Rabbi fears climate disaster by end of century

By Dan Bloom

CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan –When Jeffrey Newman first arrived as the rabbi at Finchley Reform Synagogue in Britain in 1973, he, by his own self-description, was an idealist. And while he knew that he might not be able to change the world, he decided he would at least like to make a difference while serving there. And he did, according to members of the London synagogue and staff.

Since retiring in the year 2000, Rabbi Newman knew he still wanted to make a difference in the world, and since then he has been using social media and email to reach out globally on such issues as human rights, justice and equality, and recognizing that we are not going to be able to sustain Earth unless we deal with these inequalities.

That’s how we first met. A tweet here, a tweet there. Emails galore.

For a while now, Rabbi Newman and I have been having long-distance email chats about climate issues, since the rabbi emeritus is very concerned with global warming issues and often sends me links to news articles in the British media.

We discuss everything. And he told me recently that while he appreciates my recent attempt at humor, with the ”Yiddish Guide to Climate Change,” published here at the San Diego Jewish World, he also feels that the situation humanity is facing might be much worse than most media outlets are letting on.

So we chatted again by email and I asked Rabbi Newman what his concerns were.

“Maybe you don’t want to scare everyone, but the situation is far worse than you portray in most of your articles,” Rabbi Newman said.

“I fear that the end of this century already is likely to be hugely affected by what we are — and are not — doing and that in two or three hundreds years from now – the fourth and fifth generations from now — living on Earth will be an entirely different experience for those who survive.”

I replied: “Really? So soon? That quick?”

Rabbi Newman went on: “I fear for them, those people living in those days.

The nonfiction book about climate titled Six Degrees by Mark Lynas is a terrifying book and Future Scenarios by David Holmgreen does not provide one simple and comforting way forward. In a way, Martin Rees’ sombre assessment Our Final Hour is the darkest of all simply because of his eminence as a scientist and thinker.”

“Dan, I appreciate your communication abilities on climate issues, and particularly with your ‘Yiddish Guide to Climate Change’ column on the use of humour, but then it is, it seems to me, important to as be as accurate as possible about the message that is conveyed,” Rabbi Newman added.

“The real horror is what our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be facing, and not those generations an unimaginable time in the future some 500 years from now that you sketch out,” he said. “Martin Rees says humanity has only a 50-50 percent chance of surviving the next century and James Lovelock believes the human population will be decimated, down to one billion people.”

I told the rabbi that I was listening to what he was telling me, and agreed with much of what he was saying. He added even more to our chat, saying: “Catastrophes will happen and they will get worse. But we still have opportunities to face them with the best attitudes in the most collaborative and cooperative, that is, the most Jewish way.  With humor.”

And Rabbi Newman added another note: “I got into this climate work as a retired rabbi here in England because I realized that since humanity faces the possibility of holocaust which we as Jews know only too well, we have a responsibility not to be bystanders.”

Rabbi Newman is not all doom and gloom, and considers himself an optimist, he told me.

“My viewpoint is that there may still be time to avoid irreversible climate change (which takes place and speeds up, as all feedback loops already known and unknown kick in) which would entirely destroy society as we know it,” he saidm noting: “The second paragraph of the ‘Shema’ is as good a pointer as any.”

“At this moment, we can definitely live differently, care for one another — poor and the oppressed, the disabled, the abandoned elderly and African orphans –and in doing so we will be learning the values necessary to deal in the best possible way with any unimaginable future,” he said. “I don’t think everything is lost and that there is nothing to hope for. Far from it. I believe there is work to do and it is happening here and now and those who want and can be a part of it.”

At the end of conversation, Rabbi Newman also spoke to me of God.

“We need to mention God, too, of course, who is Supreme Above All but not distanced, not out of it, not Other but Here and Now, ‘I AM that I AM’ — reality, Being, Existence, Truth as it is, not as we wish it to be, as we will never know because who among us can know all reality?

“God Is, Was and Will be: Now, in one infinitesimal moment of ultimate depth. Now, more than ever, we need God who also is dependent upon us.”

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Bloom, based in Taiwan, is a freelance writer and a climate activist.  Your comment may be placed in the box below this article or sent directly to the author at dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com