Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!

Sometimes I get books in the mail that I didn't ask anyone to send me. Some of them are pretty crazy. But this one was really, really good. For years I have lamented the pagan roots of most of the ideas animating the contemporary "environmentalist" juggernaut, but without any real notion of how to combat it effectively. Sure, I have some books about "Christian stewardship" of the environment, and some of them are actually quite good, though sadly unread and unappreciated. But here is a very ecumenical ("Jewish, Catholic and Protestant"!) but still hard-nosed (a tough combination to pull off) collection of essays and position papers on Torah- and Bible-based ways of thinking about the creation and our duty to care for and enhance it. Unfortunately the video that came with it was not nearly as compelling -- it was mostly aimed at conservative evangelical types who are already uncomfortable with environmentalism but don't really know why. A noble purpose, to be sure, but not exactly on the cutting edge of cultural progress.

Perhaps because of my unfamiliarity with Torah-based (as opposed to Bible-based) ways of thinking, I found the Jewish contributions the most enlightening, and I'll have several quotes from them over the next few days.

Herewith, the first, dealing with a Torah-friendly way of thinking about the "problem" of "overpopulation":

Is there a Torah approach to the so-called "population bomb"? Naturally, the proper approach is the balanced middle path. We should not ignore the problem, but neither should we precipitate chaos today in a foolhardy attempt to ward off a distant threat, one whose outlines are still dim and vague. What is this mysterious middle path? To discover it, we need to review our fundamental beliefs about whether a human being really is a consumer or a creator. If man is merely a consumer, then, obviously, the fewer, the better. If, however, man is a creator, then, equally obviously, the more, the merrier. And the answer is not "both." That would settle nothing. What are we asking is whether humans create more than they consume or consume more than they create. The Torah answers its own question: Humans can be either consumers or creators. This is quite a different answer from saying "both."

The Torah-true answer is that we can raise children to be either consumers or creators. If we raise them as if they were young animals, they will grow into animals -- basically consumers who are able to work like horses, but never with the capacity to truly create. In order to achieve that ability in our children, we have to raise them in the image of the ultimate Creator. That means imparting to them a sense of limits, an awareness of what is right and what is wrong. Only animals have finite needs. Humans, touched as they are by the finger of the Infinite Divine, have infinite wants. Children have to be taught that every want will demand a choice and a sacrifice, and that each of us must responsibly steward what we have been given and what we have earned. Children deserve to know that while we relate to and sympathize with their feelings, we do not expect them to follow those feelings unthinkingly. We expect them to follow their head, not their heart. They should grow into the realization that the world is not necessarily a fair place, but that it does have rules. Knowing those rules is better than whining about fairness. Finally, they should know that life judges us by our performance, not our intentions. Children raised to live by these and other similarly true and enduring principles, are a pleasure to be around.

That's enough for today; tomorrow, a striking example of what the author is talking about.