Western Tribune Column April 22, 2009 Earth Week

This week we celebrate Earth Day and events are scheduled around the county that provide education and promote Earth friendly policies.

In a recent letter to The Birmingham News Lewis Fuller, Chairman of Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse, wrote “there’s no such thing as global warming,” claiming the concept was “invented by self-interested Al Gore.”

He then goes on to provide anecdotal evidence such as a snowfall in Mexico City to support his view.

A recent lecturer at UAB warned against using weather events to support or deny climate change. The best support is found by looking at trends; trends of temperature over the past hundred years and trends of CO­2 concentration in the air and such. There is not enough space in this column to provide all the overwhelming evidence that supports global climate change (and man’s role in it).

But Earth Day is about more than climate change. It’s about respecting the Earth.


If one is a Christian that means respecting God’s creation.


Christian or not, “it is, after all, the stuff of which we are made, from whence we have come, and to which we shall return,” a fellow blogger recently wrote, referring to the soil upon which we walk and from which we grow our food.

And whether we look at this from a religious or non-religious viewpoint, we must realize that the intricacies of nature were present before we were, and there is a balance that must be preserved in order for our existence to continue.

We, as humans, are not “apart from nature.” We are “a part of nature.” In Faith Seeking Understanding theologian Daniel Migliore wrote that humans are “standing in organic relation to each other and to the world of nature.”

More people are returning to gardening this year than in recent years. In part this is due to the current economic state and desire to reduce food expenditures but for many it represents a desire to eat fresher, healthier foods. Many are choosing to garden using organic methods so as not to adversely affect the earth and the food they are producing.

Whether through the individual efforts of local gardeners or by policies developed by our government, caring for our Earth is everyone’s responsibility. Our Earth is a beautiful place in its present condition. Let’s be sure we would recognize it when our grandchildren inherit the responsibility for it.