environment

I really looked forward to Sunday a few weeks ago when Gregg spoke about environmentalism in his Sunday sermon. I'm no dyed-in-the-wool environmental whacko, but I would call it a hobby of mine. Everything that Gregg said, I had no issue with. Well, except that one about hybrid vehicles, which I have yet to make up my mind on whether they have a less negative cummulative effect on the earth. But, I digress...

A couple days before that Sunday, I was catching up on my daily verse calendar at work and came upon one which spoke to me very clearly about how our love for the earth and creation will be judged.

I love the way this translation mixes the words faith, cheat, honesty, responibility, trust, wealth, and riches. There are dozens of verses throughout the OT starting with Genesis and in the NT which speak to how God desires us to love and respect the earth and all His creations, and to use the resources of his creation wisely. Luke reminds us in just that one last sentence that if we do not make honest efforts to retain the vibrant diversity of His creation, then we will not be allowed to enjoy and taste the true Fruits of Heaven. It's pretty heavy stuff.

For my part, I will continue to try to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. In that order. Buy less stuff, find new uses for the stuff I have, and make sure my recycling bin is overflowing every two weeks while the trash can only has one bag in the bottom.

Every part of the earth, including us humans, are interrelated. All of the complex systems from ions passing between cellular membranes to the weather patterns in the skies above us move and change in a symbiotic and unbreakable relationship. We are seriously straining that relationship and nature is starting to show us how the butterfly effect really works. There are a multitude of resources on our little blue planet, but each of them is finite. It certainly seems that we cannot continue to consume them in the same way, at the same rate, forever. What is coming around the next corner, I do not know, but according to what God has to say about it, I don't have a choice if I am to remain in His favor.

I'm at the point in my life where I sometimes wonder, "Is this it? Is this all I'm doing for the rest of my life?" Don't misunderstand me.  I love my life.  But I'm 35 years old.  Is going back to school to "be something" an option? Will I ever have a "real job?"  Again, yes, yes, I know being a mom is a real job- but I mean a paying job.  If I did, what would I want to be?  

Several times I've thought about becoming a teacher.  I like kids, I like being bossy.    It seems like the natural thing to do.  Plus you get summers off! I think the balance of working with kids and adults would be pretty fun. Hmmm, but then I'd actually have to get up EVERYDAY and go to work. Yick!

Well, back on the positive side is the idea that came to me the other day as I loaded ream after ream of paper into the shelves in the teacher workroom at the girl's school, if I was a teacher I would use a LOT less paper than these teachers do.  I could figure out how to do it well and teach other teachers.  I could go around to other schools and teach them how to stop wasting so much dang paper. The copier at school seems to have an gigantic appetite.   Teachers have stacks of worksheets, homework packets, art projects, games, newsletters, etc.  It never ends.  I thought about how much our one school in this small town uses, multiply that by all the schools in town, the state, the country-That's a lot of trees.  And it's paper diarrhea.  

I don't know if I really want a career, but I sure would love to see an end to so much waste. 

The subject of genetic engineering caught my attention this morning after yesterday's publicity over successful cloning of a Red Fluorescent cat (video). (Below is a text story.)

After pondering it over a hot shower, I've decided I don't like this. But at the same time I wonder how much of our mucking around with genes, gene replacement therapy, and genetic engineering is still really part of God's plan for humans and the animals we test on. I believe that part of God's Creation as truthfully told in Genesis also included the basic mechanics of nature, physics, and mathematics which govern the movement of bodies. That also includes the mechanics of purposeful, natural genetic mutation which has given rise to changes in species of plants animals which we have been able to document. I'm not saying that Man was not created as we appear today, but even we have experienced mutations which gives rise to the multitude of different appearances of people from different countries or regions of our planet.

But I really cringe at stories like these fluorescent cats. We don't know what we're messing with. Just look at Africanized honey bees which are invading North America now. They started as an experiment in Brazil to see if an African subspecies of bee would do better in pollinating crops. However, the bees got loose, mated with the European-origin bees in Brazil and created the hybrid we call the Africanized bee, or killer bee. And now look what's happening with this new species taking over the US. (I should note that the experiment in Brazil has now yielded re-domesticated Africanized bees which are doing well and are preferred over the original honeybee.)

A lot of "us" just don't know what, or Who, we're messing with. And we cannot foresee all the outcomes and consequences.

As the Christmas season is upon us, I have been thinking about, and have been reminded by words of wisdom from others, that our consumptive ways are damaging to us personally and interpersonally, and to the earth. NFC has shared with the congregation this year, a vision of a less-commercialized Christmas. It is very similar to messages I've heard in the past. My version of this is "buy less stuff for people who don't really need it, and give more to those who truly have the need." It's the right thing to do. And, as Dr. Laura would say, You can tell it's the right thing to do because it's the difficult thing to do.

Thinking about less commercialization naturally leads me to think about less consumption. We all know about the stuff we have around the house that we really could do without. How did we get all this stuff and why? And why do we keep needing to buy stuff to replace stuff that is still working? Well, it's called the Economy, and it's creating a nasty dissonance in my head. I've heard about and understand this idea called "planned obsolescence," where certain components and devices (things) are made to break after a certain time so that I have to go get a new one, or updates to software on our computers makes it impossible to work with older things so we have to buy a new thing. Now I hear about "perceived obsolescence" and I get irritated. That's really what is driving our 1st world economies today: being made to think that we need to go buy a new thing because the first version of the thing looks different or doesn't have some new feature.

I was introduced to website today called The Story of Stuff.

It has brought a lot of what I already know about into sharper focus. I was floored by some of the things I learned. As with anything, however, there are extremes in this video which can be debated, but the core of the storyline remains true. It's almost depressing to listen and understand the truths being told there.

Of course, there are people trying to change the way things work, and some of these may be a way for us to get out of the cycle of consumption that we're in. I firmly believe in our call to be good stewards of the earth, which must be balanced with our going forth an multiplying. We need to use our God-given talents to find ways to continue to live on our planet without actually destroying it.

I've done a lot of thinking about this. What will it take to move me to action? How about you?

You may have heard that I have an interest in environmental matters. Now, I'm no environmentalist nutjob whacko which el Rushbo spouts off about (not that I care what he has to say about anything), but I think I do, like many, try to do our part to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Bob Cringley is a columnist over at PBS and writes some good, fun stuff. This last Friday, he posted an article about wind power technology and that Google invested $10mil in a particular company involved in it. It sounds like one of those far-out ideas, and I think it is, but the power generating potential of high-alititude kites sounds very cool.

Head on over and take a read. It's not very long.