Evangelical Ecologist Blog - Conservative Christians and the Environment

Headline of the day: Gun-wielding ecoterrorist calls for reduction in human population, gets wish

Yesterday afternoon James Jay Lee, a crazy person with a gun, a bomb, and an anti-human manifesto inspired by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, took hostages at the offices of the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring. He was shot and killed by police. The hostages were freed, unharmed.

His rant speaks for itself:

The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.

3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!

The Daily Caller has video. Much more here.

Please pray for the emotionally-harmed victims, including Mr. Lee's friends and family.

Parting shot: James Lee is a crackpot psycho and it would be wrong/unfair to blame Al Gore for what this guy did. But should we be surprised at this when so many in the deep green agenda promote overpopulation as a threat to the climate? Apparently James J Lee didn't see this as a choice to save the planet, but a demand to which we all must submit.

 Planet Gore:

It’s always easy to blame the oil industry, but it’s not the oil industry that’s holding up new transmission lines through the California desert to connect cities to solar farms in Nevada nor is it the oil industry that held up wind turbinesoff of Nantucket for years. We can go on and on with examples, but the point is that there’d be a lot more “green” energy if the “green” movement would just get out of the way.

Yep.  Nothing like being your own worst enemy.

To this, add:

• Green hypocrites in Hollywood and Washington D.C. and the UN and...
• Global warming hype-ism that turned off most of the country and distracted the rest from real (and solve-able) environmental problems
• The Gore Effect
• A budget crisis driven anti-big-government backlash gutting environmental programs the way EPA was clobbered by Reagan (with enormous public support) after the Nixon/Carter buildup years
• Climategate and IPCCgate and GISSgate and Himalayagate and...
• Liberal Christians who refuse to talk about Jesus at environmental conferences
• Marc Morano and Anthony Watts.
• Waaaay too much trust in Washington politicians to advance a green agenda, instead of aligning with public opinion to lead politicians in the right direction
• Unilateral regulation of CO2 by the Obama Administration.

I'm sure you have a few of your own.

I always thought "environmentalism" was a horrible idea compared to "ecology." Maybe we can finally get back to basics.  [photo credit] 

Tom Friedman's op-ed in the Times today.

The Senate’s failure to act [on cap and trade climate legislation] is a result of many factors, but one is that the climate-energy policy debate got disconnected from average people. We need less talk about “climate” and more about how conservation saves money, renewable energy creates jobs, restoring the gulf’s marshes sustains fishermen and preserving the rainforest helps poor people.

Conservative environmentalists have been saying this for a half-decade now. 

Howdy! Welcome to the Thanksgiving Week version of The Carnival of the Green.

We certainly all have lots to be thankful for, including the Carnival's host(ess with the mostess) Kara, last week's host EcoSalon, and next week's host Another Green Idea.

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Just in time for the end of Fall, Bobbie Whitehead says save a few seeds, save some money at a post called Saving Seed posted at The Backyard Grower.

Looking for a cost-effective way to grow fruits and vegetables? For some gardeners and growers, saving seeds allows them to reduce their planting expenses. In deciding which seeds to save, extension specialists suggest using seed from some of the best fruits and vegetables in a crop in order to avoid reintroducing diseases from the previous year.

Got a couple posts this week on the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks. Tamir Birk handicaps the upcoming battle over greenhouse gases. 2012: The End of the Kyoto Accord - Will We See a New Deal on Climate Change in Copenhagen? at the blog InformedVote.

Nostradamus was right. The year 2012 will certainly bring the end of an era. Next month’s UN convention on climate change in Copenhagen reminds us that the Kyoto Protocol is on its last legs. Indeed, the world’s first legally-binding legislation on greenhouse gas emission and climate change, for years battered and bruised through political conflagrations, diluted by the rhetoric of parliamentarians and spokespersons, pondered, plied and twisted through years of delay, and ultimately never ratified by the United States, is in need of a successor. And if Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s prognostications prove accurate, a definitive deal will not be reached in the Danish capital. So, what can we expect from the Copenhagen summit? What will the major players have to say for themselves?

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg comes at it from his own, always interesting/challenging perspective. Check out Revenge of the Angry Mermaid at Sustainablog.

The Little Mermaid takes her role as a symbol of climate change seriously. And she’s angry. Angry because also coming to her town are thousands of lobbyists and business (as usual) representatives intent on holding back progress for a dangerously warming world, opting instead for short term profits over long term sustainability.

Like me, Justin Allison is trying the climate debate out from a faith-based perspective. He has a piece called Either Way Climate Change is Politically Motivated over at Old Testament Ecology.

If you’re a conservative you probably think that climate change is fake. If you’re a liberal climate change is near and dear to you. If you are somewhere in between you are probably ambivalent, or even apathetic.

I'd call myself agostic on climate change, but I do have my own opinions (heck - I have a blog after all!). Since Tamir, Jeff and Justin have raised the subject - here's my post at SustainLane.com yesterday on the underlying evil of Climategate. Excerpt:

What has been widely reported in "climate denier" circles (though I have yet to see it reported here at SustainLane at all or places like Grist in other than derogatory fashion), was the hacking of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK. Iain Murray called CRU "the Pentagon of Climate Science." That's how important that place is to climate scientists. Over 150mb of emails and other data were pulled from CRU's servers that laid out in detail the efforts by several leading climatologists to hide derogatory climate data, something bloggers like Powerline have been poring over (see here, here and here). The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have decided that this information was "leaked" and thus not worthy of publishing (ahem, hypocrites). But online journals like Climate Depot have chronicled the daily release of new findings - papers with contrary findings suppressed, access to scientific journals denied, cooked data, etc. Look it up. You can do your own search of these emails here.

Surbhi Bhatia presents Our Environment: Raising a Voice of Concern posted at The Viewspaper.

Clearly it is our modern lifestyle that is responsible for wreaking havoc on the environment. So to undo all the damage, all we have to do is stop using our cars (or any motorized vehicle for that matter), electricity, or simply all the marvels of 21st century. In other words, go back to Stone Age. Or, we can let better sense prevail and stop fighting the forces of nature. 

Tyler Tervooren submits Marketing for Environmentalists: Sell Benefits, Not Features over at Frugally Green.

Whether you wanted to be or not, if you've ever tried to sell a product or an idea to someone, then you've been in the marketing business. As long as you have to do it, you might as well be good at it, right? One basic rule that is often ignored by those not in the know (especially us crazy activists) is that people do not care about what your product or idea comes with. They care about what those things can DO FOR THEM. Start focusing on benefits instead of features and you might find a little more success with your efforts.

It wouldn't be a Thanksgiving Week COTG if we didn't have a post about turkeys! Pure Natural Diva comes through with Let's talk Turkey: Your guide to all things Turkey for the Holidays. "Know what you are buying for your thanksgiving dinner this holiday season." After you catch a cold playing football in the yard, she has some helpful natural remedies in her Diva Cold & Flu Tool Kit.

Katy highlights some "historic energy legislation" over at Boots On The Roof.

The U.S. House of Representatives has recently signed into law legislation that can only be described as historic legislation and will finally take significant steps toward moving the U.S. over to a clean energy economy.

Sally Kneidel has some green product information (also posted at Veggie Revolution) for those of you who have bathrooms in your homes:

Plush toilet paper requires wood from the world's last old-growth forests. Seems the long fibers of old trees make softer paper. Consumers need to get a grip - half the world (or more) doesn't even have toilet paper. At most supermarkets in the States, you can find at least one brand that uses 100% recycled paper. Take a minute to look for one. Seventh Generation is a good one, but there are others.

And so do the folks at Fake Plastic Fish:

Graze Organic Lunch Bags Give-Away - Review and give-away of a set of Graze Organic lunch and snack bags that are made from organic cotton and are nearly plastic free. No plastic lining, as in most other lunch bags and wraps. Why package organic food in plastic? [twitter.com/fakeplasticfish]

Finally, Marie Snyder is already packing up the turkey leftovers and looking forward to Black Friday, in a different sort of way. Check out her post called An Earth-Friendly Christmas.

It's explores the idea that Jesus wouldn't buy anything for Christmas, so maybe we should slow down the madness for his sake. In a nutshell.

Amen, my friend. 

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Many thanks for dropping by. If I missed anybody, just drop me a note and we'll get your post up post-haste.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday. And please do say a prayer for our fellow Americans in the military who are away from their loved ones around the world.

Grace and peace,

db

We interrupt this sabbatical...

The Naval War College set up an online discussion today in response to the Secretary of the Navy's recent speech on Green Policy.

Thought you might be interested in participating.

Link is here.

Registering is a little clunky, but the topic is important. Please give it a shot.

It's your Navy :)

I was thinking about when the government was telling us to spend more to help the economy. Then I saw a piece about some people starting to spend more again, buying stuff. And today I saw how retail has been hit hard and doesn’t expect a good holiday season.

So I’m wondering, has anyone learned any lessons from the economic problems?

There are many lessons to be learned: Corporate corruption, government corruption & incompetence, etc, but I’m talking about a more personal level. I wrote about this a few months ago. Here’s the gist of it:

Spending on "things" and "stuff" people really don’t need and don’t really make them happier are at the root of our economic problems. Do you really need to keep up with your neighbor? Do you really want to send hundreds of dollars a year to a cable company so you can sit in your living room staring at a wall?

Isn’t there better ways to spend your money? The slowdown of retail is not surprising - and dare I say it’s a good thing? So many identical stores and vendors grew exponentially to meet unnatural levels of consumerism. We needed to shed some off. We need more to go away. No, I don’t want people to lose their jobs, but as a society we need to realize that we have created a monster.

Next time an advertisement tries to convince you that you need something, realize they are hoping you will be clueless enough to believe them. Think about where you could spend that money: Save it for your kids, give it to a charity, buy someone food who really needs it, turn off the tv and buy a book to read to the kids.

Also realize that our materialistic mind set often encourages bad health and hence higher medical costs. Spend time outside. Kids need it. And even babies who spend their early years in front of a tv don’t advance as well intellectually. So that’s another problem.

So the next time someone tells you need what they are selling - whether it's a product, service or activity - tell them no by putting your money towards something else. -D

My friends,

This Christmas it will be 5 years since Abba (and his servant Hugh Hewitt) first put the notion in my head to start blogging about evangelicals and the environment. It's been a great experience, and has opened up many doors to meet people that have enormously enriched my life.

One of those people, blogger and good friend Joe Carter, encouraged me to establish a relationship with Clapham Group. Over the past year this has grown into a commitment to write a book on ecology from a conservative Christian perspective.

I'm finding that the demands of three teens, my work at the College, and other areas of ministry in my home church have left me just enough time for the book but not much else. I don't plan on dismantling evaneco.com anytime soon. Just a pause to work on this project. Thanks for your understanding, and your prayers.

In the meantime, I'd encourage you to spend time at SustainLane.com's creation care section. Lots of great writing on the subject of faith and ecology there. It's a green, grace-filled enterprise that we need much more of in the blogosphere.

Grace and peace,

db