By Carl Kline | For The Brookings Register
I’ve been going to the SDSU Wellness Center with some regularity lately. It’s become a good discipline to make sure my life isn’t totally sedentary and my weight at least stays stable. Usually I’ll be there for some 40 minutes using two or three of the machines. One of them tells me how many miles I’ve walked. I’m always surprised by the total, as I know how many blocks I’d have to walk outside to get that result.
As the world warms, I expect to start using my legs more on sidewalks outside, less on machines. It’s a blessing to have a place where you can exercise in all kinds of weather, warm in winter and air-conditioned in summer, but there’s nothing like the natural world to stimulate the spirit as well as the mind and body. One can see the birds and squirrels through the Wellness Center windows, but it’s not quite the same as having the squirrel scolding you from the tree limb above your head.
I’ve been aware of a climber on the step machine lately. She is already climbing when I arrive at my usual spot and still there when I leave. My guess is she spends 45 minutes to an hour on it. She varies the speed so that sometimes she’s almost running up the steps. I’m curious if she’s in training for some athletic event or perhaps she climbs mountains in her spare time. It makes me think of the physical challenge I always encountered climbing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and all that natural beauty. I’d like to ask her if she knows about the White Mountains, but she’s too busy and I’m too timid.
Then there are the runners. When I’m on the treadmill, I hold on to the sides. Once in a while I may take one hand off the rail to look at my pedometer or wipe my nose. But then the hand goes back to the railing so I’m sure to keep my balance. Usually the runners are running on both sides of me. They don’t hold onto anything except maybe their phones or perhaps even a book. And you can tell the distance runners from the sprinters. If I’m on the treadmill for 15 minutes, the guy next to me was there before me and continues running for a long time after I’ve gone home.
Yesterday, as I was on the treadmill, I saw some of those same runners outside. Why not? When you have 50 degree weather in February, why not run outside? We’ve had a string of 40 and 50 degree days, unusual for South Dakota in February. I love it, but it’s also troubling.
2023 and 2024 set records as the warmest years in human history, a conclusion reached by scientists from data gathered from ice cores and sediment. Current temperatures are hotter than at any time in the last 1000,000 years. Scientists tell us the current warming is due to human activity and is happening at an unprecedented rate.
We’ve known about “global warming” for some time, and even initiated some programs in our country to limit it. In 2009, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was given the authority to limit six greenhouse gases that were dangerous to human health (known as “the endangerment finding”). The gases came from the oil and gas industry, power plants and vehicles.
Unfortunately, that EPA authority to protect our health has just been removed. President Trump has labeled the endangerment finding a “scam,” a “rip-off,” a “disaster.” His is the single largest act of deregulation in U.S. history. Of course these regulations would not be necessary for this President as he considers climate change a “hoax.” He says, why burden our industry with government overreach.
The “finding” limiting greenhouse gases has been called by some administration officials, “the ‘Holy Grail’ of climate change religion.” I believe that statement was meant to be a put-down. But I don’t see it that way. Climate change is science, but now it is religion too. What could be better than to have both a scientific and spiritual grounding? And to bring the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper into the picture, gives the “finding” even greater weight.
I’m sorry, but it’s hard to picture Jesus on the treadmill. I can picture him walking in the nature park south of town, or walking in our neighborhood, even climbing a mountain with me. Coming from the Creator, he would gravitate toward the creation, as most of us tend to do.
Others take satisfaction in what “they” create, be that lasting or not, of substance or not, spiritually enriching or not.
I’m experimenting with meditation and prayer on the machines, as we may in the distant future find it the only place habitable for our exercise.
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