Not The Apocalypse Ever-So-Evangelical Norfolk VA Hoped For: Too Slow, Far Too Wet
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Climate change exacerbates the problem and will do so more in the future, as the ocean rises to meet the sinking land. Taken together, the relative sea level in the Hampton Roads area is rising two to three times faster than the global average. Since the 1920s, Naval Station Norfolk has recorded a roughly 1½-foot rise in the local sea level, much of it from subsidence. Conservative estimates predict a further rise of 1½ to 3 feet in the next century, accelerated by climate change. Those estimates are used by many local city planners. Even a 1½-foot rise would reshape floodplains and threaten neighborhoods. But those estimates are probably too low. “We tend to think that higher scenarios—three feet or more—are likely,” said Larry Atkinson, who directs the Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. The Navy has prepared reports that analyze the effects of local sea level rise of up to 6½ feet. It is possible that the change will be even greater in the 22nd century.
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To better understand why, I spoke with pastors at 10 Hampton Roads evangelical churches. I found very little outright denial. Rather, I found disregard, confusion, and curiosity about why global warming should be an issue for them at all. “So this has to do with, what, the Earth?” asked a pastor at Wave Church, who subsequently declined to be interviewed for this article. “I don’t know much about that,” said the pastor of a Filipino-American evangelical church.
Sitting in the high-ceilinged assembly hall of the Greater Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church, in Norfolk, Reverend Adrian Wyrick was apologetic. “With so much going on, and being an African-American congregation, our main focus is primarily on our young people and the homeless population,” he explained. “It’s something we really need to be looking into.” Others expressed concern about the politicization of the topic. “When something is a political issue, I jump out,” said Steven Byrum, the pastor of Norfolk’s Mosaic Church. Michael Blankenship, who leads Norfolk Apostolic Church, said that “God has given us dominion over the planet. We do have a responsibility to be stewards of it.” But, he added that he’s unhappy “when I perceive that I’m being yanked around by a political agenda.” Climate change, to Blankenship, looks mostly like a pretense for expanded government regulation.
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During ordinary high tides, the Hague now spills over its walls, flooding streets. The Chrysler Museum of Art, which overlooks the Hague, has had to move collections out of its basement. The Unitarian Church next door gave up and left. At nearby St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, a recent nor’easter sent 10 inches of water into the choral room, and the Hague has come up to the entrance to the church’s bell tower. Almost everybody recognizes the flooding is more frequent and severe, but few understand that climate change will make things even worse. To visit the region is to witness a slow-motion disaster that no one understands. People “literally don’t know what's happening, they don’t know why it’s flooding,” said Harrison Wallace, the Hampton Roads community organizer for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
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http://insideclimatenews.org/news/01122015/apocalypse-rising-seas-hampton-roads-virginia-evangelical-climate-change
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Yes, the planet that you inhabit...
Please kill me.
It's sad. In the midst of the greatest wealth of knowledge in human history, people are ignorant and lack the mental tools to think critically.
