Community United Church of Christ Podcast

Do we have any history buffs here? Anyone who loves reading history books? I know we have a few. I’m there too. Well, I brought my favorite history book of all time to share with you...

It’s a rock! I know it’s not what you typically think of when you hear “history book”, but that’s exactly what they are if you know how to read them! The entire history of the planet is written down in these beauties. There’s so much we can learn about our world if we stopped to ask these little guys what they know. For example, if you climb the mountains of Reading, you will find rocks that look like this: quartzite! A hard, pretty stone that is created when sandstone is pressed together at unimaginable pressures, but how does sandstone find itself under that kind of stress? Well that’s one of the ways we can tell that about 400 million years ago, the continents slammed together and the sandy ocean floor was under such enormous pressure that it formed quartzite and made our beautiful mountains. Scientists can even use the radioactive isotopes in the uranium around here to tell exactly how old they are, but that’s way past my pay grade. I’m more interested in the big picture, and it gets better!

In those days, the atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide and methane from all the volcanoes, and nothing really lived on the land. That is, until this bold, young, upstart burst onto the scene. That’s right, your friend and mine, the TREE! You know trees love carbon dioxide. They take it from the air, strip the carbon out to build more branches, and spit the remaining oxygen back into the air. Well trees were having a great time in those days. In fact, the best we can tell, from about 350 to 300 million years ago, the entire planet was one big rainforest! Fossilized trees from this time period don’t have growth rings because there were no seasons. It was hot, humid, and rainy. Perfect tree weather! Well, that is until the trees started using up all the carbon dioxide, and without that lovely CO2 blanket, the average temperatures dropped almost 68 degrees, and the weather went nuts! HUGE storms flooded low-lying plains and buried entire forests under layers of cold mud. And since they were buried, they were never able to decompose, so they took their carbon to their graves, and after millions of years of being crushed underground, those trees became...

::da da da daaaaaaaaa::

COAL!

That’s right! When you burn coal, you are basically burning 300 million year old logs. What fun! But now, you might be wondering, if the whole world was a forest, where’s the Reading coal? Why is there tons of coal just north of us, but none here? Well, the answer, once again, is in the rocks. This rock in particular, which I found along the Schuylkill River behind Forest Hills cemetery. This is basalt. No, not “salt”. “Ba-salt”. It’s what happens when lava cools down. Have you seen videos of those slow lava flows in Hawaii? That’s basalt, and at one point about 200 million years ago, there was a valley of molten lava that stretched from Reading to New York City. Now, basalt flows are usually pretty relaxed, slow rivers, so the rocks that forms are pretty boring. But this guy? This one is different. This rock is jagged and full of holes. This kind of rock is formed when lava EXPLODES out of the ground and the lava cools into a solid rock while flying through the air. So what could make an otherwise lazy lava river act so violent?

None other than our old buddy, Pennsylvania Coal! Well that and the oil and natural gas that are also in the shade beds out here. The lava came up through the bedrock, mixed with the coal and gas deposits, and when it hit the oxygen in the air…. BOOM!!!! Big ol explosion! And also this super cool rock. However, it also did something else. Remember when I said that the world was one big rain forest before the trees took their carbon to their graves? Well… surprise! It’s back again! And 60% of all living things died as the global climate went nuts for a while, and when it stabilized, it was hotter and wetter than before which was just fine for these new fangled dinosaurs that just showed up.

And the rocks tell this story again and again, as the temperatures rise and fall and the Earth and Sky fight over who gets to keep the most carbon. But about 49 millions years ago, there was a major event that changed Earth from a Jimmy Buffet music video to the second half of the movie, Frozen. As best as we can tell, there was a HUGE patch of Azolla ferns that were growing in the Arctic sea, just enjoying the tropical weather and 24 hour sunshine. They did what all plants do, taking carbon out of the air to grow, but when they died, they drifted to the stagnant sea floor where there was no sea current or hungry critters to decompose it, and they just piled up on each other, taking their carbon to their watery graves. As the pressure grew and grew, those ferns were smooshed together to create unbelievably enormous oil fields under the sea floors, and having taken incredible amounts of carbon from the air, they plunged the planet into the coldest period it has ever experienced. Isn’t that crazy? We expect asteroids and volcanoes to be powerful enough to change the climate, but ferns? Yup. Billions of little ferns, each one doing its little part was enough to change Earth from a tropical planet to a frozen planet.

And we’ve pretty much been a frozen planet ever since. We have permanent ice on our poles, seasonal weather in most places, and a planet full of warm blooded animals adapted to handle chilly temperatures. I say that because, despite how it often feels, we humans are ice age creatures. Our warm blooded, soft bodies are not adapted for a world of giant reptiles and 130 degree heat, but that’s what this planet was for a long long time. It’s only become a temperate planet because of the ancient trees, ferns, and phytoplankton that took all that carbon to their graves, and became the coal, oil, and gas that we based our modern civilization on.

We’ve been digging the stuff up and burning it at a level unseen since Reading was covered in lava, and the rocks tell us exactly what is going to happen next. When the air gets its carbon back, the temperatures go up. It’s not controversial science. It’s written in the rocks. The Earth has done this before. The Earth has actually been through much worse than this, so don’t let anyone tell you that humans are destroying the world. We’re not. The world will be fine. Earth always recovers. It’s us who are in trouble. We’re an ice age species who live in an ice age world, eat ice age food, grow ice age plants, and have immune systems that ight ice age viruses. We as a species will not survive the new age that we are creating. Plain and simple. Life will go on, but it won’t be human life. I imagine the horseshoe crabs will be alright, but that doesn’t do me any good.

And I will save you the charts and graphs, scientific studies, and pictures of sad polar bears, because you’ve all seen them. Instead, I want to talk about Moses. Specifically, how God chose to reveal himself to Moses in Exodus 34, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Anyone who grew up with an addict for a parent understands this passage perfectly. Your sin does not only affect you, but your children too. We carry those scars and often pass them on to our own children because of our inherited woundedness. But on the other hand, many people have turned their lives around because they wanted their children to have a better life than they had, finding the strength to break the generational curse in the love they have for their children.

Many of you in this room will never feel the effects of our carbon-rich atmosphere. Sure the summers are hotter and the winters are weirder, but that’s not so bad. I, however, I will probably live through the consequences of my, my parents’, grandparents’, and great grandparents’ generations’ abuse of fossil fuels. My kids will definitely be harmed by it, living in a world with extreme storms, water shortages, food shortages, terrifying new diseases, and the global wars that will inevitably come from it. I don’t even want to think about what my grandchildren will inherit. We can argue about the extent of the damage or the best solutions to fix it, but every day that we do nothing, the problem gets worse for my children and their children. I’ll save the “God wants us to care for all creation” speech for another day, because my children are too important.

Luckily we live in a nation of choice. We choose our lifestyle as well as our leaders. You can switch to 100% renewable electric energy today, and only pay a little bit more than you pay now. You can write letters to your representatives demanding that they take action to protect our children's’ future. You can buy local produce that didn’t have to get shipped across the country, and take one day a week to eat no meat. And keep an eye on the news. A group of 21 young people sued the Federal Government under President Obama claiming that in worsening climate change, the government has failed its duty to protect the public trust for future generations. The case has spent 3 years tied up in litigation, and is currently set to actually begin on October 29th. Check out OurChildrensTrust.org if you want to learn more about them and if you want to hear directly from someone who will be living with the consequences of our sins.

Finally, friends, do not believe the lie that you are too insignificant to make a difference, because you are not alone. We are all on this planet together, and if an ocean full of ferns can change the world, imagine what a world full of Christians can do!