The Silver Rule says: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. But our economic and political systems allow fossil-fuel corporation to violate all 10 of what can be called the Ten Climate Commandments. This essay discusses the first five commandments.

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Although the 10 Commandments expressed in the Hebrew Bible were written for a particular people at a particular time, they contain a universal ethic, which can be summarized in the so-called Silver Rule, namely: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.[1]

Because of changing circumstances, which bring new problems, the Silver Rule always needs to be reformulated for the most urgent ethical problems of the time. Today, the overriding ethical problems arise from the climate change caused by global warming, which is depriving people around the world from some of their most basic rights.

The Declaration of Independence, which is foundational for the United States, includes the right to life among the basic human rights. This right implies a right to all those things that are essential to life, such as food, water, and clean air. But the fossil-fuel corporations have been robbing people of these rights.

I am suggesting, therefore, Ten Climate Commandments. This essay, the first in a series of two, provides the first five commandments. The second essay will provide the second five.

1. Thou Shalt Not Ruin Civilization's Climate.

Civilization emerged about 10,000 years ago, after the emergence of the Holocene epoch, which was the "Goldilocks zone" for civilization: not too hot, not too cold. That ideal climate existed because the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hovered around 275 parts per million (ppm).

However, since the rise of the industrial age, based on fossil-fuel energy, the level of CO2 has been rising steadily, so that now it is above 400 ppm. This increase has already caused the planet's average temperature to rise 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit), and the CO2 in the atmosphere is already fated to push the temperature up further, because there is a lag -- most recently estimated to be about 10 years - between the CO2 emissions and the effect on the temperature.[2]

By "catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene," as one physicist put it,[3] we have already changed the planet significantly. This catapult is causing many changes that violate climate commandments.

2. Thou Shalt Not Impose Hotter Weather on People.

One of the changes caused by global warming is the rise of increasingly extreme weather, one of which is worse heat waves. What matters to us is not the average temperature, but the "extremely hot days," meaning ones that are above the 90^th percentile for that region.

Over the past 15 years, the number of extremely hot days has soared.[4] In 2003, a European heat wave was so much hotter than previous ones that Great Britain reached 100 degreesF (38.5 degreesC) for the first time ever.[5] In 2013, China had its worst heat wave ever, with 40 cities remaining above 104Ë?F (40Ë?C) for 31 days.[6] And in 2014, India experienced its longest heat wave, which was so hot that the streets of Delhi were virtually empty.

Although other kinds of extreme weather may be more dramatic, "Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States," claiming "more lives each year than floods, lightning, tornadoes and hurricanes combined."[7]

Worldwide, people have had increasingly deadly heatwaves imposed on them by global warming. For example, an estimated 70,000 people died in the European heat wave of 2003 and 50,000 in Russia's 2010 heat wave.[8]

Referring to the fact that this excessive heat has been imposed on us by fossil-fuel corporations, Bill McKibben has said, "We're hot as hell and we're not going to take it any more."[9] By which he meant: Not allowing fossil-fuel companies to continue spewing their waste products into the atmosphere.

3. Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People

Although drought, which is the climate effect that has thus far been most harmful to people, has occurred long before global warming began, this warming has aggravated it. This may seem counter-intuitive, because global warming causes more evaporation, which leads to increased precipitation. But it changes where the precipitation falls, so that "the wet gets wetter and the dry gets drier."[10]

Drought is so harmful primarily because it is "the single most common cause of severe food shortages in developing countries," said the U.N., and "caused more deaths during the last century than any other natural disaster."[11]

More than a billion people are regularly hungry, and this problem becomes even worse when there is prolonged drought. "The U.S. is the world's largest producer of corn and 2012 was supposed to be a banner year," but in many states, the heat and drought caused the corn to "shrivel and die." A plant biologist in Illinois said, "Its like farming in hell."[12]

Drought also causes fiercer wildfires, with longer fire seasons. In the western United States, "the fire season now lasts two months longer and destroys twice as much land as it did four decades ago."[13]

4. Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive Storms.

Global warming, by raising the temperature, increases the amount of water the atmosphere holds, thereby resulting in more precipitation.

As a result, there has been an increase in extreme rain storms, known as deluges. In 2010, a deluge flooded a fifth of Pakistan, forcing eight million people to evacuate, and California suffered the heaviest rainfall since records have been kept."[14] In 2012, southwestern Australia had more than 8 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, breaking all-time records.[15] And in April 2014, Florida and Alabama both received over two feet of rain in 24 hours.[16]

Global warming also results in extreme snowstorms, such as the "Snowpocalypse" of December 2009, which was at that time "the largest December snowstorm on record."[17]

Global warming also intensifies the strength of hurricanes, because the warmer oceans have more energy. As a result, "category 4 and 5 storms have almost doubled in number and proportion since 1970."[18] The two most destructive Hurricanes in American history, Katrina and Sandy, both developed when the water was extremely warm.[19]

As for Tornadoes, there had long been doubt about whether global warming makes them more powerful, but recent evidence has shown that it does.[20]

5. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water

There has been lots of talk about "peak oil," said Lester Brown, but "the real threat to our future is peak water." According to a book entitled Blue Gold, "There is simply no way to overstate the fresh water crisis on the planet today."[21] This crisis has been caused by global warming (combined with the world's rising population).

Most dramatically, global warming has been melting our "reservoirs in the sky" - glaciers and snowpack - from which billions of people get their water for drinking and agriculture.[22] The glaciers of the Andes, upon which 80 million people are dependent, have shrunk "30 to 50% since the 1970s."[23] In Asia, between 1.5 to 3 billion people get their water from the Himalayas, but "Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an accelerating rate."[24] According to Lester Brown, "The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia."[25]

Accordingly, the fossil-fuel corporations, along with the governments that have supported them, are in the process of stealing fresh water from billions of people, as discussed in the book Blue Gold, which is subtitled: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.[26]

The most massive theft, however, is by the corporations responsible for global warming and the politicians who have allowed it to continue over the past decades.

David Ray Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. The present article is drawn from material in his most recent book, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).

Authors Bio:

David Ray Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has written 30 books. His most recent book is Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).