Call Me Cold

Snow. For the past few weeks I haven't seen the ground – except for a few muddy patches from time to time. But then it snowed. Again.

I was attempting to clear the driveway last week when I started to think of aerosol cans. Aerosol cans and freon. I thought about buying a case or two and just spraying. Maybe I could give global warming a little help. Maybe then the snow would go away. I was wrong.

Despite all my personal efforts to destroy the ozone layer, I found that it may not be my fault.

"A stream of particles from the Sun, in combination with extreme weather conditions, caused an unprecedented thinning last year of the upper Arctic ozone layer."

I'm sure that organizations like Greenpeace would be quick to assure me that it is indeed my fault. And that global warming is not the only thing I am responsible for. I could also be responsible for global cooling. Or perhaps global climate change.

As a member of the human population, I'm also responsible for destroying forests, deserts, wetlands, swamps, and a few major oceans. As a white American male who does not consider himself to be of hispanic decent, I am also responsible for the destruction and extinction of rare migratory birds. As a political conservative and capitalist, I am a few short steps away from pillaging the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge so I can pay less for gas. Yes, gas that will be used in my non-hybrid car, resulting in yet more global warming, cooling, and climate change.

In the face of these accusations I have one response. Who cares?

The nice people of “The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” say:

“Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.”

Okay, I don't really know if they're nice people. I've never talked to them. If I did talk to them I would probably ask if I could get all their stuff when they die. It's not like they're going to pass it on to their kids.

I'm going to make a generalization. I'm going to assume that most of the people who think that the human population is destroying 'nature' – from those wanting to shut down power plants and make everyone ride bikes, to those who think we should all just die out – generally consider evolution to be true.

From the perspective of evolution mankind is just another part of nature. Humans are just another animal. The factories, the deforestation, the cars, and the power plants are all just progress along the evolutionary path. Since when is extinction bad? I thought it was survival of the fittest. So what if we destroy the ozone layer – future generations will just adapt. How can we hurt an evolutionary environment? The only logical way to damage evolution is by resisting the dominance of one species and the changes a species makes to the environment.

So to the environmental evolutionist I ask the question, “Who cares?”

I'll also answer the question. I do. The evolutionist has no right to protect the environment, because it is not his to protect. However, I do have that right. It is mine to protect, for I am a creationist.

Unlike the evolutionist, the creationist believes that mankind is not a part of nature. Nature was made for man, and man was entrusted with nature. He was not instructed to preserve it – to keep it new and untouched – but to use it, and to use it wisely. To care for nature, but not to idolize it. To treat it responsibly, not radically.

So to all environmentalists, don't tell me how bad I'm ruining this planet unless you're my equal – a creationist.