Article July 23, 2012 Issue

Climate change: What I could do

Elizabeth Graser-Lindsey

As a professor of agricultural meteorology and climatology, I taught graduate students about how climate change could affect crops, and I did research as part of the national effort to understand how agricultural systems contribute to climate change. What brought the subject home to me in a very direct way was when I read about a record-setting heat wave in Pakistan and India that killed hundreds of people. I felt such compassion for their plight that my heart was deeply moved.

While researching other major heat waves, I learned from the World Health Organization that “climatic changes already are estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually.” This led me to pray regularly about climate change and the progressive nature of mankind. I also prayed for God to show me how to be benign in my actions and to be able to follow my conscience in supporting solutions to this global concern, while also respecting those with other points of view.

To me, conscience is one’s inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action. While my conscience might direct me to somewhat different conclusions about right behavior than another person’s, I recognized from Mary Baker Eddy’s writings that I needed to follow my highest sense of right to support healing. 

About the author

Elizabeth Graser-Lindsey has her Ph.D. in bioenvironmental engineering with a focus in agricultural meteorology and climatology. She lives on a small farm in Beavercreek, near Portland, Oregon. 

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