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The Danger of Environmentalism

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by Revmitchell, Oct 2, 2008.

  1. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism.

    The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.

    In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made "development" an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power--and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the "rights" of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the "rights" of trees. No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those "protecting" the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence.

    Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something.

    The ideal world of environmentalism is not twenty-first-century Western civilization; it is the Garden of Eden, a world with no human intervention in nature, a world without innovation or change, a world without effort, a world where survival is somehow guaranteed, a world where man has mystically merged with the "environment." Had the environmentalist mentality prevailed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we would have had no Industrial Revolution, a situation that consistent environmentalists would cheer--at least those few who might have managed to survive without the life-saving benefits of modern science and technology.

    The expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature. That is why environmentalism is fundamentally anti-man. Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine. Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by "environment" one means the surroundings of man--the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature. But in the environmentalists' paean to "Nature," human nature is omitted. For environmentalism, the "natural" world is a world without man. Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds, and bacteria somehow do.


    More Here
     
  2. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    The issue in the climate change, global warming, environmentalism, debate is one of stewardship. Whether these things are true or false is irrelevant to Christians and probably to other religious people. We are called on to take care of the world that God has given us so that it will be available in good shape for our children for many generations to come. The position of this article is stated in the last sentence:

    If this quote was applied to most any other issue discussed on this forum (e. g., abortion), it would be shot down in flames immediately. We are currently reaping the consequences of such a position in the economic crisis. This is a position that seeks to isolate persons from their natural attachments which include their responsibility for the consequences of their actions. It allows individuals to justify their actions to themselves by any means that they can find. It is a position that does the same thing that it accuses the environmentalists of doing: going to extremes. The author of the article, Michael Berliner, is advocating an unrestrained capitalism which sees human wants [he calls them "human needs"] as the only standard for the development of energy resources and products. He says that, in the environmentalists' view, animal rights are given priority over human rights. His view is that human rights should have priority over animal rights. My view is that we should strike some sort of balance that respects both human beings and animals as creatures in God's creation.

    I suggest that you look at the writings of Wendell Berry for a more balanced view. Berry is a subsistence farmer in northern Kentucky. He is also a novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written extensively on agricultural policy and its effects on the decline of the economies of local, especially rural, communities. He also distinguishes between the use of the environment and its abuse. Use takes into account the consequences of one's actions and tries to leave things in at least as good a shape as they were found. Abuse takes no account of consequences.

    Some Berry's titles that are pertinent to this topic are:

    A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural & Agricultural (1972)
    The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (1977)
    The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural (1981)
    Home Economics (1987)
    Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000)
    The Way of Ignorance (2005)

    Tim Reynolds
     
  3. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Climate change is a lie used as a political tool. It is very relevant to Christians. Libs are trying to force political decisions that adversely affect American lives based on lies and false ideologies.
     
  4. Analgesic

    Analgesic New Member

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    Climate change is certainly debatable. The problem is one of limited data: the left looks at a few years and concludes that the world is ending, while the right looks at a few hundred years and concludes that they can do what they will without any effect.

    "Environmentalism", however, is a much broader category than the highly-specific description given in this misleading article.
     
  5. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    By the same token, Cons are trying to force political decisions that adversely affect American lives based on lies and false ideologies. :BangHead:

    Tim Reynolds
     
  6. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Let's stay on task now:rolleyes:
     
  7. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    Back atcha, Rev. You played the ideology card first. My point is that the article that you posted in the OP is a recipe for abuse of the environment. The article advocates pure capitalism. Stewardship forces Christians to be wary of pure capitalism, to draw a line when it ventures into the abuse of our environment. The evidence for climate change, global warming, environmentalism, whatever, is in dispute. But, for Christians, the issue is still the stewardship of the world that God has given us.

    Tim Reynolds
     
  8. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Not at all. It refutes a lie used as a political tool. This is being used to bring the world into a submission to a worship of the creation. This is that which Christians need to avoid.
     
  9. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    If I'm understanding you, it is like continuing to smoke after you've been told you have cancer because you don't want to make an idol out of good health. Oh well. :BangHead:

    Tim Reynolds
     
  10. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    It doesn't appear so.

    A more appropriate illustration is a doctor telling a patient they have cancer when they don't just so they would eat certain foods that the doctor worships.
     
  11. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Gen. 8:22
     
  12. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    I agree, like everything else God gives, he expects us to steward our environment wisely. We can do that without becoming tree hugging wackos.

    BTW - moved to Politics so it doesn't face a 3 page closure
     
    #12 NaasPreacher (C4K), Oct 9, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 9, 2008
  13. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    The problem is one ends up supporting a lie that is a political tool to bring down industry. What I see is that while some Christians may not hold to the wackos assertions they like the intended end results all the same. More government and less industry.
     
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