March 2007 Archives

"We are the Same Species as God"

We need to understand that all of creation is beautiful and wonderful in its own way, the plants and trees, the angels, the planetary system, but only man is the same SPECIES as God. Genesis 1:26 says man was created in the image of God. We are made in His image and in His likeness and only man is created the same species as God.

-- Jeff Jansen

UPDATE: Neglected to mention National Downshifting Week 21-27 April. "Slow down and green up!" Tracey Smith has a good thing going here. Spread the word!

Remember, the more money you spend,
the more time you have to be out there earning it
and the less time you get to spend with the ones you love.

Don,

I am currently working with Discovery Channel who is airing a new series that I believe would be a wonderful tie-in for your readers to help them remember the importance of Christian environmental stewardship, especially as Earth Day approaches. The series is the 11-part, high-definition "Planet Earth" series that shows never-before-seen animals, animal behaviors and landscapes. This series shows images of the beauty and wonder of God's creation and is a reminder that creation is a gift from God not only for people to appreciate and admire, but also to protect and preserve.

After reading the transcript linked by Joe Carter today...

20. Michael Crichton and others recently participated in a debate on the proposition "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis." Before the debate 30 percent of the audience agreed with the motion, while 57 percent were against and 13 percent undecided. The debate seemed to affect a number of people: Afterward, about 46 percent agreed with the motion, roughly 42 percent were opposed and about 12 percent were undecided. [Full debate (92 minutes); Transcript] (HT: Pseudo-Polymath)

the post I wrote a year ago (reprised below) seemed still current, particularly the stuff I found in National Geographic on climate stability.

And it came to pass at midnight that that Lord struck all of the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. [Exodus 12:29]

My son and I have been working our way through the Pentateuch - a sort of New Year's resolution that has turned into some very good fellowship for us. As we waded in the headwaters of Exodus this week and Moses' account of the plagues in Egypt I was struck by how tightly the fate of creation is bound to the fates of Egypt and Israel and the decisions of God and Pharaoh.

GOD USES NATURE AS signs and wonders. In Exodus Chapter 7 a wooden stick briefly becomes a serpent, a river temporarily bloody, a sky is filled with deadly hail. Gnats, flies, frogs and locusts are all used by God to smite Egypt. Here creation is dutifully doing the Creator's will. There's no God allowed such and so nonsense going on here. Nature's participation in these perfectly awful plagues shouldn't surprise us. These critters are simply putting the "pest" in pestilence.

In Hybrids Not as Environmentally Friendly as Thought we learn:

Because the study takes into account every aspect of the production process, hybrids like the Honda Accord Hybrid have an energy cost of $3.49 per mile. Compare that to a regular Accord, at $2.18, or a Hummer H3, at $1.98, and that green vehicle taxes the environment more.

The full report here.

American Hiking Society which is also involved in various conservation efforts. They are also into these carbon offset (credits) fad. I call it a fad because of this: If you don't change your lifestyle and instead buy "offsets" or "credits" isn't that cheating like a shoplifter who says "I'm not going to stop stealing but I'll donate some things I steal to charity" ? But anyway...

You can hike for a cure for Leukemia & Lymphoma [pdf file]. Use Trail Finder to find a trail near you. And check out Trails.com, Local Hikes and Trail Source.

Check out Leave No Trace and read the Leave No Trace Principles

See also Geocaching.

• The Global Warming Hoax
• Global Warming Skeptic Resources
• Is Al Gore's Inconvenient Fiction a $250 Billion Scam?
• Media Ignore Al Gore's Financial Ties to Global Warming
• Creators of carbon credit scheme cashing in on it

A reader writes:

I read your article on CFL's, but you didn't discuss what consumers should do to dispose of them. As for lasting 5-7 years.  Mine last less than 2!  I have them on 24/7 though.

Any ideas/thoughts?

UPDATE: Beech bark disease, the pygmy-hog-sucking louse, and other creeping critter goodies at this month's Oekologie Carnival, hosted by El Gentraso.

Read From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype.

And watch the The Great Global Warming Swindle.

but no former vice presidents or Hollywood actors. Just a dozen scientists talking about climate change and the history of the global warming movement. Good on Darrick for finding it first. Share it with your friends.

Back to the sabbatical...

Where Al Gore & Co. are predicting the end of the world, author Indur Goklany in The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet shows how much better life is than only a few decades ago.

Relying on a wealth of data, Goklany shows how innovation, increases in affluence, and key institutions have combined to address environmental degradation that sometimes results from growth. The evidence on the use of cropland, trends in air pollution, and diverse experiences in water usage counters the gloomy outlook of some environmentalists. Goklany explains why the state of the world is improving and offers a realistic assessment of the sustainability of the human enterprise, setting priorities for dealing with such challenges as climate change.

From John Berlau's Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health!, pp. 218-219:

The Environment Isn't a Conservative or Liberal Issue

This saying I agree with. But not for the reasons usually stated. I think both conservatives and liberals should reject the tenets of modern environmentalism.

The merging of liberalism with environmentalism is actually a rather new political phenomenon, not quite forty years old. Recall Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech dedicating the Hoover Dam in which he bragged about "altering" the geography of the region and called the area that existed before "catus-covered waste."

[Even] Karl Marx and the early communists and socialists were not against factories. In fact many saw them as liberating to farm drudgery...

Those liberals who really care about humanity...should be the first in line to advocate spraying DDT to combat malaria outbreaks in Africa...It might also help liberals win some of their arguments. It's hard to argue that you're for government-run health care and against Social Security private accounts because you care so much about people when you then turn around and say that people's needs should take second place to those of the snail darter.

Want to get outside more this year? Try Geocaching:

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

this gem:

Inside San Francisco's environmental-friendly Federal Building.

THE LATEST CRAZE in architecture, after fizzled experiments in Modernism, Post Modernism, Brutalism, Deconstructionism, and Post-Brutal-Deconstructed-Neo-Modernism, is a genuflection to environmentalism called "Green Building" or "Sustainable Architecture". For the most part, building "Green" means cloaking an intrinsically inefficient high rise building in an ecological hair shirt that makes owners feel good and tenants feel miserable.

Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge.  [1 Cor 4, The Message]

Heard an interesting sermon this morning that spoke to my heart. It was about a several-hundred-year-old church in England that had "We Preach Christ Crucified" engraved on its brick and stone archway. Here's my best recollection:

Under that banner the preacher brought sermon after sermon on the power of God, redemption and revival: The God-Man Christ born, died, buried, resurrected, ascended in glory, and coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

The Abundant Forest Alliance (AFA) has launched abundantforests.org to inform about our renewable forests. Learn, among other things:

• There are 10 million more acres of forest now than 15 years ago.
• How forests are manged.
• Take the E-IQ Test.
• About paper recycling.
• How trees clean our water.
• Why more than 1.7 million new trees are planted each day.

From Spirit Daily: (via)

We see then how the devil plays both sides as the master of divisiveness and confusion. Get the good Christians worried that by supporting the environment they are supporting a one-world government, and at the same time, make those who do trumpet the environment do so in a purely pagan, secular, or even occult way -- with no thought of God -- and you are having it both ways if you are the prince of deception (and darkness).

More:

Thus conservatives miss a sign of the times by arguing against global warming, period, while liberals have covered over the same signs by blaming it all on pollution and trying to use it as a tool for globalization.

Read the whole thing.

Saving souls and spreading faith is a good cause, but it is very hard to spread the gospel amid piles of trash.

-- Pastor Dave Heckman, Newark Valley NY

Shea Gunther has launched Green Options. Go over and run up his new hit counter, will you?

Been a while since our last cow flatulence update. (via)

While I'm a skeptic about anthropogenic global warming gas, I have been steadily pointing out the suspicious silence by the MSM on the meat issue -- because according to all the official data, human meat consumption is said to be the number one cause of global warming. I now I see that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is laying the issue at Al Gore's feet -- and they accuse his movie of failing to address cause number one...Among other things the letter cites studies showing that switching to a vegan diet is more effective than switching to a Prius...I hope they hold Al Gore's feet to the fire on this one. Something about the way they're avoiding meat strikes me as downright devious. I suspect it's because they don't believe their own rhetoric. Or maybe it's because they think taking the country off meat will be too much of a hard sell. Whatever it is, I'd like nothing more than to get to the bottom of this nonsense.

I hope PETA makes Gore squeal like a stuck hog.

Time to start thinking sirloin offsets! More on cap"-and-charade" at Greenie Watch.

"[W]e should not mistake cleaning up the environment with saving the planet."

-- Terri Choate