as a place to mine devotional nuggets or iron out doctrines.
As a seminary professor of mine (Andy) said, "If you come to understand the Bible's themes, you will see the mind of God."
If you want to take a deep dive into the theology of trees in the Bible, there is a 7+ hour discussion of all the finer points on the BibleProject podcast.
How Cooking Dinner Can Change Your Life
Sam Sifton
The good life is not measured in moments of greatness, but in great goodness in common things — friendship, connection to place, intimacy, mastery of a craft, and a regular meal shared with friends and strangers. Here's what chef Sam Sifton says:
Social scientists have a term of art to capture a person’s overall happiness and sense of well-being. They call it “life satisfaction” and find it strongly correlates with time spent with those who care about you and about whom you care. A regular dinner with family and friends is a marvelous way to create that time. Which is not to say that life satisfaction will arise from your very first meal, or even your fifth. I think it accrues only over months and years, as you cook food and share it. Regularity matters. Standing dinner dates, at their best, are simply special occasions that are not at all extraordinary. They become that way over time.
Read "How Cooking Dinner Can Change Your Life" over at the NYT. For more on food and Christian spirituality, check out Robert Farrar Capon's indispensable The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Meditation and Norman Wirzba's Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating.
Andy is nearly done with Jamie Smith's On The Road with Saint Augustine (thanks, Phillip) and feels like it is finally time to tackle the life of perhaps the most influential Christian in history who didn't write or star in a book of the Bible. Next on the list: Peter Brown's definitive biography of Augustine.
For a look at Augustine's early life (and misadventures), listen to "Navigating Restless Years: St. Augustine On How To Survive Young Adulthood" by Joshua Chestnut from Southborough L'Abri.
(By the way, Jamie, that question you asked about what to read after How (Not) To Be Secular? Try Peter Berger's In Praise of Doubt. It picks up right where Jamie Smith left off.)
Lent begins this Wednesday and Phillip is looking forward to reading Rankin Wilbourne and Brian Gregor's The Cross Before Me: Reimagining the Way to the Good Life as we move toward Easter. Want to join in? Download the first chapter for a taste of the book.
He's also been spinning the soundtrack to Woody Allen’s Manhattan lately, a lively pastiche of lushly orchestrated Gershwin tunes. Though the comedian and auteur has been (rightfully) cancelled, Phillip owes his love of early twentieth-century jazz to the guy. Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Errol Garner, Art Tatum — all indispensable companions, especially in the kitchen.