By SAM LITVIN
Church and religion are rarely thought to be the place for leadership on science. Yet from Francis Bacon to Pope Francis, the church included many people who are passionate about nature and science, and are sometimes a catalyst for change. This seems to also be the case with the St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Del Cerro where a group of parishioners, headed by Mary Potter, became concerned with climate change and social justice and began a reading group a year ago in the midst of the pandemic.
Charles Keeling and Roger Revelle at UC San Diego Scripps Institute of Oceanography first discovered climate change. It is the result of manmade greenhouse gasses added to the atmosphere that result in a rising average global temperature. This was shown to be a cause of extreme temperatures and weather across the globe, causing property damage, human movements across borders, food production disruption and mass deaths. The effects were proven to be human caused due to a direct correlation to increase of man-made greenhouse gasses and the fact that natural climate change takes millions of years where as this climate change is taking decades, without a natural cause to account for the rapid change.
After a year of becoming educated about the causes and effects of climate change through shared readings and weekly discussions, the St. Dunstan’s parishioners realized that it is time to act and do more. But how do you do this? Going after a global problem in a local way is a lot harder than it sounds. This is why Potter and the rest of the core group of 12 members out of the initial 48 decided to start a series of community meetings with invited speakers. Each month a speaker will address a specific issue, starting off with “Climate Change” in September, “Environmental Justice” in October and “Racial Justice” in November.
“We have all become so much more passionate. It’s here, it’s now and we are behind the eight ball” said Potter when asked if becoming more aware helped her to act. “Climate change is no joke, it is in our laps and we have to educate ourselves about them (tactics)”
The invited speakers will include Jennie Patton, a Recycling Specialist from the Environmental Service Department of San Diego on Sept. 8. Sept. 15 will host Jennifer Ott-Rol on use of single use plastics, also from the San Diego Department of Environmental Services. Sept. 22 will be Physical Geology professor Lisa Chaddock of the San Diego Community College talking about planting a native garden in St. Dunstan’s. Last but not least in the series will be Jules Jackson of Wild West Talks of Imperial Beach on Sept. 29. She will be covering climate change and border pollution in rivers and oceans.
These meetings will be held in the St. Dunstan’s sanctuary and the goal is to make people more aware and engaged through information on science and tactics that every person can take do.
Potter said that for her, before doing this research, “the ‘why’ [of climate change] was lacking. Truly the depth of the ‘why’ wasn’t explained.” Once she learned the ‘why,’ she became motivated and decided to do more. “We have to get in and do action and we need to know why we’re doing them.”
This is what she hopes will happen: People of all ages will come to the discussions and walk away with action items they can take home and begin the change.
“We’re dropping the bucket, we need to do a lot more,” she added.
— Sam Litvin is a freelance journalist, environmental services business consultant and volunteer wrestling coach at Patrick Henry High School. Reach him at [email protected].
