Go Green? No Thanks. I Have A Religion.

Recently over on Facebook (where you can friend me if you like), I posted an item which stated:

Jimmy Akin would like the world to know that he has heard exhortations to “Go Green”/“Be Green”/“Save the Planet” so often that using any of these phrases drastically decreases the chance he will agree to the proposal in question—whatever it is.

I figured that this would generate a good bit of reaction, and it did. In less than a day there were over 100 responses. That was even more reaction than the item I posted about the spider in Madagascar that makes webs 82 feet across or the woman who fended off a bear by hitting it with a zucchini!

A big part of the reason the item got the reaction it did is that a lot of people feel the same way.

Here are some of the responses people posted:

Jimmy, it is so nice to know that I am not the only one.

Yeah. It’s like Chinese Water Torture. It has its merit, but do you have to beat us to death with it?

One trade association I belong to sends me a green e-mail every week like clockwork. It tells me that my clients want me to be green, and are more likely to do business with me if I’m green. I keep telling them that I’m not paying for that much body paint, but they keep sending me the e-mails anyway.

“Go green” and “reduce, reuse, recycle” is stuffed down kids’ throats every chance there is. It makes my kids groan and roll their eyes. How about “go chaste”??? A more-needed message for sure. Did you ever notice no one ever says, “oh kids will never recycle, so we might as well help them waste . . . “

Why did the “Go Green” message leave such a bitter taste on these people’s mouths?

Well, as one saying has it, there are “A Million Ways to Go Green!” And all of them are inconvenient.

Environmentalists have been so successful in pushing the “Go Green” sloganeering through our culture that we are now all continuously bombarded by environmental scolding that is vastly out of proportion what environmental problems exist, so far as the average person can tell.

As a result, environmental activists have acquired the reputation of annoying nattering nannies, of rigid killjoys out to spoil everybody else’s fun. Rather like the reputation Fundamentalists have. And in fact, many have noted that environmental activists treat environmentalism like a religion.

And it’s not the, “I’m comfortable with what I believe, and I’ll tell you why I believe it and also listen to you and we can have a mutually respectful dialog”-type of religion, like you get from the Vatican. Instead, it’s the “Convert or die!”-type of religion—in some cases literally, for certain environmentalist activists put spikes in trees with the deliberate intent of causing physical injury to loggers.

It should be pointed out in all fairness that most environmental activists don’t go to that extreme, but the movement is rapidly acquiring a reputation for being as heavy handed and disrespectful of others’ views as anyone disdained as a “Fundamentalist.”

In fact, now that the term “Fundamentalism” has mutated way beyond its original meaning (a group of theologically conservative Protestants associated with a set of 19th century books known as “The Fundamentals”), now that we have not only “Christian fundamentalists” and “Muslim fundamentalists” and “Hindu fundamentalists,” it might as well be time that we start referring to “environmental fundamentalists” as well.

This actually could be a help for those with legitimate environmental concerns.

I mean, it’s not as if one should be unconcerned with the environment. God gave mankind the mandate to serve as stewards of the natural world, and that concern is legitimate.

That’s why—in my Facebook item—I didn’t say that urging me to “Go Green” would stop me from adopting whatever proposal is under discussion. I have no desire to adopt a rigid contradict-environmentalists-no-matter-what-they-say position. That would be irrational—just like adopting an adhere-to-everything-environmentalists-claim position.

What is needed in this area, as in every area of life, is the ability to think critically, to “Test everything and hold fast to what is good,” in the words of St. Paul (though, of course, he was speaking in a different context).

Unfortunately, experience has shown that many of the claims made by environmentalists are bunk, and many of the recommendations made by them are equally bunk. They will little or nothing to help supposed environmental problems—and they may even hurt.

The reflexive, unthinking exhortations to “Go Green” and “Save the Planet” and thus serve as a kind of marker for unreliable, unproved, and usually unhelpful proposals.

That is why hearing any of these things makes it less likely I’ll agree to the proposal. The appearance of these slogans is a good indicator of the presence of ideology rather than reason, and ideology is a poor guide compared to reason.

Having a way to refer, collectively, to those who have become environmental ideologues—“environmental fundamentalists,” for example—thus could play a useful role in distinguishing legitimate environmental concerns from unthinking ideology.

Naming the problem is part of solving it.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

9 thoughts on “Go Green? No Thanks. I Have A Religion.”

  1. Environmentalists have been so successful in pushing the “Go Green” sloganeering through our culture that we are now all continuously bombarded by environmental scolding that is vastly out of proportion [to] what environmental problems exist, so far as the average person can tell.
    Therein lies a problem. The environmental problems are about 100 years out and the average person no longer has a thought for their posterity. People are no longer used to taking the long-term view, so if it doesn’t affect them, today, then they eat, drink, and try to be merry.
    On the other hand, there has been no carefully thought out corrective measures that have been put forth by scientists that the average person can do that can ensure that the environmental catastrophes won’t occur. If global climate change (GCC) is not anthropogenic, but rather a natural occurrence, then there is little the average person can do except adapt as the changes occur. If it is anthropogenic, then the stupid, “Go Green,” mantra is hiding an awful lot of radical changes that will have to occur.
    Things like using cars that get better mpg are basically useless in causing the amount of change necessary to stop anthropogenic GCC to the point where the average person should just ignore the advice. Now, if we could come up with a way of magnetic transportation using magnetic monopoles such that we could stop using fossil fuels, then that might be something the average person could do. Once the car was let out into the general public, society adapted to make car use normal. It’s a little late to do the social engineering necessary to let people live without cars. Businesses would have to move closer together so that people could walk to work. There would have to be community housing, etc. All of this would cost energy.
    There are ways to stop polluting, but it won’t happen anytime soon, given the enormous changes needed. Band-aid approaches will not work. It is far better, in my current opinion, to let the public wait a bit and see if any large-scale solutions are possible before trying the small ones. We know very little about the synergistic effects of proposed Green changes. Small-scale changes, especially those that interact with one another, can lead to large-scale messes in the future. Thrashing around is not usually the best way to save oneself.
    The Chicken

  2. Grammar correction:
    On the other hand, there have been no carefully thought out corrective measures that have been put forth by scientists that the average person can do that can ensure that the environmental catastrophes won’t occur.

  3. I’m actually a big fan of the “reduce” and “reuse” options– especially “reuse,” since it’s VERY inexpensive. My family’s been doing it for ages! (anyone else’ grandma save tin foil for reuse?)
    The ironic thing is, a lot of the recycling laws have made it so it’s harder to reuse things, since reusuables are usually made of stuff that can be recycled, so there’s all sorts of pressures to send it in and use all those resources to…make the dang thing again.

  4. “Things like using cars that get better mpg are basically useless…”
    I’m pretty sure stats would show that when travel becomes less expensive (as with more fuel efficient cars, or when the price of gas drops) people travel more, because they can. So, one could argue convincingly that increased fuel efficiency would have little effect on the overall use of fossil fuels.

  5. +J.M.J+
    I also am into the whole “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” thing, even though I don’t believe GCC is anthropogenic. I just want to make the most of what God has given me and not squander it; there’s also the “frugality factor” since I tend to be that way. I certainly don’t see it as a “religion”; I’ve already got one, thanks. I’m also using more natural cleaning agents because my kids have been tested and found to have toxins in their bodies, so I want to limit the toxins in my environment. But I’m not an “environmentalist,” I don’t go around berating other people who don’t “Go Green.” People who act like that just turn me off, even though I probably already do a lot of what they want everyone to do. It’s the attitude that gets me.

  6. I’m on board with you here. It’s just another religion, but you did probably cause a few greenies to get their gaia loving feelings hurt. lol.

  7. I agree. I tend to “Go Green” when people say these words, but not in the way they would like. Not environmentally, not “with envy”, but in the way one usually does when they get a whiff of something unpleasant (i.e. feeling queasy).
    I like to conserve (you know, waste not, want not), but the whole Global Warming Will Kill Us All, Inc. crowd make me want to scream.
    Thanks for this.

  8. dear jimmy, i have never heard so much HOG WASH, WEASAL SHIT AND HOT AIR while tring to defend the pope in all my life!!!!!!people who try to make excuses for child molester and their protecters are the evilest kind of people!!!!!you should be ashamad of youself.all cathlics should stand up and demand that justice be served, instead of listining to gommers like you.

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