One day, we will have to tell our children the truth about the environmental movement.
We will have to say:
When I was younger, we allowed a massive, unlawful cartel to control the world price of oil and damage our economy. Even though the cartel set the world market price for oil by curtailing its production whenever the price got too low for their tastes, we blamed others for the price.
We blamed the SUV owners, saying their excessive consumption drove up demand and created high prices. We blamed BP, Citgo, Shell, and Exxon for making a profit, even though their profits were only about four to eight cents on each gallon of gasoline. We ignored other things that drove up the price, like the many federal, state, and local gasoline taxes, to focus mainly on the corporations that refined and transported our fuel at meager levels of profit, and we taxed the oil companies heavily because we felt they made too much profit.
When the price reached $4.00, it was the realization of the pre-2000 dream of environmentalists, who wanted to see the price of gasoline go so high that people would stop buying it. $4.00 was a common price listed as the "no way" point back when gas was $0.99/gallon.
We refused to do anything about the price of oil and gasoline because we were following a mandate from the environmental movement that we had to eliminate our use of fossil fuels. We didn't drill for the oil we had to force the world market to correct its price, and we didn't pursue non-food crop-based fuels, such as hemp. We drove up the price of corn that could feed people in order to make ethanol, even though growing, refining, and transporting the stuff used more energy than it created, and even though it required high amounts of fertilizer and pesticide.
And because we refused to do anything about the price of oil, we followed the environmental movement's advice to conserve energy by changing our light fixtures from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent tubes, even though the compact tubes brought mercury or similar toxins into our homes and created a massive problem in proper disposal of the spent lamps.
And we gave away our freedom to climate control our homes, letting someone at a remote location control the thermostats in our houses so we wouldn't use as much electricity.
Loss of freedom and damage to the economy are the results of the policies put forth by the environmental movement. Eventually, we're going to have to be honest about this and tell our children that this is what it was doing to us. Why can't we be honest about it now and find a better solution?
Look around. Think through what the policies advocated by the environmental movement will eventually do to our nation. Then look around at the political candidates and see which ones have a record most closely aligned with the environmental movement. You can be sure that they favor policies that will have these effects:
- Higher fuel prices - Burning anything (except an SUV, it seems) is bad in the eyes of the environmental movement.
- Hamstrung economic growth - Taxing the oil companies (which are most likely in your mutual fund) hurts investors, which limits the amount of money available to start businesses, which limits the number of jobs that are created, which hinders the economic growth.
- Higher food prices - One of the environmental movement's sacred cows in this country right now is ethanol made from corn or sugar cane, even though most other nations have abandoned ethanol as more resource-intensive than petroleum. Candidates favoring ethanol from food crops favor higher food prices, which means more hungry poor in the USA.
- Less freedom - The environmental movement wants to tell you that you can't choose to spend your hard-earned money on electricity to cool or heat your home to the temperature that makes you comfortable. Candidates who support the environmental movement don't support your right of self-determination in small things... what makes you think they'll support it in large things? Maybe you've heard of the concept of faithfulness with little being an indication of worthiness to manage much?
- Hare-brained solutions and computer models that don't match facts and logic - Compact fluorescent tubes use less energy than incandescent bulbs, but they contain toxic chemicals: not a sensible solution. Candidates supporting the environmental movement follow the theory of massive man-made global warming, even though the science doesn't back the theory (maybe you read a few news articles about the drop in temperatures over the last year that wiped out a century's temperature rises, to name only one of many problems with the theory)... and even though following the theory requires steps hurtful to our God-given rights.

The environmental movement has failed us, and it is time to abandon it. We need to focus on being good stewards of the resources God has given us and stop blindly following this navel-gazing warm fuzzies movement. Environmentalism is fatally flawed. Stewardship is sound both ecologically and economically, as well as theologically and logically.
We must do a better job of taking care of God's green earth -- but we won't do that by joining the environmental movement in poorly-considered plans based on questionable science.
Consider this when you choose a political candidate this November. Think about what you'll tell your children.

I went to see Ben Stein's movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed [Web site], this afternoon. It was well-constructed, and his interviews were well-done, showing respect for the evolutionists he interviewed and asking the hard questions of the intelligent design representatives he interviewed.
You should see this movie.
The movie is not about Creationism. The movie is not about the theory of intelligent design. The movie is about academic freedom.
Students are being oppressed in this country by those who would deny our God-given right to ask questions (partially guaranteed by the First Amendment in the redress of grievances clause). It is not whose idea is right or wrong or valid or invalid. It is that we have the right to ask questions. It should be self-evident that God has given us the right to ask questions about anything and everything. It is most profitable to us if we ask questions in humility and in the search for truth, but we can ask any question.
Except in the classroom. In the classroom, the Right of Inquiry is being denied.
That is why this movie is important. We need to be aware that the Right of Inquiry is being denied, and we need to demand that institutions and governmental bodies respect our rights of inquiry and discourse. We need to demand that theories be taught in the context of discourse and rigorous criticism.
I do not believe Creationism should be taught in a classroom funded by taxpayers. I do not believe that Intelligent Design Theory should be taught as the only theory of the origin of life. I do not believe that Neo-Darwinian Evolution Theory should be taught as the only theory of the origin of life. I believe that these theories should both (or in concert with other theories) be honestly discussed as theories put forth by their respective authors, honestly criticized in a discourse of examination and inquiry, and honestly set to rest at the end of the unit or class as exactly what they were at its beginning: theories. And let the students decide for themselves what theory they feel has the best basis in fact, evidence, logic, and their own personal worldview. Anything less is a disservice to science and to the students of our educational institutions. To teach one theory and only one theory in a classroom is to preach a dogma, not to teach an informative course in science or anything else that falls under the heading of education.
Any theory that cannot exist in an environment of discourse, criticism, and inquiry is not a serious theory. In the words of Charles Spurgeon, "Truth is a strong tower and never requires to be buttressed with error."

This evening, there was at OWC's Arts Center a lecture by Nancy Pearcey on the cultural implications of the evolution theory. This was part of the reason I chose to watch the movie today. The newspaper indicated that the movie was the subject of the lecture. It was called "Beyond Expelled"
One of the interesting things she pointed out is that roughly 80% of this country believes that an intelligent designer (either through guided evolution or through direct creation) was involved in the origin of the forms of life we see in the world today. Only 10-20% believe evolution without any supernatural force is the source of today's diverse world of life. And then she said something I thought was noteworthy:
"The public schools have a responsibility to respect the public."
Now, if 80% of the nation believes there was a designer involved, why do the school systems teach as though it were uncontested a theory of naturalistic forces without the input of a designer?

Something that occurred to me while she was speaking was the realization that the environmentalist who fights to protect the planet from polluter-humans and the amoral business that pours toxic sludge into the rivers both take their worldview from the same place. Darwinism is the belief behind both the personification of the environment, or less extremely, the dignity of the environment, that the environmental movement holds central and the contextual erasure of the exploitative business or social pragmatist. They both rely on this idea of man as an evolved animal who has no higher spiritual calling than to either fulfill his animalistic passions or to protect nature as an example of all that is pure and natural.
Neither the environmentalist nor the unscrupulous corporate raider has respect for both human freedom and dignity and for stewardship of the earthly realm. In fact, I would suggest that only a worldview based on the Bible (an economic model of Biblical capitalism, which relies on both stewardship and individual self-determination) can respect both humanity and natural stewardship.
In other words: If there is no creator, if we came from non-living matter purely by chance or natural laws, but either way without a creator, then we have no responsibility to each other as humans with dignity, nor do we have anyone to be responsible to in the question of whether to practice good stewardship of the land, because without a creator, we have no one to be stewards for... and since I have already said that without a creator there can be no responsibility to each other, there is likewise no responsibility to hold the land in stewardship for our descendants. This is the logical consequence of a worldview wherein people came from evolutionary processes alone.

By the way, she also mentioned in passing the practice in many schools of telling children that all ideas have equal validity. This is a precept of postmodernist philosophy. I immediately thought of this comic: Hard Onions: Marketplace of Ideas
So, go see the movie, and check out the writings of Nancy Pearcey.

Edited to add:
Freedom of Inquiry means being able to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
There is a false dichotomy between science and religion. I believe honest scientific exploration in search of the truth will always lead to a deeper understanding of the truth of God's word.
Freedom of Inquiry means encouraging questions and seeking of the truth.
Students have the right to know that what they are being taught is accurate. How can they discover that if they can't ask questions about the validity, truth, and accuracy of what is being put forth?
"The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." --Albert Einstein