In my late teens I spent time hunting in the bush around lake Waikaremoana. Off the forest tracks, I stood in places that I was sure no man had ever stood. In unspoiled bush, there is a sense of peace and quietness so tangible, that people often catch themselves speaking in whispers, just as they would entering an ancient church. It seems like the presence of God hangs in the air with the sweet smell of the bush. I never saw any environmentalists there eight hours off the road, but I did meet some people that loved the bush and took only what they needed.
Not that the greens have spent all their time making clothes from hemp or smoking it. They have deftly used environmentalism as a Trojan horse into governments where they push their socialist barrow. The greens and the government tell us that people, cows and “utes” are killing the planet, but salvation can be found in a syringe for people and now cows. I am sure one of their old bumper stickers said, “Save the planet, drive a horse!” They forget in the late 1800s, there were 150,000 horses in New York city alone. At a rate of 22 pounds per horse per day, that adds up to a 100,000 tons of horse manure per year (not to mention around 10 million gallons of urine). If a horse travelled 22 miles per day, that is 450 gm per mile. By comparison, in the uneconomical 1970’s, the average car emitted 6 gram of pollution per mile.
So, are environmental concerns rubbish? No, but some of the facts such as pollution by natural phenomena are overlooked. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have produced far less air pollution than volcanic eruptions: Recently St. Helens (1980) poured 910,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and when El Chicon erupted in 1982, it released 100,000,000 tons of sulphur skyward. We are also not told that termites produce more methane gas each year, than all the fossil fuels burned in the world each year. Just as well we don’t farm them, or we would be taxed for sure. And we now know that globally, wetlands (which the government is robbing farmers to create), also produces more methane than all fossil fuel production and use combined.
We don’t know if current climate change, is part of cycle. Past predictions have been varied and often alarmist. In 1974 Time magazine warned of a global ice age, reporting, “the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The cooling trend shows no indication of reversing,” But only 4 years later in 1979, the New York Times reported, “There is a real possibility that infants will live to see the North Pole melted.” In 1989, United Nations predicted that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth” if global warming is not stopped by 2000. We’re still here and it now looks like that the islands of the pacific around Vanuatu are sinking more due to subduction of tectonic plates, than the seas rising. It seems climate change is difficult to judge and is being used as a false flag for stronger global control over our farming, spending, driving, eating and travel.
Both my grandfathers were farmers and Methodist preachers. I left my father’s farm in Ardmore and became a minister too in my twenties. I understand the anger of the farmers. Farmers like Christians, love the outdoors and the environment. God told us at the start to use the earth to sustain our lives. The exact words are, “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28). We are to exercise dominion without being destructive. Oil spills, pesticides, toxic chemicals, need to be eliminated or managed. Wanton deforestation of rainforest is tragic. Dominion means we are to cull as well as conserve, but it also means we are to release the potential lying within the earths flora and fauna. God hid minerals, oil and wealth in the ground for us, not from us.
Ecological pantheists like PETA, who make animals not just equal to man but more important than a man, ram ships filled with people to save a whale. To them, drinking cow’s milk is abusing the cow! Of course, cruelty to animals is wrong, but Jesus, sent his disciples down to the lake to catch a fish not to save the fish (Matthew 17.30), and He never stooped down to give the donkey a ride into Jerusalem. (Mark 11.1-11).
Creation matters to the Creator. Jesus said His Father cared about each sparrow. (Matthew 10.30). And the fact that animals in Old Testament times were used to atone for man sins, is not a sign of God’s lack of care for animals but a sign of His even greater love for mankind. (Leviticus 17.11). Jesus looked at plants, trees and animals as provision from His father. Jesus used trees to build furniture and houses and we don’t know that He ever planted others to replace them. The last tree He used, was the cross on which He died for mankind.
We care for earth, but we are not afraid for its future. God promises its survival, just as He promises eternal life to those that believe on Him. I suggest we give the farmers and their cows a break and instead stomp on every termite we find.