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Esolen has yet another fascinating post:

What I had not counted on was the purely human: that when a man and a woman both work full-time outside of the home, their relationship to one another, to the home, and to the money they earn must, absent a conscious determination otherwise, be fundamentally altered.  Now I can't speak with complete confidence about this; I am more or less wondering aloud.  Does what is called "The Tragedy of the Commons" apply, when no one in particular is responsible for the earning of the money, and no one in particular is responsible for stretching that money, managing it, spending it wisely for the sake of the family?  If no one in particular is responsible for that latter role, does that job actually get done?  Sometimes yes; often no -- we know plenty of double-income families who do not take care of their economic gardens, so to speak, and who live more expensive and also more slovenly lives than do single-income families (for example, the majority of homeschooling families).  Governor Bradford of Plymouth noted that even among his fellow Christians, the fallback position was to do as little work as possible tending land held in common, while deriving from it as much as they reasonably could; his response was to decry the utopias of some (he has in mind Plato's Republic), and to assign to each family their own land to work.  In other words, if no one in particular is responsible for either earning or managing / spending, then a couple may engage in behavior that rewards the individual in the short term, while hurting the family in the long term.  Why should I work my tail off, when my husband or wife has settled into a comfortable position?  Or why should I watch what I spend, when my husband or wife is blowing over a hundred dollars a week on lunch? 

There are applications in the way we treat natural resources too.

The convergence of a number of things - the new eco-movement, a slow economy and a Big Government growing bigger and more oppressive by the minute - all at the same time has made many stop and think about the rat race they find themselves in. How much of how we live is excessive? Where have we gone so far forward that we are actually going backwards? And where does this fit in our worldviews? How does this all fit together?

People have begun to looking again at conservation and energy saving techniques as a way to save money - and if it helps nature while they’re at it, that’s good too. But some may also be asking "Do I need all this stuff?" or "Why am I spending all this money?" Charles W. Sasser writes in The Backwoodsman (Jan/Feb 2009):

I looked around and observed how many of my friends held eight-to-five jobs they could barely tolerate. The average American owned two cars, a house with a 30-year mortgage, a color TV set and a stack of bills on luxuries and ‘necessities’ long worn out and discarded. It seemed to me that he did not work to enrich his life. Instead, he worked to support his possessions, all the while feeling compelled to continue to buy and buy in hopes of ever new and more wonderful possessions making him happy.  

Think about that. How much of your work pay goes to things you don’t need? Or things just to get you to work? I remember a colleague complaining about money, but also bragging about all of the cable channels he had. Who’s forcing you to pay all that money just so you can sit in your living room? How much is the electric bill? Look at the recession as an opportunity to reasses your priorities and habits. 

Technology is great and important. But how much is too much? We complain our kids are obese, but buy them the technologies that make them that way.

Eric Brende writes in his book Better Off: 

Technology undoubtedly has, and will always have, some role in making life easier or better, so one shouldn’t exclude it. But the role is supplemental. Technology serves us, not we technology.

Brende and his wife spent a year living with an Amish sect trying to figure out why or how they live they way they do. They found that these "primitives" have technology, just not what we are used to. And they are happy. Why? In spite of instant 24/7 communications, and unlimited goods and services, we are still separated from our families, don’t interact with our communities, have no sense of purpose in our jobs. Yet we often see ourselves as better off than "simpler" or "poorer" folk.

From an eco-sense, how much consumerism is waste? From a Christian sense, how does God want you to spend money and resources? Churches talk often about tithing. I’m not aware of any tithing verses that say "Give your money to your church!" It’s more like, "Give some of it back to God." So in a more accurate sense, we should be supporting our church and other God-centered groups or causes. In a much broader sense, God is telling us to use all of our money (and in turn our resources) wisely. When buying something, ask yourself, "Would God spend this on this?" or "Does this improve my relationship with Him?" or "Is buying this going to make me a better or happier person?" Start thinking like this and you start to see how much money you could be saving. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but how many of us are even looking at perfect?

Does living simpler, which often includes being a bit more ecoaware, mean selling your home, becoming a farmer or living in a hut? No, of course not. Jenna Woginrich has combined her life with some old-fashioned homesteading. The Dervaes turned their urban home into a urban oasis. No, we don’t all need to start rasing animals or growing all our own food - but if you want to, go ahead.

We all could support our local food suppliers better. Saves money, conserves resources and builds the economy. Economy and community start locally. Start by supporting local churches and farms, then work your way out to your region, state and country. Corporations and governments try the "one size fits all approach." Living simpler means doing what actually works for people.

The starting local approach and living a bit simpler and a bit more ecoware means better health. We’ve seen how health is impacted on the quality of our foods and environment. Improve these things and improve your quality of life.

There’s a lot of implications here. Better health. Better lives. Stronger neighborhoods. Less reliance on government. Self-reliance. Stronger churches.

Bottom line is a life more in sync with what the Creator wanted. -D

From Serve God, Save the Planet:

Imagine meeting God and answering the question, "What did you do with your time on earth?" You are handed a time sheet that details the seconds and decades of this precious gift called life. What will you say you have done? In a world full of trees, mountains, oceans, birds, people in need and people to love, did you spend ten years watching the news, sitcoms, ball games and reality shows on a cathode-ray tube?

Or as I like to ask, "How much money do you pay the cable company so you can sit in your own living room?" More:

The three hundred million TV sets in the United State consume a lot of energy - five times more than is produced by all the geothermal, biomass, solar and wind sources in the United States. They take energy and materials to manufacture. They are difficult to get rid of and to recycle. They convince us to buy things we don’t need...Television separates us from our Creator while killing his creation.

-D

Anthony Esolen at Touchstone Mag nails it:

In a sense, easy divorce is a function of the more general and heart-dampening transience.  We don't tend the land with care; we treat animals as if they were no more than meat-making machines; we ship our children off to day-asylums and then to school, and when they are not at school we leave them in the care of Hollywood; we don't know our neighbors; and we, surprise, surprise, uphold no-fault divorce.  That last is the stake in the community's heart.  It is transience in the most intimate relation we know on earth.  And we raise our children up for it: witness their "relationships," one after the other, ruin after ruin, or worse, lassitude of soul after lassitude of soul, and then they marry, and we expect them to live as if the vows they make really meant something. 

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: At NPR, "Hooking up - Empowerment or loss of intimacy?"

National Review interviews Miniter:

The living, real connection of taking a part in the natural process by hunting and/or fishing is certainly being severed. We were once an agrarian society, but now less than 2 percent of us farm. We used to be hunter-gatherers; now only about 6 percent of Americans hunt. And the numbers of people still linked in a primal way to the natural world is shrinking every year.

For the sake of the environment, and of our manliness, fathers do need to teach their children the truth about the ecosystems we inhabit.

Miniter's book The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide is here.

One of the reasons the environment took a beating this past century is manly men were sucked indoors during the industrial revolution. Getting them back outdoors - their wives and children with them - is a must. "Take only pictures and leave only footprints" isn't a bureaucratic rule enforced by park rangers, for instance. It's a code of honor that shows respect for God and nature and other people.

I've been involved in men's ministry leadership for about two decades now. Most ladies (or pastors for that matter) don't get that most men don't respond to "love" as much as they do to the concepts of respect and honor. You can ask guys all day to "love what God loves" when it comes to creation, and get nowhere. But if you really want to reach all those red state Christian bubbas out there with your green gospel, "respect the land, for God's sake" is a better angle.

For more on manliness and respect I heartily recommend Eggerichs or Eldredge.

[photo credit] 

UPDATE: Dominion of the environment an extension of dominion over women?

If the UN were actually capable of enforcing this, I'd be worried.

UPDATE: But the US House of Representatives is capable of enforcing at least some of this (via Drudge): Green Queen - 'Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to inventory'.

Every. That's a lot.

UPDATE: And this, from San Diego:

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'" The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles. Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars. "For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

Environmental impacts from Bible studies?

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.

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.