Russell Moore reviews Disney's Earth and has this great insight:

The Earth producers told Newsweek they tried to defang the most disturbing parts of the film, but, well, that's the way nature is, red in tooth and claw.

That's why I, as a Christian, am thrilled to see both sides of the dilemma for Disney. It is human to acknowledge both the beauty and the horror of the reigning natural order. It is is human to cringe in the face of its cruelty and to sit in openmouthed awe at its glory.

The Scriptures tell us both. The creation is frustrated since the primeval insurrection. Human rule has been overturned, supplanted with a rule by the craftiest of the beasts (Gen. 3:1). Since the dragon is himself a predator (indeed a murderer) he has no interest in exercising benevolent dominion over the beasts. Fallen humanity, reflecting its snake-god, has become animal-like, captive to instinct and appetites. We acknowledge the beasts but only to emulate them and to worship them (Rom. 1).

The Creator, therefore, subjects the creation to a "futility" under which the creation groans "the revealing of the sons of God" (Rom. 8:19). But even this is subjected "in hope" (Rom. 8:20). God gives humanity, after the flood, the flesh of the beasts for food, but he does so by simultaneously putting the "fear of you and the dread of you" (Gen. 9:2) within the instinctual center of the animals. This is to show that animals are not mere fodder for humans, to be harvested simply like grain. The fear of man in animals is to signify that the image-bearer is now, in some sense, a twisted interloper in this order. It also gives the animals, as my fellow Mississippian Jerry Clower might put it, "a sporting chance" in the arena of hunter and hunted.

The sense of sadness at the starvation of an elephant or the mutilation of an antelope is not simply the sentimentality of post-Bambi American culture, although, to be sure, some of it is. We're supposed to feel a certain kinship with the animals. That's why the bloody sacrifice of birds and bulls and lambs among our ancestors could correspond with what was to happen at the Place of the Skull.

Being reminded of the wildness of the wild kingdom can be a helpful reminder to followers of Jesus. This universe is not the way its intended to be. It is bloody, violent, and often chaotic. We do not, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, yet see all things under the feet of humanity. But, "we see him who was for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death" (Heb. 2:9).

Earth is G-rated. Earth is not.

Anthony suggests that the reason Christians make better ecologists is that they put people first.

The interesting thing about Christian care for the environment, especially if we take the Scriptures as our guide, is that this ‘human interest’ is front and center.  Genesis 1:26 has God putting mankind in charge of ‘the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’  This we can properly call stewardship and as we see from the text, the value of humans and the earth is set by God, and in this equation, the earth is placed in subject to Humanity.

Presumably, this means it is to humans to carefully manage what has been put under their care.

By ‘carefully manage’ we must understand that ‘human interests’ must be the guiding light, and as this command comes when man was yet unfallen the concern that mere selfishness would be the guiding light is probably not warranted.

Of course, some of the most strident Christian environmentalists are ones who have thrown out Genesis 1.  So, I don’t know what their Scriptural basis is.

Read the whole thing.

AWR Hawkins takes on Hollywood greenwashing, both right and left.

CS Monitor has a string of examples of how the global recession is making life greener.  Then there's this quote:

“If the Obama administration had come into office with a thriving economy, I think it would have been easier for them to get a cap-and-trade or [carbon] tax bill through Congress,” says Peter Wilcoxen, director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration at Syracuse University.

Both of these scenarios - a cyclically sluggish economy or a heavily taxed economy - theoretically make America greener.  We certainly got dirty during the industrial revolution, but the same industrial revolution in communist Soviet Russia created massive pollution.  It would be interesting to compare actual pollution per capita to economic data.  If anybody knows of such a study, shoot me the link.

The largest wind turbine Mike D'Estries has ever seen.  Arrh arrh arrh!

Using Fungi to Replace Styrofoam.  Cool.  And when you're done, slice fungi, add olive oil and a little chopped garlic, saute on med heat, salt and cracked pepper to taste, and pile between a good New York steak and a baked potato...

Mike Cermak:  I think we can answer the question of “Does Earth Day matter?” with another question: How is Black History Month doing?

Dave Pollard:

[B]ecause of our imaginative poverty, and our inability to really understand and follow nature's model of self-management, we are unable to conceive of, let alone develop "anticipatory awareness" of, discontinuous future events. We can recognize patterns, we can do environmental scanning and constantly watch for 'weak signals' that forebode changes ahead, we can extrapolate and project, and we can even (though too rarely) recognize the recurrence of patterns from our past history. But we, and our man-made systems, don't have the resilience, the sheer numbers of data-providers and of data to draw on, or the billions of years of experience at mitigation and adaptation that nature does, and we can't hope to. Just look at most science fiction, which presumes that all sentient creatures everywhere in the universe, throughout all time, have and always will look, feel, communicate and act astonishingly like humans today, and will deal with problems depressingly like we do today.

I wouldn't lean in the direction of nature's "self-management" - I'd give more credit to God of course.  But the authors have stumbled backward into describing the effects of man's ham-handed way of doing things (sin, etc).

By the way, if people are so awfully prone to mismanaging systems, why would we self-appoint ourselves as the right folks to fix them?

MORE from Rasmussen:  Beware easy formulas.

Larry West gives the President an "A" on his first 100 days on the job as Ecologist in Chief.

Looking back at the dream environmental agenda I recommended for Obama on Inauguration Day in January, and then assessing his environmental accomplishments during his first 100 days, I have to give him an A for achievement as well as effort.

Will it give him enough momentum to overcome economic concerns raised by Dems over cap-and-trade and CO2 taxation?  That's the 100 billion dollar question.

Amy Hardberger:

The water supply sector utilizes large amounts of energy to transport, treat, and deliver water.  On the flip side, vast quantities of water are required to generate power.

I pinged Glenn Reynolds a while ago on not seeing the link between nuke power and water consumption.  Amy's article points out the inter-dependence of water supplies and energy. 

Having lived with routine power outages on Guam for a couple years, I'd rather lose power than water.  But it seams we're losing the ability to chose between the two.

A meditation from God's Message through Jeremiah (17:5-8, MSG)

Cursed is the strong one
   who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
   and sets God aside as dead weight.
He's like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
   out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
   in a land where nothing grows.

"Cursed."  Is there any stronger way to say it?  It's not just a question of things not working out quite right. There is no condition on what is cursed.  Everything we do is, if we're depending on ourselves or other people to make it happen.   "...out of touch with the good earth."  You say you want to be connected with the planet?  In touch with nature? 

And yet how often do we set God aside like a lead weight.  When we do we become like sagebrush.  We are rootless.  We are aimlessly blown around by fear mongers and the panic of politicians and the media.

But...

But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
   the woman who sticks with God.
They're like trees replanted in Eden,
   putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers, 
   never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
   bearing fresh fruit every season.

"Blessed...trusts me, God..."  Trust in God yields blessings - freshness, protection from droughts, fruitfulness.  Not even one leaf drops.

Isn't it interesting that we're not just growing haphazardly - we are re-planted.  It's a deliberate thing.  An act of redemption.

Isn't it amazing that we're not just planted anywhere, but in Eden - the place God created for us to live before mankind sinned and brought death into the world.  It's the place of God's perfect, intimate presence. 

Isn't it encouraging that we're not planted near a stagnant lake but many rivers - multiple sources of strength, nourishment, and blessing that are constantly renewed.

There is no gray area here, Church.  These two circumstances are polar opposites.  We are either depending on ourselves and kicking God to the curb.  Or we're depending totally on Him and trusting he will guide and direct us to accomplish his will.  We are either tumbleweeds, unattached and blowing in the desert, or trees planted by rivers. 

If your desire is to be connected to the planet, be connected to God first and foremost.

Limbaugh now a national spokesman for the Humane Society. Republicans the party of cats now? What am I gonna tell my ol' Lab Jake...

UPDATE: LA Times blog has links to the PSA's.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more.

Catherine Claire Larson, author of As We Forgive, on how how social conditions contribute to reconciliation:

I wasn’t able to include it all in my book, but I’ve been greatly impressed by the groups which are wedding reconciliation work with micro-enterprise. World Relief has an essential oil business that is enabling Hutu and Tutsi to work in reconciled community, Indego has their basket weaving enterprise that is doing the same, and Prison Fellowship Rwanda has been involved with a cattle operation, while Land of a Thousand Hills works with coffee plantations. It strikes me that by creating economic opportunities where interdependence is vital, they are really creating ideal environments for reconciliation and restoration. I wasn’t ever able to track it down, but one of my friends shared that her college professor did his dissertation in Reconstruction era history of America. He concluded that in areas where interdependence was more vital to survival that racial reconciliation happened at a more rapid pace. Intuitively, that seems to make sense. I’d love to see the research though.

A holistic approach to ecology that includes economic as well as social and environmental development is pretty intuitive, though we tend to think of this applying more in the third world than in our own country.

The Journal is covering the ongoing cap and trade fireworks on Capitol Hill.

Global Warming Overreach - Congressman Henry Waxman played to the crowds this week with high-profile hearings designed to boost his climate legislation. To listen to the Energy and Commerce committee chair, a House global warming bill is all but in the recyclable bag. To listen to Congressman Jim Matheson is something else. During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn't been limited to five minutes, "I might have had more." Mr. Matheson is one of about 10 moderate committee Democrats who are less than thrilled with the Waxman climate extravaganza, and who may yet stymie one of Barack Obama's signature issues. If so, the president can thank Democratic liberals, who are engaging in one of their first big cases of overreach.

Reckless 'Endangerment' - President Obama's global warming agenda has been losing support in Congress, but why let an irritant like democratic consent interfere with saving the world? So last Friday the Environmental Protection Agency decided to put a gun to the head of Congress and play cap-and-trade roulette with the U.S. economy.

Despite all the fur fighting, I predict Obama will get his cap/trade CO2 tax program and EPA will indeed start regulating CO2 as a pollutant.

Wall Street knows this, which is why the Journal's opinion page is pushing back so hard...

UPDATE: Sounds like Waxman knows this too -

In exchange for votes to pass a controversial global warming package, Democratic leaders are offering some lawmakers generous emission “allowances” to protect their districts from the economic pain of pollution restrictions.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, represents a district with several oil refineries, a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions. He also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which must approve the global warming plan backed by President Barack Obama.

So, my progressive friends and family, a question.  Are these sort of horse-trading "means" justified by the "ends?"  Will it really make a dent in CO2 reduction if lawmakers exempt big coal utilities?  And if they're doing this with the CO2 tax, will EPA be forced by Congress to end up with the same regulatory gaps and exemptions?

UPDATE:  No dissent allowed. The hypothesis that is climate change stands un-opposed and unassailable.  So much for the new Obama era of scientific integrity and transparency.  

UPDATE:  Gore - "Fight for climate is like fight for civil rights." Civil rights like, say, the right to free political speech?

What's the difference between believing in human-induced global warming and in UFOs? It's just, well, the two are related.

UPDATE: You guys are great - surprised by all the emails on this one!   Thought it was interesting that the UFOers want President Obama to give us access to all of that great extraterrestrial truth which will help find breakthrough green (climate change, etc) technology:

PRG is well aware of your intention to launch a high technology “New Deal” code named “New Apollo Project” to restore America’s economy.   This massive program to subsidize green technology development, create jobs, expand the manufacturing base and reverse the trade imbalance will be likely accompanied by legislation prohibiting overseas hiring and offshore manufacturing.   

All well and good, but it will not be enough.   The challenges are too great and the response to these challenges too long delayed.   It is essential the paradigm breaking technologies hidden in unacknowledged special access programs and sequestered behind the extraterrestrial truth embargo be included.

So no, I don't think believing in climate change is akin to believing in UFOs.  (No offense to the latter...heh)

If you're a leader in Christian ecology and you're not plugged into Flourish yet, well, you're just not plugged in.  Rusty Pritchard's SustainLane post has tons of info and links.  There's still time to register for the 13-15 May conference in Duluth GA (just outside Atlanta), but ya'll better get a move on...

All the men of Judah and Benjamin met in Jerusalem within the three days. It was the twentieth day of the ninth month. They all sat down in the plaza in front of The Temple of God. Because of the business before them, and aggravated by the buckets of rain coming down on them, they were restless, uneasy, and anxious. 

-- Ezra 10:9, The Message

Glenn Reynolds links to this PopSci article on an unsual battle over state water rights.

Capturing rain may be one of humanity's most ancient methods of acquiring water, but now it's coming back in vogue. Rather than press their luck with drought, conservation-conscious homeowners are setting up rudimentary rain barrels and elaborate rainwater storage systems to catch precipitation for nondrinking purposes, such as watering their lawns. But while rainwater may seem like a global common, nowadays it depends on where you live: By capturing rainwater, some homeowners are breaking the law. This has put city and state governments in an awkward position—smack in the middle of competing water users and advocates, often from within their own agencies, of conserving water to protect supplies.  

I was on the Descanso Water District board of directors from 2003-2006.  After we spent a good deal of time dealing with the after effects of some signficiant water system issues our main focus was on environmental compliance.  But I never remember us even once considering going after folks for collecting the water that fell on their property.

Either state legislators and regulators have way to much time on their hands or the water availability "bubble" in some states is closer to breaking than anybody realizes.

CS Monitor links to this article on a "first of its kind" report on this survey about kids growing up green.

The report, a unique window into a broader national trend, includes an unprecedented survey of more than 140 students (nearly all of them ages 11 or 12) at Merrill Middle School in Des Moines, Iowa...

The whole thing is ridiculous.

140 subjects is no where near unprecedented or statistically significant or any indication of a "broader national trend." But that's not the point, as the article explains in contradictory graphs further down.

Their experience is almost certainly not representative of all youth in the country. By finding out how these children live and think, we don't learn what all youth think -- we learn how young people nationwide can become more engaged in protecting the environment and what government entities, schools and communities can do to make it possible.

Ah - so what the article is really saying is that green indoctrination really works.  I mean, check out those test questions:

Fully 53% of the students said that environmental issues have been a focus of the curriculum in at least one of their classes.

When asked why their school has been effective in advancing environmental issues, more than 48% of the students cited interest and participation of the youth at the school. More than 61% cited tangible applications of the school’s commitment – campus policies and practices, as well as curriculum and lesson plans that include these issues.

LOL - Well, yeh. To their credit, CS Monitor points out the obvious:

As you might expect, most high school students worldwide are familiar with the common environmental issues — air pollution, energy shortages, and extinction of plants and animals.

However — and this may come as a surprise — there’s little correlation between students feeling responsible for the environment and how proficient they are in environmental science. 

Teaching conservation to kids is awesome. A generation ago biology and chemistry teachers were teaching ecology in science classes. Heck, my grandparents taught conservation by their example. Only back then they called it "thrifty." Now the whole thing is social indoctrination with little substance. 

"Uber-green school successfully pushes a green agenda on impressionable young people." This is news? 

The real news is we have a great chance to educate our kids on the science of ecology and we're failing them miserably.

Sec'y of State Clinton:  Battle against climate change akin to her efforts to lose weight. Well, yeh. Dude, I'm starting to really like Hil.  (via Drudge)

Green beer: It ain't just for St. Paddy's anymore!

"As a company of families, Diageo realizes that responsibility extends well beyond our core business," said Guy L. Smith, Executive Vice President, Diageo North America. "As individuals and as a company there is a lot we can do to reduce our impact on the environment. Earth Day is an opportunity to highlight our community involvement and lead by example."

Diageo (Dee-AH-Gee-O) owns Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff, J&B, Baileys, Cuervo, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan, Crown Royal, Beaulieu Vineyard and Sterling Vineyards wines. 

Grist: Is Earth Day having a mid-life crisis?  I doubt their solution is a new Corvette.  My solution's here (or scroll on down...).

UPDATE: Generation gap - Green monsters under the bed.

UPDATE: Hey Grist, if the first E/D was 22 April 1970, would this be the 39th one?

Tom Jacobs: 

So are the world's religious traditions — which define and shape the fundamental mythologies humans live by — a help or a hindrance in the fight to save the Earth? Two prominent scholars, who have studied the subject in depth, have different views. John Grim, co-coordinator of Yale University's Forum on Religion and Ecology, is optimistic. Bron Taylor, editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature and a professor of environmental studies at the University of Florida, is considerably less so.

"Individuals who have been working with environmental issues for decades — both scientists and those working at it from a policy angle — are asking why we haven't seen a transformation in the larger populace," Grim said. "Although people identify themselves as environmentally concerned, this often doesn't show up (in changed behavior such as) reduced consumption or energy use. Some deeper motivation is needed to make the turn. Religions can play a role in terms of this transformation of consciousness."

“There is reason to believe that religion is a significant and negative variable contributing to the degradation of ecosystems globally," said Taylor. "I'm as yet unconvinced that these traditions can be changed enough, and rapidly enough, to ameliorate the current rapid decline in the genetic and species variety of the planet."

The underlying issue was probably best defined by poet and essayist Robert Bly, who has been writing about man's ravenous relationship with the environment for decades. "We're still living a mythology of abundance," he said in a recent interview. "Now it turns out we have found out the limits of the world's resources, so we need a different mythology — a mythology of preservation."

That will require the major faith traditions to shift their focus, at least in part, from the hereafter to the here-and-now. The notion that man is uniquely made in God's image and thus set apart from nature will have to be abandoned. For all its disputes with Darwinism, religion will have to evolve.

Abandoned?  How does a cow or blade of grass "steward" other cows or blades of grass? 

Mythology indeed.

If you're only going to pick up trash today and ignore trash tomorrow you're no better than the person who does church once a year at Easter.

If your idea of Earth Day doesn't include worship of the Creator you're no better than the person who passes off Christmas as Santa Clause.

If you're participating in Earth Day to asuage your guilt, you're grieving the Holy Spirit and denying the power of Christ's blood to totally forgive sin.

If you're participating in Earth Day so you can make yourself feel more important than the person next to you, hit your knees and repent.

If you're so committed to the notion that God is "out there" but had nothing to do with how the world and every living thing came to be, Earth Day's not your thing. You have no idea how your actions for the planet today will screw up evolutionary processes.

If your reason for doing Earth Day is to influence politicians and clergy to work on your behalf so you can go home and browse your PC with American Idol running in the background, please don't. 

If you think you can get through Earth Day without once picking up the Bible and meditating God's word, you've wasted it.**

If you think you can get through Earth Day without once thanking God for who He is and all He has done, you risk Him saying "I never knew you" someday.

If Earth Day is the only thing you're doing out of loving obedience to God it's only a good start.

If you are a pro-choice Christian, don't use Earth Day to promote your concern for chemicals in the environment if you won't promote that chemicals harm unborn babies.

If you are a pro-life Christian, don't use Earth Day to promote recycling when living things all around you need your attention.

If there's only absolute truth in your understanding of climate change and water pollution and moutain top mining and recycling and energy conservation and no absolute grace, you only have half of what Christ calls us to have.

If you can speak about creation care with the tongues of men and of angels but don't have love you're a gong and a clanging cymbal.

If you can predict the earth's future and completely know all the mysteries of ecosystem diversity and climate change and have a faith that can save mountains, but don't have love, you are nothing.

If you give all you possess to the poor and needy and defenseless and wildlife organizations and are willing to offer your life to save a tree but don't have love, you get nothing from it.

"Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words."

St. Francis of Assisi

**(click the read this post link for a couple good verses) 

BUMPED:  Nancy will be on Alan Colmes tonight, 21 April, at 11:00 EST (Fox News). Feel free to call in (1-877-367-2526 ) and listen....

The Sleeth family's newest book is on the street just in time for Earth Day (or Mother's Day). More here.

Chapter titles: 1. Home (Read Online!) 2. Lawn and Garden 3. Work 4. Transportation 5. Food 6. Sabbath 7. Holidays 8. Entertainment 9. School 10. Church 11. Community

Features: • Hundreds of simple, easy-to-implement money-saving tips for going green at home and at the office. • Simple cost-saving formulas that allow readers to calculate their energy/financial savings as they go green. • Helpful "try this instead of that" charts offering money-saving green solutions for everyday living. • Inspirational Scripture and quotes from church leaders (both historical and current) that support the biblically mandated stewardship component of going green.

Always lots of practical stuff from them.

Leo Hickman in the Guardian: A poll this week showed that only 34% of America's white evangelical Protestants accepted there is solid evidence that global warming is real and that it is attributable to humans.

Here's his bottom line: 

It's a popular rebuke made by climate change sceptics that environmentalism displays all the traits of a religion (the words "pot", "kettle" and "black", spring to mind for some reason), but I have to say I'm left perplexed when I even attempt to understand the logic of creation care through the prism of evangelicalism.

Many millions of people hold these views so it would be foolish to ignore this huge constituency, but how do you even go about responding to such beliefs?

Scratch, meet itch.  Most frustrating to me are Christians labeling other Christians who haven't completely bought into global warmism as against creation care.  As if.  

Anyway, scan the post's comments for some interesting answers. 

UPDATE: Maybe "unaffiliated" Christians are just more prone to being swayed by global warmist emotionalism; Catholics, the Gospel community and Evangelicals, not so much.  And what are those Hispanic Catholics thinking, I wonder...

UPDATE: Here's another take on "perplexed."

UPDATE: Pete Illyn in Newsweek:

The good and bad with the environmental movement was that Christians were first introduced to environmentalism through climate change. That may have been a bad place to start because there was a lot of skepticism. It may have been too atmospheric, too faith-based, too "Do I believe, or do I not believe?" For the average pastor, that's a problem.

Right on, Pete.  It's also a problem for many in the pews.

UPDATE: Here's a Lifeway poll on pastors. They're split 50/50 on the question. 

By the way, nobody asked me (heh) but I'm with the my Gospel brothers and sisters on this one.  Climate change is largely natural, has been influenced by human CO2 and other pollutants, and there's a big we really don't know what we don't know factor thrown in for good measure. 

Fellow Aquidneck Islander Beth Milham and some friends have set up Cool Aquineck Island, a wiki of climate change prevention events here in Rhode Island. One of their projects is a series of pics of what a three-foot sea level rise would do to downtown Newport. Add three feet to historic high-tides and you're going to get some striking results, which they do.

After cycling through these pics it's worth your time to head over at EPA's link-laden site dedicated to the latest estimates on sea level rise.  One study puts climate change impacts in context:

In the last decade, estimates of the global warming likely to occur by the year 2100 have been approximately cut in half. The 1983 reports by EPA and the National Academy of Sciences assumed that the radiative forcing equivalent of a CO2 doubling was likely to occur by 2050. During the mid-1980s, several reports suggested that an effective CO2 doubling could occur by the 2030s (see e.g., Villach 1985). Thus, the EPA reports released in 1983 projected a warming of 3 to 9°C by 2100, with CO2 and other greenhouse gases accounting for equal amounts of warming (Hoffman et al. 1983; Seidel & Keyes 1983). The NAS (1983) report projected a warming of 1 to 5°C from CO2 alone and was thus viewed as being consistent with the EPA results (see e.g., Chafee 1986). EPA’s 1989 Report to Congress (Smith & Tirpak 1989) was based on similar assumptions, as shown in Table 8-2. For the most part, scenarios of sea level rise for the year 2100 were in the 50 to 200 cm range, with 100 cm being the most likely.

As the first sentence notes, estimates are being revised down to put the likely date for 100cm sea rise out to the year 2200 now.  If that's true then David Stookey's scenario is less likely. Of course if sea levels reach half the 1980's-calculated 200cm mark by 2100 we're back to David's three feet again, and assuming the Red Parrot's still open for business (great burgers!).

Not passing judgement here. Just wondering if sea level rise estimates will continue to trend down the more we find out what we don't know.  As the EPA study authors put it: The processes that determine warming of the circumpolar ocean, the melting of ice shelves, and the speed at which glaciers flow are very poorly understood.  For all we know they could be revised up.

For folks blogging this sort of thing there's this great quote: The nuanced characterization of uncertainty that might occur in professional assessment is often mis-translated into the appearance of scientific cacophony in the public arena.

Translation - the biggest task for climate science is not measuring what can be measured, but explaining uncertainty with more certainty.  The biggest task for us is acknowledging that uncertainty when it rears its head.

Happy Monday to you! I just published a pair of guest posts I thought you and your readers might be interested in.

First is an impassioned, fact-rich and God-oriented case for why houses of worship should practice organic lawn care. Then, 8 tips for how to green that church lawn.

Best,

Holly 

Sustain Lane on Planetary Skin:

While conspiracy theorists worldwide are having a field day over the February 24 failure of a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) climate-monitoring satellite that failed to reach its orbit during launch - and European theorists point the finger at another climate change satellite that went belly-up on March 16 - NASA and Cisco, Inc., a leading supplier of networking equipment, are trumpeting an online global environmental monitoring platform, called Planetary Skin, which will collect and analyze data from all over the planet to measure the ongoing impact of climate change.

According to the project's website, climate change has become a major priority not only for global leaders but for the heads of large corporations. This statement of purpose is supported by the fact that, out of $2.8 trillion (U.S.) dollars set aside for economic stimulus, $450 billion is targeted toward climate-change mitigation and adaptation. [snip]

The Urban skin will focus on intelligent transportation, smart water and electrical systems, recycling, energy efficiency and citizen collaboration in urban centers, since cities are the primary consumers of resources. According to Planetary Skin, the world's 20 largest cities are responsible for 75 percent of the planet's energy use.

The organization describes its program as a ‘Call for Action' to address climate change, and it is clearly that. However, further hints that it will be used globally to set appropriate governance, regulatory, business and funding models suggest much more, and the suggestion is disturbing. At the very least, all the talk of high finance should ring alarm bells.

The globalists are clearly in a war to shape the planet to their aims, desires, and needs, and global warming is shaping up to be the ideal platform for such an undertaking. Where this will leave the rest of us is questionable.

Indeed. Sorta hard not to get all black helicopterish about this sort of thing.

UPDATE: Hey - we can microchip everybody to track CO2 emissions from vehicle use. Wait - didn't I read about that somewhere? Maybe not.

David Schaengold:

Transportation decisions have the power to shape how we form communities, families, religious congregations, and even how we start small businesses. Bad transportation decisions can destroy communities, and good transportation decisions can help create them.

Read the whole thing. 

Schaengold argues that transit leads to the sort of social interactions that improve families and small businesses and begin to address moral issues like abortion. 

I've been through Grand Central a few times and spent two years riding the Tokyo subways and didn't see much interaction.  But I get his point.  It's akin to the smarter greenhouse gas message environmentalists should adopt to reach conservatives:  Energy conservation and national security, not sad polar bears. 

A lot of environmentalists will never take the time to understand where conservatives (Evangelical or otherwise) are itching.  But then, the progressives are the ones deciding who gets scratched right now.

Fat people cause global warming. They're coming for your twinkies now.

UPDATE: People in glass houses, etc.

Sunday Times online:

The key to a successful, wealth-generating economy is productivity. Saving energy is what businesses have done already, because it lowers their production costs. The problem with any form of subsidy is that it makes the consumer (through hidden taxes) pay to keep inherently uneconomic businesses “profitable”.

Until that day when there's no more money to borrow or steal to pay for it.

By the way - yes, there is return on investment for green energy. But if the ROI is longer than a president's first term (heck, let's give him two), it will get tougher to talk folks into picking up the tab.

Got an email from the guys - a couple believers - who are behind the movie based on the Planet Earth series.

We are working with many of the groups and leaders within the creation care/stewardship movement, and we see Earth as a low-shelf opportunity for those who are still putting their toe in the water when it comes to stewardship. Earth is the most captivating and compelling footage of life on earth ever recorded and is regarded as a cinematography break-through as it follows three animal families from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans over a five-year odyssey (it is “not” political or an agenda film). EARTH captures images we have never before seen in ways we never before imagined. The movie is narrated by the incomparable James Earl Jones. The first movie from Disney Nature, EARTH will provide families a total immersive experience into the wild wonders of God’s creation.

Earth is out in theaters this Wednesday.  Rusty (Flourish) and Peter (Restoring Eden) have put together a study guide ( earth_discussions.pdf ) to go along with the movie.  A reasonable concern would be whether this movie is driving a particular agenda.  Don't see that at all, at least not from the promotional materials.  More like a movie that lets the beauty of creation speak for itself (and for the Creator).

Actually, it reminds me of that Disney footage from my school days where the polar bear slid down the hill for (what seemed like) an hour.  Remember that one?

Both Democrats and Republicans pull out their faith-based guns during Congressional hearings on climate change. Mayhem ensues.  I used to think having Christians hip-deep in the politico-ecology debate was a good thing. Not so sure now.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the problem with the GOP is too many religious voters.

AP had an interesting piece over the weekend on electronics recycling at federal prisons, something private industry, state governments, and OSHA don't like:

Barbara Kyle of Electronics TakeBack Coalition in San Francisco said the practice undercuts companies that are more environmentally responsible. Within the last two years, states such as Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington have banned the practice of using prisoner labor to recycle in most cases, she said.

Seems awfully short-sighted. Apparently the program is so popular with inmates there's a waiting list. I also doubt that they're bigger polluters.

First it was Ted Kennedy blocking the Cape Wind project. Now it's Di Fi and the National Park Service opposing solar energy in the desert. If the new alt energy law is going to have any effect they're going to have to get out of the way of progress. You can't have it both ways, guys.

Rand Simberg:

WASHINGTON (Routers) With his historic speech today, most analysts agreed that the Obama administration made huge inroads in rebuilding America’s relations with the rest of the solar system, reversing anti-terrestrial hostility that had understandably built up in the wake of years of Bush administration arrogance and interplanetary war mongering...

Heh.

For those of you who think the government is concerned about the environment and your health, the latest from an ongoing Associated Press investigation proves otherwise. Excerpts:

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlook...

The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.

FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.

Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.

Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.

Your city water may not have a lot of bacteria in it. But it sure has a lot of expensive drugs. You know all of those side effects the durg commercials list? Common sense seems to conclude that exposure to all of these drugs over time is probably not a good thing. -D

PJM's Jazz Shaw survives another green auto show:

One GM presenter said a woman told her the company was responsible for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. The logic went like this: if G.M. made more fuel-efficient cars, the country would not need so much oil, and if the country did not need oil, United States troops would never have invaded.

And this was classic: "One of the really unfortunate parts of this story is that most of the beautiful young ladies demonstrating the cars are not exactly involved in the management decisions of GM or Chrysler." Heh.

Over at the Wall Street Journal Kim Strassel dices and slices the politics of alternative fuels: "Energy powers the economy. Mess with energy markets, and mess with everything else. When will Washington learn?"

Corrie Markham and son Jacob were out picking up trash on Dewey Field yesterday. Naval War College took part in the Naval Station Newport RI basewide cleanup.

Not sucking up here, but I think the Admiral bagged the most trash of all of us. [U.S. Navy photo by MCC(AW/AC) Robert Inverso]

Obama Energy Secretary Stephen Chu supports clean coal.

UPDATE: Democrat Senate stalls on cap-and-trade.

Martin LaBar:

Is it the responsibility of the Church to transform governments to follow our values (i.e. school prayer, abortion, the definition of marriage)? Or is it our responsibility to introduce people to Jesus who is the only one who can transform hearts?

Since the bulk of environmental law relies on the political process, it's a valid question for us too. Any thoughts?

Groovy Green:

It has come to my attention recently that the real estate trust Prologis is developing the rooftops of their existing buildings by contracting to lease the space to power companies to install solar panels.

From the comments:

Yes, we are preparing to remove ourselves from the economy, to an extent. We have purchased acreage far from the city, where we will slowly build our own house. We will raise vegetables and fruit, chickens and rabbits, etc. We will trade labor and food with our neighbors, and try to become as self-sufficient as possible.

Ben Cohen is excited because reduced consumption means less trash in landfills.

Yale's Fred Pearce is stoked because poor people don't contribute as much CO2.

Environmental damage is related to liberalization of international trade reports Reuters, so the opposite must be true. When the traders go on strike, the environment will have to get better.

I doubt history has ever seen tax policy used this way to green-up an economy. Simply brilliant.

As this experiment works itself out I also wonder if Americans can transcend the historic links between poverty and ecological debt.

Planning your staycation yet? That's a vacation where you find some local way to relax with your family rather than vacationing at some far off destination. NWF's encouraging this with their Great American Backyard Campout on 27 June. Get their flyer here. 

My brother and I and our buds spent most of the summer camped out in the backyard - great memories! I hope this sort of thing is coming back.

UN backs Norway claim to Arctic seabed extension

Catastrophic sea levels 'distinct possibility'

Iain Murray:

Thankfully, the vast majority of Senators have realized that cap-and-trade is a tax, which is why on April 1 they passed by the margin of 98-0 an amendment to the budget “To protect middle-income taxpayers from tax increases by providing a point of order against legislation that increase taxes on them, including taxes that arise, directly or indirectly, from Federal revenues derived from climate change or similar legislation.”  That amendment essentially recognizes cap-and-trade as a stealth tax, one that Americans for Tax Reform have calculated as amounting to $3000 for each family.

So where does this leave us?  The EPA is announcing that they will hold a knife to the nation’s throat if this tax doesn’t get passed.  There’s responsible government for you!  The intelligent environmentalists at The Breakthrough Institute recognize the folly of this strategy, but, sad to say, intelligent voices in the environmentalist movement are very rarely listened to.

In the face of this assault of Green Taxes, there may be no alternative but to hold a Green Tea Party. 

A couple Catholic and Baptist church-run schools are smack in the middle of a Nairobi dump.

“I suspect that four recent deaths we have had could be related to the effects of the chemicals being released into the environment when the garbage is burnt,” said a guard at one of the schools, who sought anonymity.

A great opportunity here for some Christians to walk their green talk.

Any takers?

UPDATE: My email to Outreach Pastor at Nairobi Baptist Church:

Grace Cathedral Fellowship Ministries church in Ewing, NJ has a new $600k solar energy system, installed by Trinity Solar. They figure they'll pay the system off in six years through energy cost savings and Renewable Energy Credit sales to utilities.

Will have to track them down in a year or two to see how that worked out.

From WWF's website:

“There are several passages within the Koran which talk about the responsibility of humans in protecting our environment and wildlife,” said Umi A’ Zuhrah from the Tiger Conservation Programme at WWF-Malaysia. “Religious leaders are very influential and greatly respected in this community, so they are the best people to carry this message across.”

They certainly could enforce compliance.

Also thinking that it would take a lot of guts to start a blog about Islam and ecology, but it would be an interesting read.

NY Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman suggests Americans aren't inclined to support a "comprehensive" and complex cap and trade scheme. Says something simpler - a straightforward tax - would be easier to understand, and to swallow.

Something that doesn't smack of the kind of government largesse people are waking up to every day and appreciating less and less.

Grist's David Roberts pillories him for it, gets thwacked in the comments, and tries again with a more conciliatory tone.

Friedman's on the mound entertaining the fans. Guys like Roberts are in the political dugout arguing with the general manager about where to set the price of concessions and what color sweatshirts to order. 

No wonder climatists are the ones who are sweating.

Grists' Umbra Fisk has a different spin on things:

In ‘03 and ‘05, the Royal We tickled all our reproductive clocks with brief reminders to consider childbearing and childrearing as ecologically significant acts. Since then I have followed my own advice and borne seven children, all of whom have grown up to work for Environmental Defense.

Last year DHS assessed the risks of specific radical environmental groups like ALF and ELF. Is the Obama administration now turning the big guns on conservatives en masse?

As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

Radicals like these folks and their Luzianne tea? Ever had it iced and sweetened? Nuthin' better.

Cluck, cluck. Willing to waste perfectly fine sweet tea - no wonder they think these folk are dangerous.

The Christian Environmentalist Blog's Lisa Baker has a terrific post up on a novel solution to a real plague: diapers.

My biggest environmental concern when I was pregnant was, without a doubt, the diaper question. I searched endlessly for an answer to the debate of cloth vs. disposable. No matter how many life-cycle studies I saw (most of them funded by Proctor and Gamble, who owns Pampers) claiming that "compostable" disposable diapers are actually better for the environment than cloth, I didn't believe it. I just couldn't bring myself to buy the argument that something that's meant to be thrown away was better for the environment than something that could be endlessly reused. And besides, cloth is cheaper. But the idea of actually washing poopy diapers myself for the next three years was intimidating at best, and in the midst of Atlanta's water crisis, I couldn't help but wonder whether maybe disposables might be better in our situation, after all. And the studies did say that energy and water use is more efficient with a diaper service than with home washing--but there were no diapers services in Atlanta at the time I was pregnant. Believe me. I looked. (Now that I'm an accomplished cloth diapering mom who loves washing diapers, of course this has started up.)

Her solution will surprise you! And I completely agree with her encouragement to look at all of our humanity - poopies and all - from God's perspective. [pic: photobucket.com]

Environment.com:

On April 1, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can weigh the benefits of protecting billions of fish against the cost of requiring aging power plants to upgrade their cooling systems to use recycled water instead of drawing water directly from rivers and streams.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act gives the EPA authority to use cost-benefit analyses as the basis for such decisions, but the Court stopped short of saying the EPA was required to base its decisions on a cost-benefit analysis.

Estimating the market value of salmon vs costs to utilities and consumers is pretty straight-forward. Estimating the cost-benefit ratio of climate change impacts vs the economy will prove much tougher for both EPA and environmentalists.

I predict that the ultimate winners in this fight will be lawyers.

MSNBC:

Obama shifts climate strategy to smaller talks

Post-Kyoto meeting this week seen as slow; idea is to push Bush-era forum

ROTFL!

The Powerbloggers are looking for input on effective charities for World Mag's contest this year. Would be great to see some green ones represented. More here.

The best line of this article linked at Drudge today:

"We fear more that any revenge taken by the pirates against foreign nationals could bring more attacks from the foreign navies, perhaps on our villages," Abdullahi Haji Jama, who owns a clothes store in Harardhere, told the AP by telephone.

Exactly.

The Bush Doctrine (remember that?) stated that both terrorists and the states that harbored them should expect military force to end their acts. Whether Obama decides to continue in that vain or in more of a law enforcement flavor, terrorism and piracy must be illegitimized in civilized society. And then dealt with accordingly.

Whether it's the Mesopotamian Marshes or big cities you can't do charity work while people are shooting at you. And you can't do your environmental charity work if your cargo ship full of humanitarian relief (wind turbines, solar-powered cooking pots, etc) is held up by pirates. Even the UN recognizes this.

Environmental and peace movements are often linked. But you don't get either without effective deterrence. And you don't get deterrence unless guys like Abdullahi get that you're serious about security.

When the Abdullahi's of the world let pirates know they have no place to go, the task is much easier.

The Navy’s incentivized Energy Conservation Program (i-ENCON) reduces ships’ energy consumption by 10 percent each year. Program sponsors work with the fleet to review specific fuel-saving procedures and recognize ships with the most fuel-efficient operations. At Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, the Navy’s 270 megawatt geothermal plant delivers an average of 1.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity annually to the California electric grid. This plant is the largest renewable energy producer in the DoD and the third largest geothermal electricity producer in the U.S. The Navy sponsors more marine mammal research than any other organization in the world, working in partnership with other agencies, academia and non-governmental organizations.

[Chief of Naval Operations  Earth Day Rhumb Line for 10 APR 09.pdf]

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear. We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection.

Grace and peace to you all this Easter weekend. db

Jerusalem Post.

Can Judaism provide a solution to global climate change? Jews have tackled many challenges over the past millennia, but none quite as titanic as this. This week, 55 select experts in a variety of fields kicked off their first session in Jerusalem, with the aim of drawing up what has been called a "Seven Year Plan for the Jewish People on Climate Change and Sustainability." The initiative is being spearheaded by the New York-based Jewish Environmental organization, Hazon ("vision"), and the Israel-based Jewish Climate Initiative (JCI). The goal is to have a plan with accompanying educational materials and strategy in place by September 2015, when the next shmita cycle starts and, according to Jewish law, all agricultural activity is prohibited.

Seven years. Fascinating. [AP Photo]

Mary, Peter and John ran to the tomb, with Peter in the lead. Earlier that morning, Mary had come down to embalm Jesus’ body, but had only found the empty tomb and the graveclothes. John and Peter saw the empty tomb for themselves, then ran back to tell the others, leaving Mary alone. Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the tomb, and saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been. ”Woman, why are you crying?” they asked. ”Because they have taken away my LORD, and I don’t know where they have lain him,” she replied. She turned as she was talking and saw Jesus standing there, but didn’t know it was Him. ”Woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked. “Who are you looking for?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you’ve taken him someplace, tell me where you’ve lain Him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her simply, “Mary.” “Rabbi!” she replied.

– From John’s Gospel, Chapter 20 (paraphrased)

What makes creation care different from environmentalism? What distinguishes Christian ecology from other religious attention to wildlife? Or non-religious attention for that matter.

One way to answer this is to understand that among the different ways God reveals himself to mankind - Creator, Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Father, Lord, Master, Savior, Rabbi, Holy Spirit - He is also the Gardener.

This is a very narrow slice of who God is; there is much more to Him. Still, it is a way to understand this part of God’s character better, and to understand our charge as Christians to make sure the Gospel (i.e. the Good News) is in the midst of all we do in Creation Care.

(click to read more...)

Geoengineering. Excerpts:

 Tinkering with Earth's climate to chill runaway global warming - a radical idea once dismissed out of hand - is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president's new science adviser said Wednesday...One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays.

It still is radical, and stupid:

But he said there could be grave side effects. Studies suggest that might include eating away a large chunk of the ozone layer above the poles and causing the Mediterranean and the Mideast to be much drier.

And those are just the predicted problems. Scientists say they worry about side effects that they don't anticipate.

Scare tactics:

He and many experts believe that warming of a few degrees more would lead to disastrous drought conditions and food shortages in some regions, rising seas and more powerful coastal storms in others.

Mankind seemed to prosper in past warm periods. It is harder to adapt to cold periods. Cold is harder on food supplies and energy consumption. More scientists are talking about global cooling now. Suppose geoengineering hastens cooling? 

Politicians need to get out of making science policy, or at least put science before politics when making policy. -D

P.S. The Obama "science advisor," on another subject, said:

The U.S. anti-ballistic missile program is not ready to work and shouldn't be used unless it is 100 percent effective. The system, which would be used to shoot down missiles from countries like North Korea or Iran "needs to be essentially perfect ... that's going to be hard to achieve."

Um, if it's "not ready to work" what shot down that satellite last year and why do we have operational anti-ballistic missile ships and bases?

Grist: Earth Day is for amateurs.

Shocker: I agree.

Props to the lovely and charming Eco-Wife for the idea.

Do use the right bags, though.

Peter Augustine Lawler in The New Atlantis:

The scientific truth of evolution does not explain who we are as personal beings. The truth about who we are—true liberalism—may well be unsustainable if the contradiction between our personal freedom and the impersonal truth about God and nature is too extreme. But perhaps the modern dualism between nature and personal freedom is, in truth, too extreme. There may well be a ground for who we are in nature itself. After all, as far as we can tell, only a human person, a being with logos and eros and will, could possibly be open to the truth about nature—or about being, including human being. Being a political being—part of a polis or nation—is part of the truth, though not the whole or the highest truth, about being who we are.

And then there is agape, something only Christ can fully explain.

Cheap coal to liquid fuel.

EnviroNewsNetwork has a good piece today on D.C.'s proposed plastic bag tax. Highlights:

- Opponents say this unfairly taxes the poor and is racist/classist, but revenue left over from cleaning up the Anacostia river provides free reusable bags for the poor.

- 20% of tax revenue goes to D.C. stores and this has motivated business to participate.

Ireland's PlasTax is presented as a success. Their 20 cent per bag tax has gone up to 33 cents in six years to make up for the loss in tax revenues when bag use dropped by 94% the first year.

Ninety-four percent. That's huge. Apparently Ikea saw a 92% drop when it started taxing bags. If even 90% is the typical bag tax reduction rate, NYC and Washington State should factor that into their revenue calcs. But I doubt they are.

This figure should also make Capitol Hill think twice about over-taxing citizens if they want private industry to thrive. I doubt that will occur to them either.

UPDATE: The Governator's proposed tax to drive Cahleefonia water conservation down 20% runs into a cautious LA City Council:

[David Nahai] said the council's rejection stemmed not from disagreement over a need for mandatory conservation measures but from questions about how the plan would work and whether it amounted to a rate hike rather than a rationing scheme. For procedural reasons, he said, the council had no choice but to disapprove the measure for now in order to buy more time to review the matter.

It's a rate hike to create water rationing. How tough is that to get?

Interesting article, but what is an "influential" church from God's perspective?

Greg Sargent: (h/t)

Some of the leading liberal bloggers are privately furious with the major progressive groups — and in some cases, the Democratic Party committees — for failing to spend money advertising on their sites, even as these groups constantly ask the bloggers for free assistance in driving their message.

Not "privately furious" on this end, but it happens a lot. I get about one green email a week asking for a post, link or other free advertising. Green bloggers get free links. Retailers and non-profits get an email with a link to my BlogAds page where they can buy a couple weeks or several months of ad space at the top of my righthand column for a reasonable price. I haven't had one taker yet. No surprise. Most liberal environmentalists don't get free market economics.

For what it's worth we have always donated our BlogAd profits to green Christian programs.

***wait a minute!*** I should call it a "blog post carbon offset tax" to reduce CO2 emissions! I've been going about this the wrong way....ROTFL

...but The Big Apple will miss out on.  Lots more pics here.

Winter is mostly over. When the snow melts, I get disgusted with all the litter I see laying about. So part one of the challenge is:

1. Walk to the end of your driveway, look both ways, and commit to at least keeping that area free of garbage.

This is also the time of year that people start spreading herbicides and pesticides all over the place. Part two of the challenge is:

2. Don't use any herbicides (try eating those extremely healthy dandelions ) and use pesticides only when there's no other choice (and try natural methods first). Same goes with fertilizers.

-D

Never thought about it much until I learned about how beef production has become much like an industrial production line. The growing movement to returning to grass-fed cows (rather than grain-fed-antibiotic-laced in stalls) has many reasons:

Doing so would have many benefits. It would give us a more humane livestock system, a healthier human diet, less deadly E. coli, elimination of feedlots, a bonanza of wildlife habitat nationwide, enormous savings in energy, virtual elimination of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on those lands, elimination of catastrophic flooding that periodically plagues the Mississippi Basin, and most intriguingly, a dramatic reduction in global warming gases.

Read more in Richard Manning's detailed article. Even addresses cow farting. -D

Zach Frechette:

So thinks Oregon representative Wayne Krieger, who has proposed a law requiring cyclists to register their bikes at a cost of $54 every two years. In his words: “Bikes have used the roads in this state forever and have never contributed a penny. The only people that pay into the system are those people who buy motor vehicle licenses and registration fees.” The folks over at the Freakonomics blog seem to think the premise is valid, wondering if even a “tax-hating bicyclist” could argue with the logic of paying the proposed $0.07 a day to build new bike infrastructure. To them I say: how quaintly old-fashioned.

I subscribe to the idea that we should tax things we want less of, not more of.

No kidding. But then, this is Oregon after all...

UPDATE: Bike riders worse for the environment than car drivers because they live longer.

Pastor Mike Wyley:

The Bible does have a lot to say about pollution. But the pollution about which the Bible is concerned is not environmental pollution, it is moral pollution — sin.

Well, one does tend to lead to the other, Bro.

Another guy I'd love to spend an afternoon with over (fair trade) coffee. I think we'd both learn a lot.

Never worry about anything.

-- Phil 4:6, ISV

God bless John Schroeder!

If you are a Christian in the world today, I think you have a mission, we all do. And that mission is to rely on God's goodness and to take hope from it. That mission is to both act and speak with hope. If you have no hope, get on your knees, confess your lack thereof, and ask God to supply what you need - for He will.

Is your approach to environmentalism a positive one? If it is, it's probably based on hope in God's ability to overcome any disaster (real or imagined) caused by man. Are you using the same doom and gloom tools the secular world is using to motivate your fellow man? I question whether you are using evil methods to achieve good results.

Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of historic and prophetic places in scripture where the outlook for the world is grim. But no matter how ugly things got (or are destined to get), God is always at the helm. He always has a purpose. That purpose is always capital 'G' Good.

My hunch is if you're down in the dumps on the state of the environment or trying to get others to be to motivate them you are ultimately depending on the goodness of people, not God.

The goodness of God never disappoints.

No, really. I s'pose pollution globs might be easier to fire into near-earth orbit than a giant sun shield.

Light day today - but you probably figured that out. Busy day at work. Had a great trip around lunch. Went with a couple colleagues of mine from the War College to URI to talk about what they're doing to green up their campus. Lots of good ideas - hope to be able to share them with you soon.

I am here this eve with the Eco-Daughter enjoying daddy-daughter time. Other two kids are out, and the Eco-Wife is hanging with a gurlfreeend. E-D wants to share the recipe she fixed for us tonight ("you fixed it too" she says). She ate it when she went to South Africa. 

So here ya go:

Senegalese Chicken for Two (our version)

Half dozen chicken tenders (or two chicken breasts)

A dozen stuffed green olives (we had garlic in ours, but pimento ones are fine)

Half dozen pepperocinis

Dash of red pepper flakes

Dash of chili powder

1 small onion, diced

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about one lemon squeezed)

1 8oz can of chopped tomatos

Saute the chicken tenders over medium heat in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When the chicken is about cooked through, toss in everything else except for the tomatos and lemon juice. When the onions start to get soft, deglaze the pan with the lemon juice and add the tomatos, juice and all. Stir and cook until everything is heated together. Salt/pepper to taste.

Serve with potato buds and beer - yeh, I know, but try it!

db

You honestly cannot be concerned about nature and not spend some time outside. Spring is here and the country is thawing (at varying paces, depending where you live). So here's some activities and groups you can look into:

Rails to Trails    National North Country Scenic Trail    American Hiking Society

Geocaching    Waymarking   Trails.com   National Trails Day 

No Child Left Inside   American Camp Association   Appalachian Trail 

Great American Backyard Campout   National Trails System

-D

"We're part of nature...and if we separate ourselves from that, we're separating ourselves from our history, from the the things that tie us together. We don't want to live in a world where there are no recreational fishermen, where we've lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us  to ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops, and ultimately connect us to God."

We shouldn't be worshipping nature as God, he said, but nature is the way that God communicates to us..."with such texture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy...and when we destroy large resources...by polluting so that people can't fish, or by making so many rules that people can't get out on the water, it's the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on Earth."

-  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as quoted in Last Child in the Woods.  -D

Volunteers help salamanders avoid roadway massacre:

From rural Vermont to urban centers like Philadelphia, human escorts, called bucket brigades in some places, help amphibians make it to their mating areas without getting squashed by cars. It's part education, part conservation, and part science.

"It's an extraordinary thing and people deserve to know about it," said Warren King, a member of the Otter Creek Audubon Society, who organizes a crossing in Salisbury. "And it needs to be protected. There are sites where many of the critters that are crossing never make it."

Wait a sec - aren't they violating the law of natural selection? How do they know for certain that the slowest salamanders shouldn't be getting flattened so those genes don't stay in the gene pool? The strong will survive to reproduce and make the population better able to survive in their habitat which, obviously, includes roads.

Clearly it's the cars that are doing the conservation here, and these people are messing things up.

At least according to the science of evolution.

Ikea's selling themselves as green but The Guardian's Fred Pearce isn't buying it.

The panda logo is all over the Ikea website. Ikea is all over WWF's website.

There have been some hard questions asked about this relationship among other green groups. The Environmental Investigation Agency, for instance, recently pointed out that Ikea has not even managed to stamp out the use of illegally logged timber in its furniture, especially all those flat-packs supplied from China.

(post was updated 5:00pm)

Columbia Post Dispatch:

"It seems like every time there's something that has the possibility of creating odor, they stick it in this area," said Teresa Mills, a Grove City resident and leader of the Buckeye Environmental Network. "If this is going to be such a great facility, why don't they stick it in Worthington?" The facility would use bacteria to digest 40,000 tons of waste a year to create methane that would be burned to make electricity. "If we have leaks and we're losing biogas, we're losing our profit," said Bruce Bailey, Schmack's vice president of technical affairs. "There really is an economic incentive for us not to cause odors."

Not in my back yard. Sounds like Ted should be a member of BEN too...

Wall Street Journal:

The increased use of nutrient-enriched crop production is a key cause of “harmful algal blooms … oxygen depletion … and overall fisheries habitat decline,” the authors point out. In other words, to grow enough corn to meet renewable fuel standards will mean increasing the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tradeoffs.

All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime.

-- President Barak Obama, in Prague

From Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods:

 ...children [in schools] "will learn that by recycling their Weekly Readers and milk cartons, they can help save the planet," [says David Sobel] and grow up to be responsible stewards of the earth. Or maybe not. The opposite may be occuring, says Sobel. "If we fill our classrooms with examples of environmental abuse, we may be engendering a subtle form of dissociation"...Lacking direct experience with nature, children begin to associate it with fear and apocalypse, not joy and wonder...Children learn about the rain forest, but usually not about their own region's forests, or, as Sobel puts it, "even just the meadow outside the classroom door."

I've been reading Louv's book and it's hard to put down. A very important read for those concerned about health, nature and children. More excerpts later. -D

Would you pay double for fair-trade palms for Palm Sunday?

“Eco-Palms” cost more than their conventional counterparts. But some church leaders say they’re worth the added expense because they help meet the church’s mission of being good stewards of the Earth and supporting fair trade policies.

Or is this more money being spent to relieve eco-guilt...

LaCrosse Brewery is will soon be famous for more than just its huge cans.

Zarecki says the plan is to go green and help the public save some green when you have to visit your doctor. "Not only will this help reduce the cost of health care, but it's a clean renewable energy source that well help conserve resources for our environment." Zarecki says the hospital is trying to reduce energy usage by 20% by the year 2014.

Don't think Baptists would dig this, but the rest of you might have a way to pull somethin' like this off.

Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine,
Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast.

All fairest beauty, heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus, is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer or dearer,
Than Thou, my Savior, art to me.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be Thine.

LDS Church jumping on the climate bandwagon?

Some Utah environmentalists see the LDS Church as a strong potential ally, "I think it's a great sign that Al Gore is at least having a conversation and starting a dialogue with the church here," said Vanessa Pierce, Executive Director of HEAL Utah.

Pierce raised another point that may make the LDS church particularly sensitive to the issue of global climate change. "In the South Pacific the Church has a tremendous influence and those were some of the people who are going to be most directly impacted by global warming," she said.

Aside from the civil rights issues and religious views and a modest concern for the well-being for my own wife and daughters, I honestly wonder why women would even consider letting guys using their facilities or vice-versa.

I mean, c'mon. These ladies have obviously never seen a men's room, say, at a ballpark or the mall or - God forbid - a gas station. I wouldn't even put my rear there.

I always imagine ladies' restrooms with pink shag carpet, warm towels and an espresso bar. Why give up a good thing? Bascially it's "leaving the lid up" on an unprecedented scale. I have no idea why that would be OK.

There are some critters only God could love (or another giant sea worm, of course).

Sometimes Big Business earns their bad image:

A federal court in Ohio has ruled that dairies cannot legally label their milk "hormone free" "rBST-free" or otherwise clearly tell consumers that they aren't pumping up their cows with synthetic hormones.

It's a blow to truth-in-labeling advocates, a blow to consumers and a blow to organic farmers. It's a win for Monsanto, the agrichemical giant that started the lawsuit, and a win for Eli Lilly, which bought Monsanto's synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormones (known as rBST or rBGH).

Ohio was one of at least five states -- Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana, and Kansas were others -- where Monsanto launched quiet attacks on milk labeling through state agricultural departments.

Healthwise, there are possible health issues with these chemicals. Envirowise, these chemicals get in the water system - which leads back to health issues. Interestingly:

The use of these hormones is banned throughout most other first-world nations. The labeling issue is moot in the 27-nation European Union, along with Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, since they don't allow the use of synthetic hormones in the first place.

You hear a lot about our FDA being more strict and cautious on drugs than other nations. But as for everday foods, our government doesn't seem to run the show. Corporations do. -D

I can't make this stuff up. Excerpts:

SPOKANE, Wash. – The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution.
 
Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe's left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. 
 
As a result, there has been a quiet rush of Spokane-area shoppers heading east on Interstate 90 into Idaho in search of old-school suds. Real estate agent Patti Marcotte of Spokane stocks up on detergent at a Costco in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and doesn't care who knows it.
 
"Yes, I am a smuggler," she said.

 

The president is giving away the farm to globalists, but the market is soaring today. What gives? Openmarket.org:

The market may also be getting a boost from the Senate’s earlier vote undercutting the Obama Administration’s proposed $2 trillion cap-and-trade carbon tax, which would impose burdens on the economy akin to Herbert Hoover’s disastrous 1932 Revenue Act at the beginning of the Great Depression.

The Senate today overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 13) that would prohibit a future cap-and-trade initiative aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from causing higher electricity rates and gas prices for U.S. households and businesses. "The increased utility and fuel costs that would result from cap-and-trade legislation, as proposed by President Obama, would equate to a national sales tax on energy that would affect every family in America," said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the amendment's sponsor, following the 89 to 8 vote on his proposal. The Senate also adopted a proposal by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) -- largely on party lines -- requiring that revenues obtained from upcoming global warming legislation be used to refund consumers for the price hikes via tax rebates. Boxer's amendment is based on legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the previous Congress.

Hmmm. Maybe that whole checks and balances thingy still works.

UPDATE: Not so fast.

and nothing to hide.

I am not hopeful after speaking with Dave Nemazie of the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science, who hemmed and hawed when I asked for a copy of the report that (again, I'm guessing) one of the envirogroups involved leaked to the Sun to develop some nice advanced press from sympathetic media. Here's a rough paraphrase of how our phone conversation went...

Read the whole thing.

Christian Science Monitor:

In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Too bad this isn't and April Fools joke.

World's water unsafe - women and children hardest hit.