Author: Glenn Jacob

Rabbi, Community Leader, Fundraiser, Board Development, Non-profit management, strategic planning, educator, writer, and editor.

I Loved that Car

On September 29th, an unusually heavy deluge struck New York City with many inches of rain. I was driving north on the Bronx River Parkway, a narrow thread of a throughway under significant construction and thick with traffic. I was traveling in the middle lane nose to tail ahead and behind me. As I approached an underpass, the traffic suddenly stopped, as the puddle underneath grew in size and depth as the Bronx River backed up and poured into the underpass. Five minutes later, I abandoned my car after the water rose in the car up to the bottom of my seat. My car was in a video posted in the New York Times. You may have seen the grey roof of the car, at least the last inch or two of it in the bottom left corner of the screen.

I joke that I have never made the New York Times, but my car has. The levity serves as a slight balm for the struggle to wade through the filthy flood water to the safety of the ramp, and the rest of the journey home. A month later, most of the disaster is resolved. While counting my blessings, the more important task is a backward look at the mechanisms or lack of mechanisms in place addressing climate change.

The car insurance company was swift, accurate and fair in their recompense. The tow truck driver was sympathetic and helpful with his blunt answers. In contrast, the City of New York was overwhelmed, ill-prepared, and hiding the fact that the flooding issue at this underpass is a long, ongoing problem that has never been addressed. The private companies are already updating their processes and responding with the ease of fresh experience. Government, however, is far behind, mired in the “talking phase” at the beginning before the beginning of any solution process.

Why is our government so slow to respond? Government is typically reactionary, only responding after the fact. Funding is always a contentious issue because the pot of available funds is always too small to address the needs as they are understood today. Even so, the crux of this lack of government response is the long, ongoing meddling by the fossil fuel industry at every level of government.

The approach of the fossil fuel industry is to kill any legislation and all regulation that promotes a response to climate change. Their approach is still to deny climate change. If climate change does not exist, then there is no reason for government to fund responses to the escalating crisis. As former governor Mike Huckabee said in an abrupt response to a question on the presence of climate change, “Eh, it will be gone in another year or so.”

The government response to climate change is far, far behind the needs of the day. The number of weather-related disasters per year is rising and the cost of each disaster is also escalating. Even if your house or car was not directly affected this past year, the growth in the costs of repair and replacement is causing your insurance rates to rise, and your taxes as well. Yet, the year 2023 has demonstrated we can take back both the narrative and the power to compel a better government response.

New York State has demonstrated that the fossil fuel industry push to defeat climate legislation and regulation can be stopped. Citizen action is as powerful or even more powerful than the paid lobbyists and campaign donations when such actions are applied. We have pressured legislators to vote for bills and mandates to address the changing climate, and many responded. We have thwarted attempts to remove the regulatory guardrails at city, county, and state levels of government. Our lobby visits, protests, and rallies worked.

Climate change is relentless, and it is speeding up; losing my car in a freak storm is ample proof. We are making a difference and defeating the greed of the old energy economy as the weather alarms clamor louder. Let us finish the task we set out to do, to save the Creation from the ravages of greed and unrelenting development.

Now we are confident: the goal is obtainable.

Farm v Nature

The raspberry on the left is from a farm in the Hudson Valley, NY and the one on the right is a wild raspberry from a vine on my property. The farm-raised fruit is sweet and a tad mushy while the wild one is more tart but firm. The wild one also presents a stronger raspberry flavor. Wild raspberries are also a third of the size. I am competing with cardinals and bluejays in my two raspberry patches, but then again, both patches are the result of the birds passing the seeds through their digestive systems. The wild raspberry plants are hardy in the face of climate change, but their season is a week to ten days only.

At Chautauqua Institute

I have been invited to present at Chautauqua Institute this summer. (https://www.chq.org/) I will be presenting a lecture followed by Q&A on the religious response to climate change, our obligations and our approaches. My lecture is scheduled for Monday, July 24th @ 2:00pm in the Hall of Philosophy. Woohoo!

Eggplant Pie – Southern Style

Eggplant Pie #1

  • One eggplant, peeled and chopped
  • Salt
  • 1 TBL butter
  • Splash of milk
  • 1 egg
  • Corn FlakesTM  
  • Cheddar Cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350oF or 180oC

Boil the eggplant in a pot of salted water until soft, about twenty minutes. Drain off water. Using a potato masher, mash the eggplant into a paste. Add the milk, a couple pinches of salt and two fistfuls of cornflakes crushed in your hands. Stir. Add egg and stir again. Place mixture in glass pie pan and cook twenty minutes until set.

Remove pie from oven. Dot top with bits of the butter. Take two more fistfuls of cornflakes crushed in your hands and cover the top of the pie. Top with shredded cheese and return to oven for ten minutes.

Because Corn FlakesTM contains a goodly number of industrial food ingredients, the first recipe is not recommended for those with food sensitivities.

Eggplant Pie #2

  • One eggplant, peeled and chopped
  • Salt
  • 1 TBL butter
  • Splash of milk
  • 1 egg or egg white
  • ¼ cup almond flour
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Cheddar Cheese, shredding

Preheat oven to 350oF or 180oC

Boil the eggplant in a pot of salted water until soft, about twenty minutes. Drain off water. Using a potato masher, mash the eggplant into a paste. Add the milk, a couple pinches of salt and the almond flour. Stir. Add egg and stir again. Place mixture in glass pie pan and cook twenty minutes until set.

Remove pie from oven. Dot top with bits of the butter. Cover the top of the pie with a thick layer of breadcrumbs. Top with shredded cheese and return to oven for ten minutes.

Cooking Wine

Simple and Inexpensive

  • Cheapest bottle with a screwtop
  • Add 2-3 TBS kosher salt
  • Shake to dissolve (it will foam)

Bonus

  • Open an awful bottle, add it to the cooking wine bottle

Almond Cookies

  • ½ cup coconut flour
  • ¼ cup almond flour
  • 1 cup almond butter
  • 1-1/2 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • ¼ cup peanut oil
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • ½ teaspoon salt

OPTIONAL

  • ½ cup chocolate nibs

Preheat oven to 375o

Mix together almond butter, sugar, eggs, extract, peanut oil and salt. Stir in nibs and both flours.

Drop by rounded teaspoon 2 inches apart on parchment paper or greased cookie sheet. Bake 14 minutes. Let cool five minutes before removing to wire rack.

Cream Biscuits

Cream Biscuit

I got tired of the overly sticky and unworkable biscuit scratch recipes. These two flours work well together, although regular whole wheat flour will suffice. This recipe takes away a third of the usual amount of cream and adds cold butter for a more substantial dough.

  • 1 cup (142g) – “OO” flour
  • 1 cup (142g) – Whole wheat pastry flour
  • 2 tsp – baking soda
  • 2 tsp – sugar
  • ½ tsp – salt
  • 2 TBL – cold unsalted butter
  • 1 cup – heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized)

Preheat oven to 425oF

Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper

In food processor, process all the dry ingredients to mix. Cut butter in pieces and process in dry mixture, two or three pulses. Turn on machine and pour cream through spout. Process until dough forms.

Toss dough onto clean surface dusted with flour. Work dough, adding sprinklings of flour until no longer sticky. Either wrap in plastic and let sit in refrigerator until needed, or proceed to cutting biscuit shape.

Roll dough flat until ¾ to 1 inch thick. Use biscuit cutter to make round shape. Place on baking sheet.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown appears on top. Serve immediately.

Notes

Finnicky Dough begins quite sticky coming out of food processor. Dust your hands with flour unless you like bits of dough between your fingers.

Place tray in middle of oven. If placed on bottom rack, the biscuit will burn on the bottom before browning on top.

Using ultra-pasteurized cream will produce flattened, uneven biscuits with undercooked dough in the middle. Autoimmune diets can only use pasteurized cream.

ABC: Asphalt, Bureaucracy, & Climate

When Vice News interviewed the mayor of an Oregon town that lost a third of its housing to last year’s wildfires, the mayor offered the following sentiment. She was asked if encouraging people to return was a good idea with the ongoing threat of another wildfire. Her response was that climate change is everywhere and this is where they were choosing to make a stand.

While her statement is a typical politician’s response, “We can do this!”, her program is a failure. Her determination on behalf of her constituents is admirable, her plan is poorly positioned as is the limited municipal money she has allocated. They are building Recreational Vehicle (RV) hookups to draw back displaced residents who cannot afford to rebuild to return to town. The RV hookups plan is appropriate if the goal is bringing back the tax base; however, the response is valueless if it is meant to be a stand against climate change.

Approving expenditures to help people return sounds worthwhile and a proper function of government at first glance. However, in a time of escalating climate change, the proper first priority of government is not accommodating people. The priority must be creating a survivable environment, a concept that only specialized segments of government bureaucracies who use emergency management centers typically encounter. The goal after such disasters is creating resilience now that the danger is known. A climate-stricken world requires an entire revamping of the role of government, which is a shift from the usual way of doing government business. The new reality is climate change is an ongoing, escalating crisis.

The climate change crisis in Oregon may be wildfires while the coastal flooding is the ongoing destruction in Miami, Florida. California and the rest of the southwestern United States are suffering prolonged droughts. Parts of Germany and Belgium are inundated with swollen rivers while the Indian subcontinent faces the extremes of misplaced monsoons. The eastern seaboard of North America is experiencing more frequent and more powerful hurricanes.

Certain religious traditions have more to say about long ongoing crises than others. Diaspora religions living among other majorities have long understood that there is no instant or elegant solution to resolving a long enduring crisis. Success is not characterized as overcoming or winning, instead success is defined as creating a dynamic balance that adjusts as the surges of tension and confrontation roil.

Most holy scriptures are a chronicle of the crises in the lives of human beings and their nations.[i] The religious voice offers powerful methodologies for navigating the effects of climate change and countering the greedy interests that want us to ignore climate change. Contrary to the sneering condescension of critics, the proffered methods are not “let us pray on it.” Seeking common ground, aligning communal interests, raising and promoting volunteers, redirecting self-interest back to community interest, and confirming universal ideals that can inspire all are some of the religious lessons that people of faith still use today. Multi-religious initiatives for the community’s good inspire and work.

 Religions work in a specific manner in the public sphere. They offer established principles that set priorities of action and promulgate rules that define boundaries of acceptable actions. Saving lives is always the highest priority because life is sacred. Preventing the circumstances that threaten life is the next priority because it leads to the highest priority. In contrast, politicians talk about saving money and saving jobs as the highest priorities. The religious models accept those political talking points, but place them within the context of saving lives, putting jobs and money in a healthier and more achievable context.

When my new county executive was elected, I met him at a gala fundraising for another organization. After congratulations and introductions, he asked what was on my mind.

“Asphalt,” I said.

“Come again?”

I continued. “You inherited a budget from your predecessor with a funding structure of replacing roads after twenty years of use. The extremes of climate change in our county have probably reduced the lifespan of our roads by five years, give or take. Did you know this was happening?”

“Let me look into that,” he said.

The upshot of that conversation was an aggressive tarring campaign, where a crew walks every road with a hot tar machine in tow, filling in every crack in the asphalt with tar. The process gives the road another two to three years of life. The tarring program had disappeared in the rush to cut government spending in previous administrations. The tar is inexpensive, but the crew time is costly – not as costly as putting in new roads though. The county executive’s response is an example of the dynamic flexibility required to address the facts of climate change. The politician’s priority of money and jobs was preserved and my priority of preventing destructive circumstances was achieved.

(A quick aside, the asphalt example can be correctly categorized as an example of adaptation. Adapting to climate change is a necessary step that many in the environmental advocacy arena dismiss as a distraction from the goal of clean renewable energy legislation or worse, a surrender to the failure of ridding the world of carbon producing fossil fuels. The events of the past few years have clarified that adaptation will be a necessary component of any climate change legislation, an unfortunate but predictable development. Most politicians are amenable to adaptation spending in their districts.)

While my county executive is an elected position, he used the bureaucracy to address the effects of climate change. The public rhetoric to address carbon pollution often overlooks the power of the bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are slow, rigid, and cranky; they are depicted as prone to corruption with political appointments and highjacked bids. The crimes reach the news cycles, but the day-to-day work, plodding up and down the streets for instance, are beneath notice. Bureaucracies do work and they can be quite powerful.

The dynamic power of a federal bureaucracy can have global reach, addressing not just the effects but the sources of carbon pollution. Reuters reported on August 16th, 2021, that the “U.S. Treasury to oppose development bank financing for most fossil fuel projects.” Fossil Fuel companies can longer use the multilateral development banks across the world to fund their projects. The only exceptions are countries buying coal plants to shut them down and poor countries with no infrastructure purchasing some natural gas-powered generation downstream. Using the bureaucracy, the U.S. government has shut down an the “at the source” funding stream for the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. Treasury is using its leverage in a new manner to shut down new fossil fuel development across the globe. While the U.S. Treasury has offered “guidance” throughout its history, this is a climate first and a welcome one.

Addressing climate change is not about a stand against the effects of climate change. All the industries that oppose addressing climate change are happy with this misguided stance and encourage it. The more effort that is expended on the destruction and costs produced by climate change, the less effort is available to attack the sources of climate change. The mayor in Oregon is truly looking out for her citizens and the town, for which she deserves our compliments and encouragement. People who use their political power to raise the downtrodden and stricken deserve the support of religious affirmation. However, when the means of support are misdirected, more productive actions need to be introduced and corrected if possible.

As we examine the laws, regulations, and allocations in our local communities, we must keep the following mantra in mind: We cannot fight climate change; we can only fight the sources of climate change.

[i] Following Judah Magnes PhD, Gleanings 1948

Baking Powder

  • 2 parts – Cream of Tartar
  • 1 part – baking soda
  • 1tsp – corn starch or potato starch

Example:

  • ½ cup – Cream of Tartar
  • ¼ cup – baking soda
  • 1tsp – potato starch

Notes

  • Cream of Tartar loses potency after one year.
  • People on autoimmune diets should use potato starch instead of corn.
  • Store in mason jar to retain freshness.

The Phony Cry of Doomerism

The reports from the field observations on climate are returning with ever worsening reports, as predicted. Heat absorption, the Arctic and Antarctica, mounting land degradation tallies are ticking upward, which again, were explicated in the climate models. Last week, Greenpeace released a report on an Exxon lobbyist who was tricked in admitting fierce lobbying behind the scenes and the corruption of key senators to prevent climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate, as per the Tobacco playbook of fifty years ago. The interview also shows the campaign to prevent climate change legislation is shifting into another, well-documented gear: “Give up,” certain no-name writers press. “Give up and go home; enjoy these better days while you have them.

The new task at hand is not defending the veracity of the data. The evidence proving climate change has swayed approximately 70 percent of the American population according to the latest surveys. Climate Denialism continues to lose adherents as the effects of global warming are experienced by more people with no alternate explanations possible. Scientists and activists are winning the first battle of denialism, but the fossil fuel industry has already moved on.

More than one set of delaying tactics are described in the earlier Tobacco Industry playbook, which goes back fifty years. Thwarting legislation is a multi-pronged approach requiring several different strategies, and different types of timing. As denialism tapers off, the fossil fuel industry is pivoting to two other methodologies: denigration and delay. As the Tobacco Industry demonstrated, these tactics work, delaying anti-tobacco legislation and litigation for fifty years.

On the denial track, we have passed through most of the “denial that the problem exists,” although there is still funding flowing to professional deniers such as the Heartland Institute. Thirty percent of Americans still believe that climate change does not exist, that it is a hoax, or that its existence and effects are overblown. These public relations campaigns have been unusually effective.

One of the most effective components happening now is the half-step campaign. The half-step is the acknowledgement by the industry that climate change exists. Such pronouncements are hailed as great milestones and proof the fossil fuel industry is finally paying attention to the threat of climate change. In truth, they have been paying close attention since the late 1970’s according to their own internal studies and documents. With this half-step announcement, the industry pivots to a stance of non-engagement. In the same breath that they confirm climate change is real, they deny that climate change is a problem. No one needs to act because climate change is benign.

Continuing further down the denial track, the fossil fuel industry pushes two specific ideas. The first project is to deny that the fossil fuel industry is the cause. They point fingers at cows, governments, corporate agriculture and most effectively, at ordinary people. There are kernels of truth in their accusations, but not even close to a whole, accurate truth. Just enough truth to make the accusations appear tenable is part of the strategy.

Their claim is if everyone would take personal responsibility for their contributions to climate change, the crisis would be solved. The argument is demonstrably false, but it accomplishes its true goal of shifting the conversation away from fossil fuels. Other permutations include “we’re trying, why aren’t you” or “we’re doing our part, everyone else is the problem.” Most insidious of all is the claim “not to worry, a technological is fix is coming to save us.” There is no technology in a production pipeline to address climate change now.

The second idea, which has not emerged fully into blossom yet, is to deny that we can solve climate change. The climate is complicated involving ocean currents under the ocean to carbon accretion in the upper layers of the atmosphere, and no one can really understand all of it. Even the climate scientists do not have all the answers, they claim. The fossil fuel industry will humbly profess the problems are too complicated to solve at this time, but they promise to continue studying the issue.

Delaying action on climate change is the arena in which doomerism is actively pushed. Two types of delay are in play, but both are concerned with politics. The most expensive element in the industry’s push to stop legislation is lobbying. They make donations to politicians and political campaigns. If they identify a vulnerable legislator, they fund campaigns to raise a primary challenger or fund the candidate who supports their industry in the full election. They have lobbyists in every state, working with municipal, county, and state legislators and with the regulatory agencies. They fund think tanks and institutes whose sole purpose is to stop climate change legislation from being passed. They have been successful.

However, constituents vote, and they lobby too. The power of the electorate is formidable when it is engaged and their aggregated votes and demands of legislators are effective; they are a deep challenge to the fossil fuel industry despite their billions of spent dollars. To delay the electorate, they hire firms to prevent aggregating into large coalitions. These firms target individuals who are aggregators of public concern including scientists, teachers, clergy, pundits, environmental groups, and informed politicians. They also attempt to discourage people from taking up the cause using media, social media, print campaigns, and any other method they think may work. They have money to spend.

The promotion of doomerism, the fear that it is too late to save the planet and that all is lost, is a pernicious delaying tactic. The voice of doom sends the message that nothing can be done. The concerned citizen who learns this terrible truth should go home and close their doors. They should use their energy to live the best life they can while they can because all is lost. They should give up the fight because the battle is already lost; we are too late.

“I came to view with despair all the gains I had made under the sun,” Kohelet records in the Book of Ecclesiastes, falling into a funk of futility despite his recounted successes. Doomerism is the latest expression of well-attested despair. Despair is crippling, leading to withdrawal from the world and from everything that gives life meaning and worth; it is an affliction.

As a tool to discourage people from taking community and political action, despair is potent. From young adults through every decade through the elder years, despondency is a cruel and crippling reality to the vulnerable. “No sickness like despair” declared Israel Salanter Lipkin centuries ago.

To the power hungry and cynical, promoting despair in the opposition or in the population is a documented path to success. Take the fight out of one’s enemies and they will not bother to raise their arms in defense, much less raise a counterattack. Peeling off parts of the population who would care about climate change and neutralizing them is an appealing strategy. The promotion of doomerism lately demonstrates the effort is well underway.

Across the globe in almost every generation, people have risen to overcome their despair and move forward. Despair is an ancient problem, which is found in the writings of every religious tradition. St. Francis of Assisi encouraged his fellows, declaring that hope is the antidote to despair. The ancient Jewish traditions argue that despair is the loss of hope. The Buddhist teachings direct the practitioner to lean into the despair, using the pain as a lever to raise others out of their despair.

Despair is real and its presence is a necessary component of our response to climate change. Hopelessness reminds us of all that is precious to us, from our fellow human beings to the planet that sustains us all. The suffering of human beings from global warming is cataloged as an evil in the Western religious traditions and as avoidable suffering in the Eastern traditions. Both traditions are on point, signaling why despair over the climate is painful and even crippling at times.

The toxic nature of despair is not a foregone conclusion. The presence of despair is a moment of self-revelation, an insight that all is not right. Anguish is an opportunity to examine the causes of our pain and to challenge our lack of hope. The propaganda surrounding the push of climate doomerism is an attempt to extinguish the presence of hope. Hope is the target to be eliminated as the industry pushes against change.

Despondency need not be a stumbling block. The power of this human sentiment is available to all people, and the power can be a great source of motivation. Without this element of threatened hopelessness, the fights for climate change legislation would be an academic one or the work of a professional gunslinger who earns a paycheck lobbying politicians. Despair is an engine that galvanizes the religious soul, that bothers the people on the sidelines who await a goad to act. Despair is the call to action. The presence of despair informs us that this battle to save the planet is the movement of peoples against the lust for wealth and power. As climate change is global, the gathering to force change on the fossil fuel industry is worldwide, and all of this gathering, each and every individual joining the cause, begins with despair. As one organizer declares in her email signature, “From pain, to protest, to power.” Despair is not a conclusion, but a beginning point. From anguish and hopelessness, the only path is upward.