Hippocrates and Global Warming      

Whenever I get into global warming “discussions” with my friends, I will eventually hear the following plea, usually in an exasperated tone:  “Well, it couldn’t hurt to do something.  We have to do something.  We have to try.”   My friends have every right to be impatient with me.  I continue to have doubts, and to express those doubts.  I continue to read on both sides of what my friends believe to be a “settled” debate.  I have always believed that science requires skepticism, but apparently now it just requires advanced degrees. 

But my answer to my friends’ plea to “do something” is this:  There is harm in “doing something” when it is the wrong thing, or when it is likely to be ineffective.  Consider the plea, common some twenty or so years ago, from cancer patients who would come to their doctors asking that they be allowed to try laetrile for their disease.  They made the same plea: “I have to do something, I have to try.” In the case of the cancer patient, there may be at least three problems with trying laetrile.  First of all, the “cure” may be worse than the disease.  Since it is not an FDA approved therapy, the risks are essentially unknown.  Second, the patient may try laetrile instead of proven effective therapies, because they are afraid of the side effects of radiation or chemotherapy.  Thus, they use an ineffective treatment when effective treatment was available and by foregoing effective treatment, they shortened their lives.  Finally, since laetrile therapy required going to another country, the patient would typically have to be separated from family at a difficult time.  This scenario does not even consider the costs of laetrile, which were probably considerable, and not covered by insurance. There is a saying in medicine, “first, do no harm.”  Laetrile certainly did harm.  That’s why doctors did not recommend it. 

So keeping in mind the need to “do something” only when necessary, and when it is likely to be effective, and when it will not make things worse, what does this mean in the context of global warming?  It seems to me there are three questions we need to answer before trying to do something about global warming:  First, is climate change certain to be harmful?  Second, will the harm caused by climate change justify the costs and potential harm caused by efforts to reverse climate change?  Third, can human efforts reverse or prevent climate change?  I find myself skeptical on all of these questions. 

First, climate has changed many times in human history, and in many cases warming was beneficial.  That’s why the Vikings during the Medieval warm period gave Greenland its name despite the fact that today this name is hardly descriptive.  Certainly, food production is better during warm periods than during cold periods.  Human beings are very adaptable, and have lived in a wide variety of extreme environments.  Second, efforts to control carbon emissions may require draconian cuts in energy which would impact the global economy in ways that may be hard to predict.  Given that there are now seven billion souls living on this planet who depend on our modern technological society for food production, storage and distribution, a simple cost-versus-benefit analysis should be required before “doing something” to cut carbon emissions on a worldwide basis.  Third, there continue to be voices in the scientific community who argue that carbon dioxide is an effect, not a cause of global warming, and that the role of precipitation and the oceans is not taken into account by the alarmists.  Correlation is not causation.  Do we really have the evidence to say carbon dioxide causes the problem?  If not, then no human actions to cut carbon emissions will work to prevent global warming.  In that case, if the global warming is really likely to cause problems, maybe we should use our resources to find ways to cope with changes, to adapt to changes in climate rather than trying to control it.  Like the laetrile patient, we would be wasting precious time and resources on an ineffective effort to control climate, while ignoring the need to strengthen the economies and agricultural systems of countries most likely to be affected by climate change.

Two stories in the news today lead me to ask my fellow Jews:  why is it that we keep bugging our Christian neighbors?  Should we not treat them the way we would like to be treated, that is, with tolerance?  The case in point:  a local Christian group put up a Nativity scene downtown on city property.  While we did not complain or threaten to sue, we also expressed privately our sensitivity about separation of church and state.  The Christian group encouraged us to put up a Menorah, but we declined.  The local Muslim Public Affairs group issued a statement supporting the Christians in their desire to express themselves in a religious way.  This led to a column in the local paper by Dennis Rogers complimenting the Muslim group on their “tolerance”.  On the same day nationally, there is a story that a rabbi forced an airport in Seattle to take down all their Christmas trees.  While this seems to be an oversimplification (the rabbi apparently just wanted the right to put up a menorah, but was turned down, and then he threatened to sue. The airport felt threatened and took the path of least resistance.)  But the public relations effect could not be worse. An American Christian would tend to believe from these two stories that Jews object to Christmas celebrations, but Muslims do not and that Jews are intolerant and prone to sue when they don’t get their way. There have been too many instances over the years of lawsuits against Christian symbols and they usually are instigated by Jewish groups or the ACLU.  In many people’s minds, the ACLU exists mainly to complain about the majority culture, and they don’t like it.
Which brings me to the real question: are American Jews simply tone deaf when it comes to public relations?  Or are we simply so self-righteous that we see no need to consider other people’s feelings and beliefs?  Or do we perhaps on a subconscious level want to be despised, to live up to the stereotype of the touchy victimized Jew?  I don’t know.  This is one of those questions that troubles me deeply as a Jew-by-choice.  It occurs to me that there are aspects of my adopted people that are not easy to understand.  Maybe it is because I did not grow up as a member of a small minority, because I do not remember hearing the complaints or the worries of family members.  I did not experience the taunts, slights, insults, disparagements, or insensitivities of Christian neighbors, acquaintances or co-workers.  I do not remember hearing jokes about Jews, and even if I did they would not have applied to me, so their effect would have been minimal.  My identity was formed without this psychological burden.  I have always tried therefore to be understanding of my fellow Jews, who probably did experience these things.  I know, for example, that my husband did experience some anti-Semitic comments as a child in school.
The problem is, American anti-Semitism of the mid-twentieth century is gone, but the psychological reaction to it lingers, and is now counterproductive.  There is still anti-Semitism, of course, but it is now much more political in origin.  The anti-Semitism in America today comes for the most part from the radical left and the Muslim community, not from the conservative and Christian community.  Yet the knee-jerk negative reaction of Jews to expressions of faith by Christians is still very strong.  I can only conclude that this is a neurotic fixation, and I think it needs to change.  The trouble with these automatic reactions based on old stereotypes is that it does not allow for change. Christians really have changed.  The Father Coughlin types are gone and the Vatican has urged Catholics to reconcile with the Jews.   The Protestants have mostly rejected their previous stance of replacement theology, the notion that Jews had been replaced as the Chosen People by the Christians.  This idea, once so widespread among Catholics and Protestants, is now believed by only a very tiny minority of Christians.  Most Christians also do not claim the Jews killed Jesus, Mel Gibson notwithstanding.  In fact, many large Protestant churches have taken positive steps to root out those ideas in their churches over the last generation.  And many are extremely supportive of Israel, at a time when Israel has very few friends and many enemies.  That is a big change that has taken place in our lifetime, and we must acknowledge it.
When I point out this decrease in Christian hostility to Jews and Israel to my fellow Jews, most of the time I hear is a succession of “yes, but” arguments.  Yes evangelicals support Israel but they only do it hasten the Second Coming and they believe that Jews will have to convert for Jesus to return.  Yes, Christians support Israel but they are trying to take over America and turn it into a theocracy.  That is a whole lot of paranoia, worrying that Christians are trying to run your life both now and in the world to come!  The second point seems to me an overblown paranoid view of American society today which gets more secular and less religious every day.  The first point is more troubling based on the statements made by some evangelical leaders in the past.  However, I believe most evangelicals are not trying to use Israel to force the end of days.  If an evangelical Christian believes that helping Jews is a good thing, he is only following the literal interpretation of Genesis, in which God explicitly states that “I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that oppress you.”  To those who believe that helping Israel is going to hasten the end of days, all I can say is I disagree, but you are welcome to help Israel, as long as you don’t try to start a war to hasten the end of days.  Since most Christians today believe that God will choose the time and place of the Second Coming, not Christians, it would be illogical for them to try and force God’s hand.  I would say to the evangelicals:  you are free to believe what you want, and I will believe as I do, and we will both see who is right when the time comes.  But right now, Israel can use all the friends it can get.  At the same time that Christians have turned away from anti-Semitism, other groups have adopted a new and virulent form of anti-Semitism, namely, the left wing groups and the Muslim world.  If we continue to focus our attacks on Christians, we are in effect attacking our friends.  And a group that numbers only 13 million out of 7 billion definitely needs powerful friends.
I remember a conversation with one of my children’s elementary school teachers.   This teacher was a Catholic, and she taught secular subjects to the third graders in a Jewish day school.   She was a very fine teacher and she had let it be known she was leaving the school.  I asked her why.  She had a pained expression.  There were multiple reasons, but one troubling reason was that some of the students in class had made disparaging remarks about Christianity.  She felt that their comments reflected the parents’ attitudes, and it hurt her deeply.  I also remember one year a comment from my own son while we were driving through our neighborhood on the way home from afterschool activities.  He saw a large Nativity scene on the front lawn of a neighbor and said he “hated” it and further expressed the opinion that it “shouldn’t be allowed.”  He was a little young to understand in depth the U.S. Constitution and various “separation of church and state issues”, but apparently he was old enough to have heard something about Nativity scenes.  Since he did not attend public school, I thought it unlikely he had experienced any anti-Semitism up to that time.  However, he already had this default sensitivity.  I wondered why.  I think it had more to do with anxiety.  Overt expressions by the Christian majority brought home to him at Christmas that we are a minority, that we do not share in the majority culture at least when it comes to Christmas.  Needless to say, we had a talk that day about religious tolerance.  But it taught me to question whether my fellow Jews were overreacting to Christmas.  After all, in our neighborhood there is a religious Hindu family that decorates the house for Diwali, and puts up a special covered walkway to greet guests at this time of the year.  We often notice it, but I have never detected anything but simple excited curiosity at the sight.  It is different with Christmas.  It is almost as if some American Jews experience the sight of a large Church display, or Christmas lights, as somehow an affront, or as threatening.  I think we Jews have succeeded well enough in this country, and it is now time to let go of our fears of the pogrom that is not coming.  David Mamet argues that converts to Judaism can help to rid self-hating Jews of their negative attitudes since the convert does not feel the shame felt by many non-observant Jews.  I think the convert can also help to point out when fears and anxiety expressed towards the Christian majority has been blown out of proportion.  Maybe when we can overcome this psychological reaction, we will be able to see our neighbors and relate to our neighbors in a more open and tolerant way, and that might prevent another public relations fiasco.