I'm No Tree-Hugger

I’m no tree-hugger. I roll my eyes at the hysteria of the environmentalist crusade. That said, I do recycle and try to save energy and natural resources simply because it is the right thing, the responsible thing, to do. I believe we are to be good stewards of the earth and its resources. However, this should not be something we lose our common sense over. Extremisms are always dangerous.

The most prominent cause du jour is global warming - especially with the Hollywood crowd. I simply don’t believe it. It is a scare tactic used by the liberal left to gain more power. If they can create fear, even to near hysteria, but offer a solution, they figure they can gain trust and consequently elections. Now I’m not saying the signs aren’t there, but I believe they point to something else. Everything is cyclical. Time and seasons and weather patterns are all cyclical. Looking back to the 1970’s, at that point in time, the media and extremists were crying “global cooling” and that we were heading into another ice age. It even made the cover of Newsweek in 1975! It didn’t happen. There is “evidence” back as far as the 1890’s that we have been going through cycles of global warming and cooling. Nothing globally catastrophic has happened, but hysteria sells.

Temps go up and they go down. Storm systems are wildly dangerous and they are relatively calm. Weather patterns are unpredictable and tumultuous and they are even predictable and moderate. There is flooding and there is drought. It’s called weather. Contrary to what Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” maintains, there is evidence that the earth has been in a cooling trend for the last few years. In fact, he even states that “the debate is over in the scientific community”, but obviously it’s not because over 19,000 scientists and climatologists publicly signed a petition stating they do NOT agree. (For more info see http://www.globalwarmingisafarce.com/)

There is big money to be made in the new push to make everything “green”. From hybrid cars to solar energy to “earth friendly eco-bags” instead of plastic at the grocery store, and a myriad of other things, the push is definitely on. Again, I believe we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the wonderful earth God created, but I don’t believe we should make foolhardy choices out of fear. One of the biggest pushes right now involves an ordinary, everyday item that we all have multiples of inside our homes – light bulbs.

We all need light bulbs and we all use them throughout our homes. For the most part, we’ve been using the same type of bulb for home use, since bulbs were invented - incandescent. And it appears that they both cost more and use more energy in the long run. Naturally, there has been a strong push to start using the new compact fluorescent lamps. It makes sense since they are both energy and money saving. Or does it?

What is not widely reported is that these CFL bulbs are filled with poisonous mercury and are quite dangerous to people. So dangerous in fact, that they must be disposed of properly by using a specific type of recycling facility. There’s one problem – the type of recycling facility needed is very limited. They cannot be disposed of in the trash like incandescent bulbs because they could harm the trash collector, leak into the ground, air and water (obviously this is a danger to both the earth and society), and in quantity they could even kill landfill workers. And this is just for CFL bulbs that have burned out. What about if they break? Well, now you’re really in trouble. If a CFL bulb breaks, for your own protection, you have to hire an environmental cleanup company to come do it for you, at a cost of somewhere around way too stinking expensive. A woman in Maine experienced this first hand, when a bulb in her daughter’s room broke. She is now trying to save at least $2000 to have it cleaned up properly because the EPA has deemed it contaminated. And no, homeowners insurance doesn’t cover that. In the meantime, the room remains sealed off. (For more info see www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55213 )

So what are we to do? For me and my family, we intend to go on with our lives. We will continue to recycle what we can and do our best to use our natural resources wisely. We take the stewardship of the earth seriously, as God gave it to us and told us to take dominion over it. However, we will not be quick to jump on the fever-pitched, goin’ green bandwagon! And we will not willingly bring hazardous material in a fragile glass container into our home! But neither will we be wasteful, negligent or unaware of the fact that the earth’s resources are limited.

The earth is beautiful and precious and should be properly taken care of. It should be respected and protected as much as possible without us going crazy to do it (and making things worse). The earth is the Lord’s creation and it is good. Let’s join in together and do our part sensibly, while being mindful of the current obsession with being environmentally fanatical instead of being environmentally sensible. Don’t be led astray by the fear-mongering liberal left. Just think, use common sense and be responsible. God entrusted us with the earth, should we not be deemed trustworthy with it?

See Genesis 1 and 2 for the Creation story.

“You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.” ~ Nehemiah 9:6

“Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” ~ Ecclesiastes 1:4-7

(C) 2008 Tracy Keck