Too Much of a Good Thing

I was in high school when "Earth Day" was established as an official recognized day. For me and my classmates, that meant an afternoon spent outdoors walking ditches and bagging trash. That is a good thing.

Last year we even started what we intend to follow-up on occasion on the ranch. We had all the ranch kids meet at the cookhouse after school for ice cream treats, and a white board exercise whereby they named every critter and fish they had ever observed on the ranch. The list is quite impressive. That is a good thing.

Then they went outside, and planted four wildlife friendly plum trees in an area where the cottonwoods are dying of old age. That is a good thing.

For those of us on farms and ranches, "Earth Day" is nothing new. We've been quietly practicing it every day of our lives for generations. Not only do we care about the land and animals under our stewardship, it also stands to reason that the better care we give our natural resources, the more successful our own business will be. That is a good thing.

But even as a young farm kid, there was something about the establishment of "Earth Day" that raised up a certain aversion in me. I suppose it had something to do with the whole hippie, anti-establishment, tree-hugging mentality that characterized that generation. I never bought in to that, and looked with suspicion at anything stemming from those roots. Including Earth Day. As far as I'm concerned, inner radar is a good thing too.

It's a dangerous thing to "worship and serve the creature more than the Creator". There's nothing wrong with being thankful for the miraculous life sustaining abundance provided by the earth. We should be. But we'd better be giving credit where credit is due. We are to "use this world as not abusing it", and to be good stewards of those things placed under man's "dominion". That is a good thing.

Taken to an extreme, environmentalism is simply a modern term for a religion called Pantheism. Worshipping "Mother Earth" or "Mother Nature". It's big business, and has lined the pockets quite handsomely of those who have learned the art of crisis fabrication, and people manipulation. Panthe-atic prophets who are constantly sending out alarms of doom and gloom, until we have a huge segment of society that is convinced that it's necessary to sacrifice our freedoms and our pocketbooks on the altar of environmentalism.

The price is astronomical. Not only in lost tax-paying, family-supporting, government-supporting jobs and industry, but also in lost opportunities, and lost or damaged resources due to overprotection, over-regulation, and mismanagement.

The ultimate cost? Freedom and prosperity. He who controls the food basket controls the country. I do not wish to depend on China, Russia, or any other country for my daily sustenance.

This country has been spoiled by the security blanket of an abundant supply of cheap, safe, wholesome food. When we get hungry, it will be too late.

And that, is not a good thing.

Ref: Rm 1:25; 1 Cor 7:31; Gen 1:26; 2 Tim 3:2