What Difference Does It Make?
Kenneth Pitts
Ken recently retired after 40 years of secondary biology and environmental science teaching, most recently as an Environmental Science School Outreach Specialist for Oregon Metro in the Portland area.
Investigate current and future climate impacts on people and nature at local levels, so we can find inspiration to respond with informed wisdom and focused passion.
Learn how climate is impacting people and the environment at local levels.
Provide a place to discuss changes we are personally experiencing due to climate change.
Find inspiration to engage and move forward with both climate mitigation and resilience.
Introduction
Reflecting on our experience
Discuss your own experience with how you are seeing the impacts of climate change:
1. Have you observed impacts of climate change in your local area? What have you observed?
2. Have you and/or your community been impacted by local outlier weather events made more likely by climate change? How did that make you feel?
3. What are you hearing from others in your area about how they experience climate change?
4. If you are not aware of local climate impacts, do you know how to find out more?
Hint: Resources in the toolkit below, but also state universities, governments, regional environmental organizations are all places you might find more information.
Video
In this second session, we are going to focus on local impacts of climate change.
Lesson
Hi! I am Ken Pitts, and I live in Portland, Oregon. I am a retired high school science teacher, and more recently, a climate educator for Oregon Metro, a regional government for the 25 cities surrounding Portland. I started to seriously care about climate change when I began teaching Advanced Placement Environmental Science nearly 20 years ago in Corona, California. Its predicted impacts were apparent to me in worsening degradation of the forest in the Santa Ana Mountains directly behind my house, by temperature extremes, drought, and unseasonable weather. An inflection point happened for me personally when a stressed ancient Canyon Live Oak that I loved to be under as I photographed wildlife coming to a pool near its base, had its five main trunks instantly come crashing down around me. I was physically unscathed, but left speechless and stunned as I stood there breathing the dust of its untimely death.
In this second session, we are going to focus on local impacts of climate change. You will hear climate stories describing those local impacts in the Pacific Northwest region. You will also have the opportunity to share your own local observations. Our hope is to use those observations and a Biblical story as inspiration for movement forward with climate mitigation and resilience actions.
For the past decade, I have lived in Portland, OR in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. The last seven years I have worked for a regional government called Oregon Metro as a waste reduction outreach specialist for grade 6-12. The majority of my 2,000 or so presentations were focused on engaging youth with issues related to climate change. I have noticed a shift in perspective of viewing our state first as a place people will move to get away from climate change, to being one that is experiencing some of its worst impacts. Meredith Connally, Oregon director of Climate Solutions, stated it this way, “A few years ago we thought Oregon was going to be a refuge from climate impacts, and now it’s the poster child.”
In my engagements with students concerning climate change pre-2020, I would say that “the good news about climate change is that you live in the best place in the United States to be over the next 50 years. The bad news is that people from the Gulf States and the Southwest will increasingly move here to escape climate disasters.” That narrative changed when Oregon experienced historic and catastrophic wildfires, drought, heat waves, and ice storms just in the last several years.
As I write this lesson today in my Portland, Oregon home, we have just had the wettest April on record, the wettest May through early June since 1941, and the Columbia and Willamette rivers are at flood stage as the period’s 12 inches of rain is speeding the melting of the Cascade snowpack. Meanwhile, a major portion of the rest of the United States is baking from a heat dome and setting more record high temperatures for this early in the summer. Simultaneously “central and southern Oregon are entering a third consecutive year of drought, and the state saw its third driest period from October 2019 to September 2021 since records began in the late 1800s.” Residents of southern Oregon’s Klamath County are seeing their water wells run dry, and are experiencing “contentious fights” over Upper Klamath Lake’s precious water “which is desperately needed by farmers, ranchers and two species of endangered fish that are cultural mainstays of Indigenous people in the region.” This region was also host to the Bootleg fire, which was the largest fire in the United States during 2021. The drought contributed to its intensity and size.
While we know that weather extremes existed even before our climate system began responding to increases in man-made greenhouse gas emissions, their frequency is going up and wreaking havoc on growing our food, water supplies, power grids, tourism, and infrastructure; in other words, our lives! This variability from extreme weather is clearly explained in the video produced by PBS Terra called “Is this the REAL reason weather is getting wilder?”
Consider watching the personal climate stories in the alternatives section. As part of that, consider: what is your climate story?
Biblical Application
Exodus 7-12
As I consider the signals or signs Earth’s systems are warning us with, I am reminded of the many times I heard the Exodus story of Pharaoh hardening his heart and not letting the Israelites go to the promised land (Exodus chapters 7-12 NRS, NIV). I thought as a child, “how could this man not get it? How could this man not heed the warnings and instead chose to endure eight plagues without consenting? Why did he cling to the way he was used to, having enslaved people building his amazing infrastructure for his Egyptian kingdom? Didn’t he see where this was going?” I also felt a bit of moral superiority in thinking “Oh, I certainly would have heeded the warnings right away!”
The recurring pattern within the story is that Yahweh warns Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron of an impending plague, Pharaoh does not heed the warning, the plague occurs and is really bad (water to blood, frogs everywhere, swarms of gnats and then flies, diseased livestock, skin boils, pounding thunder and hail, and then clouds of crop consuming locusts), and next the shaken Pharaoh “hardens his heart” and again says “no” to their release. On several of the plagues, Pharaoh’s magicians perform the illusion of also being able to cause the same type of unfortunate events. “But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them” (Exodus 7: 22 NRS).
Unfortunately for Pharaoh and Egypt, it took the loss of every family’s firstborn to get him to yield to the relentless power of Yahweh. But even after letting the Israelites move toward the promised land, he had his army pursue them in chariots, only again to lose even more of his best officers. “21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and their drivers” (Exodus 14: 21-23). Then the Bible story reveals the fate of Pharoah’s army. “27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained” (Exodus 14: 27-28).
This story can both be haunting and instructive when one considers its parallels to our climate situation. Scientists have warned us of every intensifying “plagues” that have already begun making life more difficult. There is scientific consensus about the trajectory of climate change and the need to hold future warming below 1.5 - 2.0 degrees Celsius to keep this planet survivable, but our response has been more like Pharaoh’s than the response I hoped to get right onto as a child!
Action
The Hebrews might be those most impacted by climate disasters, often those living in poverty, black, indigenous and people of color, who often live in places with poor infrastructure to withstand floods, heat waver and other climate-related disasters.
Lesson
1) As you listened to the Pharoah story, what were thoughts you had related to our situation with climate change?
This question opens the room for people to share their thoughts about the story before guiding them down the channels of the following questions. This question could be optional if the leader is concerned participants will go off topic.
2) What parallels do you see in this story with your own response to climate change?
Participant responses will vary, but may include:
We, like Pharoah, are reluctant to give up immediate luxuries like our gas guzzling vehicles, shipping materials all over the planet, eating food from anywhere in the world, and using as much energy as we can afford.
3) What are the “plagues” that are climate warning signs that have most caught your attention?
Answers will vary according to your local region and the experience of participants, but may include:
Drought, misery from heat waves, water shortages, loss of crops, economic impacts, worsening health, migration of people putting pressure on local resources, or landscaping in their yards being stressed by the unpredictable weather.
4) Who is (are) the “Pharaoh” (“Pharaohs”) in your story? Why?
Participant answers will vary according to their own experiences but might include:
The Pharaohs might be government officials who are unwilling to acknowledge the realities of climate change and deal reasonably with their impacts because they fear not getting re-elected and loss of power.
Pharaohs could be themselves and/or people in their community who are afraid they might not be able to continue living their current lifestyle if they acknowledge climate realities and make life changes.
5) Who are the “Hebrews” in your story? Why?
Participant answers will vary according to their own experiences but might include:
The Hebrews might be those most impacted by climate disasters, often those living in poverty, black, indigenous and people of color, who often live in places with poor infrastructure to withstand floods, heat waver and other climate-related disasters.
Hebrews could be themselves and/or people in their community or across the globe who are greatly affected by climate disasters but hold little responsibility for the crisis, since their lifestyle emits few greenhouse gas emissions.
6) Who are the “magicians” in our situation with climate? What is their role in delaying meaningful climate response?
Participant answers might include:
Oil companies and car companies who lobbied government officials to continue to use petroleum products and hired people with a science background to create false studies used to deny the realities of climate change.
Politicians whose campaigns relied on funding from the fossil fuel industry who repeated misleading statements about climate change.
7) Will, or can, the “Pharaoh” or “Pharaohs” in our story respond in time to eliminate the loss “of the firstborn?”
This may get into, “What do the participants see as the best case scenario for them and the future of life on earth with the realities of climate change?”
Scientists tell us we have until 2030 to get a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and until 2050 to get to “net zero,” where we take in as much as we put out. Answering the question should address the reality of making that scale of change in order to keep our planet livable.
Closing
Joe Blowers, in his climate story video, does an excellent job of expressing what empathy and compassion for nature looks like as he spoke of the Oaks and animals on his property as “my friends.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her book Braiding Sweetgrass says, “The circle of ecological compassion we feel is enlarged by direct experience of the living world, and shrunken by its lack.”
Parting Words
Watch These Videos
Over the next week, consider the following questions:
1) How can I experience the living world in a more intimate way so that my compassion and empathy for nature (including other people) are increased?
2) How can I create opportunities for others to experience the living world so that their compassion and empathy are increased.
3) Who are people that I can tell my climate story to?
Joe Blowers Speaks about Climate Change in Mollala, Oregon
Ken Pitts talks about climate change in Portland, Oregon
Jamie Repasky talks about climate change in Paortland, Oregon
The videos above used the following prompts for the three participants to respond to. People telling their climate stories often moves others in ways graphs and data charts are not able to. I challenge each of you to consider sharing your own climate story using these prompts:
1) Your name and where you live.
2) What in your local environment or community is special to you?
3) How does climate change threaten people and places that you care about?
4) Describe the moment when you realized that climate change was affecting your life. How did you feel?
5) Describe your emotional responses to climate change as you think about yourself, your family, and your community.
6) Describe your vision for your community and your conviction to contribute to a positive way forward through the climate crisis.
7) What will inspire you to keep on that positive path forward?
If you would like to share your climate story to the Climate Story Project, please contact me and I as a trained ambassador will work with you to create a video or audio version. I can be reached at this email: kenpitts@gmail.com. I would love to work with you to create more reach with your story and its impact!
Toolkit
Organizations and websites
Articles
The PBS series “Global Weirding: Climate, Politics, and Religion” features Evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explaining climate science to a general audience. The short videos are engaging and informative. https://www.pbs.org/show/global-weirding/
Jason. Davis (2022) The Climate Stories Project. https://www.climatestoriesproject.org/
PBS Terra. (January 26, 2022). “Is this the REAL reason weather is getting wilder?”
This University of Maryland website https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/ is fairly intuitive. You select your city or a larger city nearby and it shows what your city is comparable to in the future (for instance, Wash DC becomes like Mississippi.)
This Cool Climate Project site, based at the University of California, Berkeley, shows contributions to climate change https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps
The Environmental Protection Agency has some basics about climate impacts in US regions at https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-change-impacts-region_.html
The Center for Science Education at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research includes climate impacts in regions across the globe: https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/regional
Andrew Theen. Portland is seeing its wettest April, May, and early June on record.” Oregon Live/The Oregonian. June 12, 2022.
Kale Williams. “Governor Kate Brown declares emergency in Klamath County as Oregon’s Drought Worsens,” Oregon Live/The Oregonian. April 10, 2022.
Kale Williams. “UN report calls for urgent climate action as Oregon advocates push for state to do more,” Oregon Live/The Oregonian. April 10, 2022.
Lesson One
Develop practices of care and hope as ways to respond to denial and the emotions about climate change.
Author Douglas Kaufman
Lesson Two
How do we make change? We research, feel, and put a plan into place with a community.
Author Kenneth Pitts
Lesson Two
When we band together, great things are accomplished. In this lesson, we explore community building.
Author Sarah Nahar
