My consciousness shifted from being a frenzied New Yorker to an attentive, concerned one once I entered St. Bartholomew's Church to attend a Global Warming event hosted by State Senator Liz Krueger, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, and other environmental advocates. And country singer Kathy Mattea was there as a featured personality, presenting slides from movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

I sat down in a church pew and, for the first time in days, relaxed and looked at the surroundings. The high cathedral ceiling settled me for a brief moment until a priest, Father Bean, went up to the podium to open the meeting. Interestingly, Father Bean not only introduced the church and welcomed the gathering, he spoke in a semi-mock radio voice about hope and its place in the face of catastrophic global warming. He explained that “Hope is the strength that God gives us even when our worse fears about what we’ve done to this planet are being realized.”

This is one area where religion and science intersect, yet it was strange to see a priest reign over this environmental crusade. The men in their late 50s sitting next to me mumbled about the fact that most of the turnout excluded the younger generation. Sad too because, after all, it is clear that global warming is going to impact future generations most harshly.

When Mattea stepped up to the platform to speak, the participants in the crowd grew silent and reverent. The 40-something singer started her presentation by stating her gratefulness at being there in such a beautiful and spiritual venue—that immediately brought the seemingly colossal issue of global warming down to a personal level.

Most sat wondering what a country songstress from days past was doing up there among the ranks of environmentalists and politicians like Al Gore. Mattea addressed this rhetorical question right off the bat. In January of 2006, Mattea saw Al Gore’s slideshow presentation of images from “An Inconvenient Truth” and was irrevocably affected. 

“I couldn’t sleep at night after that,” Mattea said. “I kept thinking what can I do?  I tried to go back to before I had all this information, and I couldn’t.” So Mattea joined the small environmental army that Gore has amassed, “the grassroots training program,” to make the public more aware of global warming. Mattea was in the first training class whereby she was coached on how to present Gore’s slideshow and deliberate on the implications of each slide.

The first slide in the presentation was haunting. A picture of our planet sinking into an abyss of black with the haze of pollution surrounding earth, illuminated the screen. With this image, the world looked as if it was disappearing, slowly slipping from our grasp.

Mattea went on to present slides of graphs highlighting the increasing amount of carbon dioxide our society is releasing into the atmosphere, clearly explaining the danger associated with increasing CO2 levels. In plain terms, the more CO2, the hotter the Earth’s atmosphere gets; thus, the more sunburns and spells of heat stroke we all get.

Now, imagine seeing this explained by a red, wavy-lined graph exponentially skyrocketing. With such a display, my first thought was that we will all be incinerated within weeks.

Not only does this accelerating release of C02 heat up the land, but also the oceans, supposedly resulting in bigger storms that hold more water. Hence,  “major storms have increased 50%” according to an MIT study. This explains Hurricane Katrina, followed by Hurricane Rita one month after Katrina, and Hurricane Wilma following Rita, also exactly one month later.

The next big problem the slides revealed had to do with the melting polar ice caps. Obviously, if the ice caps melt—and these are big ice caps at that—just imagine our world under all that water. One of Gore’s slides graphically depicted just that: lower Manhattan flooding, along with many other cities and continents.

According to Mattea, this rapid ice melting phenomena is “unprecedented.” Yet, this seems confusing on a number of levels. Though the visual presentation appalled me and shocked me into a state of panic about the Earth’s current state, I remember reading in science books that this sort of polar ice cap destabilization happened centuries before, and, obviously then it was not as a result of global warming or destroying our environment. According to science journals my remembrance was correct.
Apparently, “polar warming by the year 2100 is estimated to reach levels similar to those 130,000 to 127,000 years ago.” So, my question is, why did this happen 130,000 years ago? Is it just the natural rhythm of the Earth to fluctuate in such an intense manner? Maybe I'm ignorant. Perhaps I am being swayed by the popular press and their sensational lies, or possibly I am at times skeptical about global warming because I am in denial, and the acceptance of what is truly happening is too frightening to accept. 

Regardless, there is no question that the way we destroy our environment is palpable, and I certainly agree that things need to change.  

Whether the polar ice caps melting is a result solely from human consumption and environmental ignorance or the Earth’s rhythm, or a combination of both, there is a bigger question behind all of this that Mattea hit on: Why do we continue to speed up and need bigger machines; technologically advanced shovels; atomic bombs instead of swords? 

These technological advancements do not make life easier. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The second we create some new savvy device is the second that humanity has to run even faster to catch up. Bigger power plants, bigger/faster cars, pumping hormones into food, all of it only serves to destroy the environment along with human sanity.

Most people do not see global warming as a problem they can fix. They look to their neighbors and see that they are not doing anything, and thus, revert to childlike whining, complaining “If he doesn’t do it then why should I?” The answer: because, as Mattea aptly stated, “Once you step over the line and recycle something or change a light bulb, you become part of the solution. Yes, you may be part of the problem still. But you also become part of the solution.” 

As for what the big state of New York is doing to change matters, a few things were discussed. Unfortunately, because the Federal government refuses to take regulatory action on climate control, the states are taking matters into their own hands. For instance, emissions caps, requirements for energy conservation, zero- or low-carbon renewable energy, controls on methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural and solid waste operations are beng employed, and more are being discussed and implemented.

New York, as the center of the universe, is now using its power to reduce the ill effects its tall skyscrapers and soaring business centers have produced for years.  The hope is that with New York rallying for support on the front lines, other states will fall into the battle against global warming as well, taking matters into their own hands.

As I finished writing these last sentences, I suddenly felt similar to Mattea in that I may have a hard time sleeping tonight.We have all run through the streets of New York City before, too caught up in our inner mantra "Faster, Hurry" to notice dropping a gum wrapper on the ground or the rush of the air that our lungs breathe in and out. If we build up our technology and stress ourselves to the point of exhaustion, the least we could do is use it to better our environment rather than neglect it. After all, wasn't that the point? Work harder, increase technology, advance, in order to create a better world in which to live?

Now, I admit, I haven't been the most environmentally conscious person or helped the cause in a tremendous way. In my exhaustion, I have thrown the plastic bottles and aluminum cans out with the rest of the garbage, pawning the recycling process off as a waste of precious time.

I even went so far as to question, regardless of all the scientific evidence, whether global warming was, in fact, as catastrophic as it is made out to be; but now, after recounting the events of the evening of October 23, 2007, I feel compelled to do something, start somewhere. I do not want to watch the Earth disappear. I do not want to be part of more distress and more negativity and more opposition. I want to clean up this world we live in.

The evidence is plainly delineated; regardless of differing opinions on the world heating up as a result of natural fluctuations or not, we are destroying our environment. To say we aren’t would be like saying the Holocaust never happened. You cannot release atomic bombs and millions upon millions of chemicals into the atmosphere and expect no harm.

No, we are not superheroes, but while we can still see the tiny fleck of dust that is our world from space, we might as well follow in Mattea's footsteps and commit even a fraction of our energy to, as she said, “an act of faith, connection, and humility and do what we can."