Father William Grimm, mm
In medieval England, monks compiled an annual record of events known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The practice was maintained until shortly after 1066 when William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, invaded England and became William the Conqueror, King of England. French then replaced Anglo-Saxon [Old English] as the chief language of the realm and the chronicling ceased.
The chronicle entry for the year 793 says, “This year came dreadful forewarnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January [this is likely an erroneous inscription of the word for “June”] in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Lindisfarne, by rapine and slaughter.”
Lindisfarne was a famous monastery and the “heathen men” were the Vikings. Their assault on the monks was the beginning of raids from Scandinavia that continued up to the time of William.
Nowadays, besides shopping, decorating, card-writing, and even preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are expected in Advent to reflect on the second coming of Christ and the end of the world as it has been.
In that connection, the gospels speak of portents such as stars falling from the sky. The Book of Revelation even has a dragon. It sounds like a projected replay of northeast England in 793 before disaster hit.
Scientists in every relevant field have warned of the dangers of pumping gases into the atmosphere that increase the average temperature of Earth. Those portents have been ignored or treated as threats to a complacent but ultimately self-destructive lifestyle
However, stars are not falling from the sky nor are there radar sightings of dragons flying overhead, but does that mean that we are safe from disaster today?
Though the wars in Gaza and Ukraine nearly monopolise news coverage, by one count there are, at present, 56 armed conflicts going on in the world ranging from skirmishes to all-out battle with tanks, trenches, and missiles—no dragons, but a volume of violence that Vikings would envy. The death and destruction show no signs of abating, and there is no guarantee that things will not get worse.
Just as threats of war and violence are not caused by lightning and dragons but by people, the biggest threat to our world today is caused by, propelled by, and increased by human activity.
Scientists in every relevant field have warned of the dangers of pumping gases into the atmosphere that increase the average temperature of Earth. Those portents have been ignored or treated as threats to a complacent but ultimately self-destructive lifestyle.
The natural portents of disaster are storms, droughts, desertification, global warming, species extinction, wildfires, glacial melting, coastal flooding, and more. These portents show themselves in human suffering. All of them are likely caused by, but are certainly exacerbated by our decades-long refusal to break our addiction to warming the atmosphere by pumping into it heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuel.
It has now become clear that the climate change presently taking place stems from the overheating of the planet, caused chiefly by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity, which in recent decades has proved unsustainable for the ecosystem
Pope Frances, COP28 address
Instead of dragons in the air, we have smog.
In his address to the COP28 conference in Dubai, Pope Francis said, “It has now become clear that the climate change presently taking place stems from the overheating of the planet, caused chiefly by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity, which in recent decades has proved unsustainable for the ecosystem.”
When the Vikings raided Lindisfarne, they killed and enslaved dozens. We are now already in the process of destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions, perhaps billions. It is already too late to reverse the effects of our selfish refusal to cut back when we realised what was happening.
Even in the unlikely event that we were to suddenly change it would take decades or even centuries to undo the damage or to halt its worsening. Global warming has no emergency brake. Its momentum will carry it ahead for a long, long time. It will continue even if we stop abetting it. And we show no signs of a willingness to do that.
So, it’s too late to respond to the forewarnings. The Vikings have landed. Just as lightning and dragons did not alert the English to the seafarers in the eighth century, our having ignored latter-day warnings about war and climate change will not stop them.
What are we to do?
Just as threats of war and violence are not caused by lightning and dragons but by people, the biggest threat to our world today is caused by, propelled by, and increased by human activity
Advent, when we reflect on what is to come and prepare ourselves, is an apt time to think about that.
The first thing we need is realism. There is no way that you or I, or all of us alive today, can bring about a magic reversal of the history we have made. We can do small things but those small things over more time than we personally have may accumulate to become real change. We must be humble enough yet confident enough to believe that our little bit will contribute to a future that our descendants can enjoy in peace and safety.
Pope Francis said, “the task to which we are called today is not about yesterday, but about tomorrow: a tomorrow that, whether we like it or not, will belong to everyone or else to no one. Let us leave behind our divisions and unite our forces! And with God’s help, let us emerge from the dark night of wars and environmental devastation in order to turn our common future into the dawn of a new and radiant day.”
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCAN.
