Well, another “Earth Day” is upon us. The mindset of liberal environmentalists is something completely alien to me. Maybe I'm just suspicious of their motives. I can never be sure if environmentalists are acting out of genuine concern for the planet or if ordinary liberals are exploiting environmentalist concerns to advance their political agenda. Perhaps the truth is that the liberals don't really know either.
One fundamental tenet of liberal ideology is that there is no personal god. To them, “god” is only a warm fuzzy feeling that one can experience any number of ways. If someone gets that warm fuzzy feeling in church, that's fine but if they can get the same feelings at home then church is optional. This is usually expressed in some ambiguous attitude of tolerance; “I might believe this but if you believe something else that's fine because all beliefs are equal.” There are also those people who get the warm fuzzy feeling about nature. I don't think they consciously “worship” nature (though some do) but rather experience the same satisfaction from their belief about nature that liberal theists experience from their belief in their impersonal god.
I guess they don't realize how jealous their god is. It's not enough that they become one with nature, they want everyone else to treat nature with the same reverence that they do. To many of them, it's blasphemy to want to cut down a tree to build a house or to clear rain forests to make room for cattle. Nature is like some holy relic that must remain undefiled by human hands. To that end, they have no problem forcing their “religious” views on the rest of us. Nothing is too extreme if they do it “to save the planet.”
Do you think I'm going too far? I assure you I'm not. Consider the very recent example of the delta smelt. The San Joaquin Valley is a dust bowl but we will not pump more water there because the Natural Resources Defense Council successfully sued to protect a fish that's less than bite size. This fish is endangered so we don't even eat them but we protect them only for the sake of preserving them to look at.
The liberal elites have gotten in on the act too. President Obama has spoken often about his “green jobs” agenda. Oil and coal are bad but wind and sun are good. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't we get oil and coal out of the ground? Wouldn't that make them part of nature too? I guess the problem is that oil and coal are produced by “big” oil and coal companies and anything with a “big” in front of it is bad. They need to be replaced with solar energy produced by some small company that doesn't actually employee anyone. The simple fact of the matter is that folks like Gore and Obama are using the environment as a tool for social engineering. Gore doesn't really give a whit about the planet or else he'd stop traveling in his private jet and limo to give speeches on how everyone else needs to use mass transit. Do you remember also how Obama defended his stimulus package? He said it would help the economy by creating green jobs. It doesn't matter what the policy is, liberals will bolster it by saying it's good for the planet.
On this Earth Day, I would remind people that God made this planet for us; He didn't make us for the planet. He commanded us to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it (Genesis 1:28). The earth is bountiful and plentiful. God has really blessed us with so many resources and we should feel free to use them. To me, environmentalists are like that slothful servant in Matthew 25:24-30. He was given stewardship over a talent but rather than put the talent to work, he buried it. When his master returned, he told him (I'm paraphrasing here), “Here's your talent, just like you gave it to me.” Environmentalists do the same thing; God gave us the earth to use for His glory and they want to preserve it untouched.
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