June 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Something very interesting is going on.
By way of background, you should know that I graduated in 2008 from Christendom College, one of the few really orthodox Catholic colleges in the United States. As a consequence I have a ton of amazing friends – intelligent, thoroughly Christian, and deeply pro-life.
Lately, however, I have noticed a theme emerging in the conversations and on the blogs and Facebook pages of a shockingly high number these friends – namely, a concern for “the environment.”
More and more I hear my friends asserting such things as the pressing need to develop renewable energy sources, to grow or buy “organic” and locally grown food, to stop the destruction caused by certain chemicals and industries, to reduce the levels of waste that the West is pouring into landfills, etc.
Recently I visited the blog of one of my friends, who couldn’t possibly be more pro-life or conservative if she tried. I read with mild surprise as she expressed her abhorrence for the proliferation of non-biodegradable plastic and indicated a few ways in which she is striving to reduce her “carbon footprint.”
A number of my close friends have gone out of their way to start growing and raising their own food, or have signed up for local organic food co-ops. Increasingly I hear the word “sustainable” used in a positive light. There are even suggestions that taking steps to protect the environment is a “moral imperative,” and that some of the ideas behind Earth Day aren’t really such a bad thing.
So what’s going on here? Are all of these friends buying in to the liberal lie? Are they simply pawns or victims of environmentalist propaganda? Are they selling their souls to the eco-extremist doomsayers?
No. I don’t believe it. Not for one second. In part I don’t believe it, because I have found myself thinking a lot of the same things.
Take this for example: This past week I was travelling with my wife and two children. We stopped for lunch at Wendy’s and I ordered a salad. After I had eaten my lunch I went to dispose of the garbage, when suddenly I paused, and looked. I had in my hand the plastic container in which the salad had been contained, the large plastic carrying bag in which my lunch had been given me, as well as a plastic knife, fork and spoon.
All told, it formed quite the formidable bundle. And I thought to myself: “Good Lord. All this from just one meal from just one person. And now it will all be dumped into a plastic garbage bag, and shipped off to a landfill, where it will sit undecomposed for centuries or even millennia. This can’t possibly be sustainable.”
Tell me, then, was this a bad thought? Was it a sign that I am slipping over to the dark side?
I don’t think so. On the contrary, I think there was a great deal of truth in it.
In fact, this is this sort of common sense revelation that my young pro-life friends seem to be increasingly having. Things like: that the West is producing and consuming non-essential goods at such a breakneck speed that it will inevitably run straight off an environmental and economic cliff if it doesn’t stop, soon; that it is neither healthy nor humane to eat eggs or meat that come from animals that are packed by the thousands into windowless, airless food factories and fed genetically modified grains; that it is a lot more fun and educational to grow your own food, etc.
What we are witnessing is a new, and, I believe, commendable backlash against two different excesses: that of a radical form of capitalism that views incessant wealth creation as the primary purpose of human life, and that of a radical environmentalism that views humans as little more than a pest to be carefully controlled or even eliminated.
Fundamentally I believe this backlash is fueled by one simple, self-evident, but critical fact: that this is the only earth we have, and its resources are necessarily limited. Eco-extremists view this limitedness as a reason to stop humans from reproducing at all, to “save the planet.” Pro-life environmentalists, on the other hand, view this limitedness as a reason to exercise self-restraint and intelligence in the way we consume resources for the sake of future generations – to “save the humans.”
Perhaps to call this a form of “environmentalism” at all is incorrect or misleading. After all, this new, pro-life environmentalism is springing up amongst a generation of young, religious conservatives who do not look at the world as simply “the environment” for the beast homo sapiens, but as a “creation” given to man as a gift by a loving Creator, with the commandment that we are to be intelligent stewards of it. Hence, “creationism” might perhaps be a more accurate or useful term to use, were it not for the fact that the term is already used for another purpose.
Either way, I believe that it is a profoundly good thing. What do you think?