Back from a lecture

[Tux]

It was at Western Kentucky University. The lecturer was Harvard professor emeritus Edward Wilson. I even got a signed book.

Anyways, it was about the decrease in biodiversity. More species become exstinct and no new animals repalce them. As we expand our cities, nations, and urban areas, we're destroying the natural enironment. It has been projected that the human population will become 9 billion in a few years. With such overpopulation, it will lead to more environmental destruction for resources to maintain that population.

A solution was to have the nations spend a total of $28 billion to protect what is left of the rainforest, national parks, etc. Period. That is 11% of the world's gross product. We can afford this but politicians don't want to since, in America, we need to fund fundies and support corporate welfare (which sucks. My biz failed and I get $400 in tax returns. It's stupid.)

One way to change politics is to educate the people. Dr. Wilson likes newspapers and magazines that have stories about the environment and says their support will aid us in protecting nature. Also, as he signed my book, he said he is producing a 2 part TV show about the biodiversity problem. He didn't give anymore details.

He also drew an ant on my book with his name.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. I was reading on another site that part of the Left Behind series

addresses eco destruction as part and parcel of the rapture. SO people who follow this line of thought view eco destruction as part of the journey to their being saved.

It'll cost less to protect what is left of the environment than it will cost to deprogram the people who have read this garbage.

[Qanisqineq]

2. OMG! Really?

My born-again-Christian sister reads these books and thinks they are the best thing ever written next to the Bible. I know very little about what the books are about except, of course, the RAPTURE. As a biologist, I sure as hell hope she doesn't follow this line of thinking as well. I can tolerate the other crap (evolution is BS, abortion is murder, gay marriage is forbidden, etc.) as long as she doesn't preach it in front of me, but if she is doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment I may just lose it on her.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. I found it..it was in a speech by Bill Moyers. Read it and weep

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/013105F.shtml

[Qanisqineq]

4. Thanks for finding this for me

I can pass it along to my mother, too. My sister has been trying to convince my mom to read these books and I've warned against it. Not that there is any worry my mom will suddenly turn into a fundy conservative, her and my dad are staunch, life-long liberals. *Whew!*

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. I couldn't find the entire speech, it's somewhere on Alternet

So you can get the whole enchilada there