Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World:
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Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The First Five
By David Ray Griffin
Although the 10 Commandments expressed in the Hebrew Bible were written for a particular people at a particular time, they contain a universal ethic, which can be summarized in the so-called Silver Rule, namely: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.[1]
Because of changing circumstances, which bring new problems, the Silver Rule always needs to be reformulated for the most urgent ethical problems of the time. Today, the overriding ethical problems arise from the climate change caused by global warming, which is depriving people around the world from some of their most basic rights.
The Declaration of Independence, which is foundational for the United States, includes the right to life among the basic human rights. This right implies a right to all those things that are essential to life, such as food, water, and clean air. But the fossil-fuel corporations have been robbing people of these rights.
I am suggesting, therefore, Ten Climate Commandments. This essay, the first in a series of two, provides the first five commandments. The second essay will provide the second five.
1. Thou Shalt Not Ruin Civilization's Climate.
Civilization emerged about 10,000 years ago, after the emergence of the Holocene epoch, which was the "Goldilocks zone" for civilization: not too hot, not too cold. That ideal climate existed because the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hovered around 275 parts per million (ppm).
However, since the rise of the industrial age, based on fossil-fuel energy, the level of CO2 has been rising steadily, so that now it is above 400 ppm. This increase has already caused the planet's average temperature to rise 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit), and the CO2 in the atmosphere is already fated to push the temperature up further, because there is a lag -- most recently estimated to be about 10 years - between the CO2 emissions and the effect on the temperature.[2]
By "catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene," as one physicist put it,[3] we have already changed the planet significantly. This catapult is causing many changes that violate climate commandments.
2. Thou Shalt Not Impose Hotter Weather on People.
One of the changes caused by global warming is the rise of increasingly extreme weather, one of which is worse heat waves. What matters to us is not the average temperature, but the "extremely hot days," meaning ones that are above the 90th percentile for that region.
Over the past 15 years, the number of extremely hot days has soared.[4] In 2003, a European heat wave was so much hotter than previous ones that Great Britain reached 100 degreesF (38.5 degreesC) for the first time ever.[5] In 2013, China had its worst heat wave ever, with 40 cities remaining above 104˚F (40˚C) for 31 days.[6] And in 2014, India experienced its longest heat wave, which was so hot that the streets of Delhi were virtually empty.
Although other kinds of extreme weather may be more dramatic, "Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States," claiming "more lives each year than floods, lightning, tornadoes and hurricanes combined."[7]
Worldwide, people have had increasingly deadly heatwaves imposed on them by global warming. For example, an estimated 70,000 people died in the European heat wave of 2003 and 50,000 in Russia's 2010 heat wave.[8]
Referring to the fact that this excessive heat has been imposed on us by fossil-fuel corporations, Bill McKibben has said, "We're hot as hell and we're not going to take it any more."[9] By which he meant: Not allowing fossil-fuel companies to continue spewing their waste products into the atmosphere.
3. Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People
Although drought, which is the climate effect that has thus far been most harmful to people, has occurred long before global warming began, this warming has aggravated it. This may seem counter-intuitive, because global warming causes more evaporation, which leads to increased precipitation. But it changes where the precipitation falls, so that "the wet gets wetter and the dry gets drier."[10]
Drought is so harmful primarily because it is "the single most common cause of severe food shortages in developing countries," said the U.N., and "caused more deaths during the last century than any other natural disaster."[11]
More than a billion people are regularly hungry, and this problem becomes even worse when there is prolonged drought. "The U.S. is the world's largest producer of corn and 2012 was supposed to be a banner year," but in many states, the heat and drought caused the corn to "shrivel and die." A plant biologist in Illinois said, "Its like farming in hell."[12]
Drought also causes fiercer wildfires, with longer fire seasons. In the western United States, "the fire season now lasts two months longer and destroys twice as much land as it did four decades ago."[13]
4. Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive Storms.
Global warming, by raising the temperature, increases the amount of water the atmosphere holds, thereby resulting in more precipitation.
As a result, there has been an increase in extreme rain storms, known as deluges. In 2010, a deluge flooded a fifth of Pakistan, forcing eight million people to evacuate, and California suffered the heaviest rainfall since records have been kept."[14] In 2012, southwestern Australia had more than 8 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, breaking all-time records.[15] And in April 2014, Florida and Alabama both received over two feet of rain in 24 hours.[16]
Global warming also results in extreme snowstorms, such as the "Snowpocalypse" of December 2009, which was at that time "the largest December snowstorm on record."[17]
Global warming also intensifies the strength of hurricanes, because the warmer oceans have more energy. As a result, "category 4 and 5 storms have almost doubled in number and proportion since 1970."[18] The two most destructive Hurricanes in American history, Katrina and Sandy, both developed when the water was extremely warm.[19]
As for Tornadoes, there had long been doubt about whether global warming makes them more powerful, but recent evidence has shown that it does.[20]
5. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water
There has been lots of talk about "peak oil," said Lester Brown, but "the real threat to our future is peak water." According to a book entitled Blue Gold, "There is simply no way to overstate the fresh water crisis on the planet today."[21] This crisis has been caused by global warming (combined with the world's rising population).
Most dramatically, global warming has been melting our "reservoirs in the sky" - glaciers and snowpack - from which billions of people get their water for drinking and agriculture.[22] The glaciers of the Andes, upon which 80 million people are dependent, have shrunk "30 to 50% since the 1970s."[23] In Asia, between 1.5 to 3 billion people get their water from the Himalayas, but "Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an accelerating rate."[24] According to Lester Brown, "The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia."[25]
Accordingly, the fossil-fuel corporations, along with the governments that have supported them, are in the process of stealing fresh water from billions of people, as discussed in the book Blue Gold, which is subtitled: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.[26]
The most massive theft, however, is by the corporations responsible for global warming and the politicians who have allowed it to continue over the past decades.
David Ray Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. The present article is drawn from material in his most recent book, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).
[1] Hans Kung, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 98-99.
[2] Katharine L Ricke and Ken Caldeira, "Maximum Warming Occurs about One Decade after a Carbon Dioxide Emission," Environmental Research Letters, 2 December 2014.
[3] Stefan Rahmstorf, "Paleoclimate: The End of the Holocene," Realclimate.org., 22 September 2013.
[4] Joe Romm, "Nature Stunner: As Climate Change Speeds Up, the Number of Extremely Hot Days Is Soaring," 26 February 2014.
[5] Jean-Marie Robine et al., "Death Toll Exceeded 70,000 During the Summer of 2003," National Center for Biotechnology Information, 31 December 2007; "Sizzling Temperatures Break UK Record," BBC News, 11 August 2003.
[6] Nick Wiltgen, "Shanghai Still Broiling as Deadly, Relentless Heat Wave Grips China," Weather Channel, 14 August 2013.
[7] NOAA National Weather Service, Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services, 2012.
[8] Robine et al., "Death Toll Exceeded 70,000"; Ricardo Machado Trigo, "The 2010 Russian Heat Wave," April 2012.
[9] Bill McKibben, "We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any More," TomDispatch, 4 August 2010.
[10] Stephen Lacey, "Climate Change: How the Wet Will Get Wetter and the Dry Will Get Drier," Climate Progress, 5 September 2012.
[11] "World Water Day," UN Water, 22 March 2012.
[12] Max Frankel, "Intensifying Midwestern Drought Threatens Farmers, Water Supplies," Climate Progress, 6 July 2012; Jeff Wilson, "U.S. Corn Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads," Bloomberg, 9 July 2012.
[13] James West, "How Climate Change Makes Wildfires Worse," Mother Jones, 13 June 2013.
[14] "UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon: Pakistan Floods Are Worst Disaster I've Ever Seen," Associated Press, 15 August 2010; "California Rain Shatters Records, and More Is Coming," Associated Press, 21 December 2010.
[15] Christopher C. Burt, "Extreme Rainfall Event in Western Australia," Weather Underground, December 17, 2012.
[16] Katie Valentine, "While the West Dries Up, the East Is Drenched," Climate Progress, 1 May 2014.
[17] Kathryn Prociv, "Three Year Anniversary: Snowpocalypse of December 18-19, 2009," Washington Post, 19 December 2012,
[18] Erin Overbey, "Sandy and the Rise of Extreme Weather," New Yorker, 1 November 2012; Quirin Schiermeier, "Hurricanes Are Getting Fiercer: Global Warming Blamed for Growth in Storm Intensity," Nature, 3 September 2008.
[19] "Facts about Katrina: Surviving Katrina," Discovery Channel, 2008; Dan Satterfield, "What Those Who Understand Atmospheric Physics Are Talking about after Sandy," Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal, 1 November 2012.
[20] Joe Romm, "Update: Tornadoes, Extreme Weather and Climate Change, Revisited," Climate Progress, 4 March 2012; Jill Elish, "Researchers Develop Models to Correct Tornado Record," Florida State University, 5 September 2013.
[21] Lester R. Brown, "Peak Water: What Happens when the Wells Go Dry?" Earth Policy Institute, 9 July 2013; Maude Barlow and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2002).
[22] Lester Brown, "Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water Supplies," National Geographic, 20 December 2011; Jon Gertner, "The Future Is Drying Up," New York Times Magazine, 21 October 2007.
[23] "Andean Glaciers Melting at 'Unprecedented' Rates," Reuters, 23 January 2013.
[24] John Cook, "Himalayan Glaciers: How the IPCC Erred and What the Science Says," Skeptical Science, 2010.
[25] Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 68.
[26] Maude Barlow and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2005).
Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The Second Five
David Ray Griffin
In "Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The First Five," I suggested these commandments for our time: (1) Thou Shalt Not Ruin Civilization's Climate. (2) Thou Shalt Not Impose Hotter Weather on People. (3) Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People. (4) Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive Storms. (5) Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water. This second essay suggests five more:
6. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Food
In a 2012 book, Full Planet, Empty Plates, Lester Brown said: "The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity."[1]
As to why, there are two main causes. Whereas one is the continued growth of the world's population, the other was indicated by a 2012 statement by Oxfam: "Increased hunger is likely to be one of climate change's most savage impacts on humanity," so "the food security outlook in a future of unchecked climate change is bleak."[2]
As to how climate change is contributing to this bleak outlook, Brown said: "Of all the environmental trends that are shrinking the world's food supplies, the most immediate is water shortages" [as discussed in the fifth commandment].[3]
But climate change has also reduced food availability by means of heat, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, sea-level rise, and the destruction mentioned in the next two commandments: ocean acidification and sea-level rise.
7. Thou Shalt Not Ruin People's Seas
For food, the ocean is as important as fertile land. But the CO2 spewed into the world over the past century is threatening seafood even more than land-based food.
Part of the reason is that about "90 percent of the warming of the planet is absorbed in heating the oceans."[4] and the ocean has been warming quickly, much more than scientists had realized, with the result that waters are becoming too warm for many sea animals. For example, Maine has had to cancel its shrimp season the past two years because the water in the Gulf of Maine had become too warm for the plankton on which shrimp feed.[5]
The other major problem, resulting from the fact that "[a]bout 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that people have put into the atmosphere has diffused into the ocean,"[6] is ocean acidification, sometimes called global warming's "equally evil twin."[7] This greater acidity, which has increased "a whopping 30 percent" since the beginning of the Industrial Age, is making it increasingly difficult for sea animals such as plankton, corals, crabs, and mussels to produce enough calcium to make their skeletons.[8]
This is already having effects. "In the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, the waters have become so acidic that the once-thriving shellfish industry there is on life support." And scallops near Vancouver reportedly have had a mortality rate of 95 to 100 percent over the past two years.[9]
If phytoplankton and corals disappear, this will mean the disappearance of all sea animals, which have served as the primary source of food for 3.5 billion people.[10] And yet fossil-fuel companies are still being allowed to put increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, 30 percent of which will be added to the ocean's acidity.
8. Thou Shalt Not Flood People's Lands
During the 20th century, the ocean rose about 8 inches on average, due to the expansion from the warming ocean plus run-off from melting glaciers. If the burning of fossil fuels continues, scientists expect the ocean to rise from 3 to 7 feet during the 21st century, and even a three-foot (one-meter) rise will be devastating.[11]
According to the IPCC, "Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of cultivated land globally due to rising sea levels. A one-meter rise in sea level would inundate 20 percent of the country's landmass."[12]
Vietnam is presently one of the world's leading producers of rice, but "a three-foot sea level rise will eliminate half of the rice production of Vietnam." Because almost three-fourths of the country's population lives in areas that are threatened by sea-level rise, "Vietnam could face the most devastating consequences of global sea level rise."[13]
In Egypt, half of the country's agriculture takes place in the delta, but farmers there "are losing crops to the rising water table as the salty seawater contaminates the groundwater and makes the soil infertile."[14]
These are merely three examples of the devastation that sea-level rise is starting to cause to coastal regions around the world, where almost one-fourth of the world's population lives.[15]
9. Thou Shalt Not Force People to Migrate
Climate refugees, meaning people who have been forced by climate change to migrate to another country, or another part of their own country, can be produced by many features of climate change, such as heat, drought, and shortage of food or water. But the main cause is, and will increasingly be, sea-level rise.
People have already been forced to migrate from many island nations, such as Maldives, the Carteret Islands, and the Sundarbans. At least 200 people were already leaving the Sundarbans back in 2009.[16]
But sea-level rise is forcing, or soon will be forcing, people in bigger countries to move. For example, over a million Bangladeshis had already moved by 2009, and scientists expect there to be 20 million climate refugees from Bangladesh by 2030 and as many as 35 million by 2050. According to Lester Brown, moreover, "The country where rising seas threaten the most people is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees."[17]
"According to some estimates," say experts Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, "more than 200 million people might have to give up their homes due to climate change by 2050."[18]
10. Thou Shalt Not Lie to Justify Any Such Acts
The fact that cigarettes cause cancer was repeatedly demonstrated by scientists in the 1960s, and even the tobacco companies agreed: In 1965, the head of research at Brown and Williamson - which makes Marlboro cigarettes - stated that tobacco industry scientists were "unanimous in their opinion that tobacco smoke is carcinogenic."[19]In 1967, nevertheless, Brown and Williamson, along with the other tobacco companies, claimed: "There is no evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer."[20] In the coming decades, moreover, these companies spent many millions of dollars to publicize this claim.[21]
In 1989, a committee created to give scientific advice to the oil industry said: "The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied." The "contrarian theories," continued the committee, "do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change."[22] Nevertheless, besides continuing to deny the truth of climate science, the oil industry has spent many millions of dollars to fund organizations to promote these contrarian theories.[23]
Conclusion
According to the Silver Rule, we should not do to others what we would want not done to ourselves. We certainly would not have wanted previous generations to have ruined the climate for us. And yet our generation is in the process of ruining it for all subsequent generations, perhaps even making it impossible for civilization to continue.
Why are our media and political leaders allowing this? As Charles Justice has said, "There is no justification for putting the human" race at risk for the sake of oil company profits."[24]
[1] Lester R. Brown, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), 1.
[2] "Climate Change vs. Food Security: A Bleak Future for the Poor," Oxfam International, 5 September 2012.
[3] Lester R. Brown, "The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity," Der Spiegel Online, 11 February 2009.
[4] Dana Nuccitelli, "We Haven't Hit the Global Warming Pause Button," Guardian, 23 June 2013.
[5] John Upton, "Oceans Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized," Climate Central, 5 October 2014; Bryan Walsh, "Why Warming Oceans Could Mean Dwindling Fish," 16 May 2013; Joanna M. Foster, "The 2014 Shrimp Season in the Gulf of Maine Has Been Canceled," 4 December 2013; Bill Trotter, "Officials Cancel 2015 Gulf of Maine Shrimp Season, Citing Weak Shrimp Stock," Bangor Daily News, 12 January 2015.
[6] "Effects of Changing the Carbon Cycle," Earth Observatory, NASA.
[7] Scott C. Doney et al., "Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem," Annual Review of Marine Science, January 2009.
[8] Kathleen McAuliffe, "Ocean Acidification: A Global Case of Osteoporosis," Discover, July 2008; "Ocean Acidification: Global Warming's Evil Twin," Skeptical Science, 2012; "Acid Oceans Warning," ARC Center of Excellence Coral Reef Studies, October 2007.
[9] Tom Lewis, "Billions of Shellfish Die as Ocean Turns to Acid," Daily Impact, 24 March 2014; Randy Shore, "Acidic Water Blamed for BC's 10-Million Scallop Die-Off," Green Man Blog, Vancouver Sun, 26 February 2014.
[10] Tom Lewis, "West Coast Marine Ecosystem May Be Crashing," Daily Impact, 8 May 2014; "Oceans," Rio+20: The Future We want, United Nations; Save the Sea.
[11] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, "How High Will Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet," Environment 360, 14 January 2010; Lauren Morello and ClimateWire, "Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster than Predicted," Scientific American, March 9, 2011.
[12] "Bangladesh: Rising Sea Levels Threaten Agriculture," UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), 1 November 2007.
[13] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, "How High Will Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet," Environment 360,14 January 2010; Tom Narins et al., "Where Are Rising Sea Levels Threatening Human and Natural Environments?" Association of American Geographers, 2010.
[14] Jonathan Spollen, "Rising Sea Threatens Millions in Egypt," The National, 20 November 2008.
[15] "Sea Level Rise," Greenpeace, 4 July, 2012.
[16] "Maldives President: Australia Should Prepare for Climate Refugees," Responding to Climate Change, 13 February 2012; "Climate Change Displacement Has Begun -- But Hardly Anyone Has Noticed," Guardian, George Monbiot's Blog, 8 May 2009; Jayanta Basu and Zeeshan Jawed, "Sea Change," Telegraph (Calcutta), 14 June 2009.
[17] Emily Wax, "In Flood-Prone Bangladesh, a Future That Floats," Washington Post, 27 September 2007; Pinaki Roy, "Climate Refugees of the Future," Climate Change Media Partnership, 31 May 2009; Lester Brown, "Raging Storms, Rising Seas Swell Ranks of Climate Refugees," Grist, 16 August 2011; Al Gore, "Rising Seas from Antarctica to Bangladesh: The Story of Rising Seas," Climate Reality Project, 31 January 2012.
[18] Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, "Protecting Climate Refugees: The Case for a Global Protocol," Environment Magazine, November-December 2008
[19] Stanton A. Glantz et al., The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 18.
[20] Company Statement on Smoking and Health, 12 May 1967l.
[21] Yussuf Saloojee and Elif Dagli, "Tobacco industry tactics for resisting public policy on health," Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2008.
[22] Andrew C. Revkin, "Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate," New York Times, 24 April 2009.
[23] "Greenpeace Presents ExxonSecrets.org; Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science (Union of Concerned Scientists, January 2007).
[24] Charles Justice, "Slavery and Fossil Fuels," Earthjustice.blogspot.com, January 2008
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| # | Type | Date | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Article | 03/03/2015 | Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The First Five (View How Many People Read This) 14  |
| 2 | Article | 03/05/2015 | Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The Second Five (View How Many People Read This) 1 |
