With a tradition thousands of years old, Judaism informs us on taking the long view -- the Divine view, as it were -- since God is concerned even to the thousandth generation in the future (Ex 34:7). So with environmental policy, we consider not only our own immediate interests, but also protecting Creation overall. Our organization, COEJL (the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life), which works with numerous Jewish agencies and all major denominations, has this notion as its mission: "protecting Creation from generation to generation."
This year we've seen frustrating setbacks in our efforts to protect Creation: Needed legislation to dramatically reduce the United States' greenhouse gas emissions has failed, even as we suffered the largest oil spill in our history. While the immediate political focus is on mid-term elections and their projected impact on many fronts, we cannot afford to lose track of our country's valuable natural resources in the bargaining process. And there's something we can and must do, even in this political climate.
As part of Creation, our land and water have the capacity to nourish or to vanquish each one of us, regardless of how we vote. We humans (adam in Hebrew) come from and are dependent upon the land (adamah), and the "living waters" (mayim chayim, as Jeremiah calls them). That is why we urge safeguarding our precious public lands and water resources, by having Congress dedicate full funding for the bi-partisan-supported Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
The LWCF was established in 1965 to protect America's great outdoors, using royalties paid by oil companies to the government to fund the conservation of natural resources. As oil and gas were extracted from federal waters, a portion of these royalties was to be reinvested for the conservation of open space onshore through the Fund. The Fund has since created local parks and playgrounds, and protected important wild places, in every single state. As the principal source of federal dollars for protecting national parks, forests, monuments and other public landscapes, the LWCF ensures recreational opportunities for citizens across our country. Whether we live in urban or rural areas, in the east, west, north or south, chances are that we benefit from the Fund without even knowing it.
Yet, since its inception, the Fund has never received sufficient appropriations. More than enough oil revenue flows by the LWCF -- at no cost to the American taxpayer -- yet Congress has failed to use that money for its intended purpose (its recent low in appropriated funding was just $138 million, less than one-sixth of what it could be). Over the years the Fund has been shortchanged by some $17 billion, a huge loss for our communities and Creation.
Without this financing, the program cannot fulfill its enormous potential for all of us and for our environment. Finally, this July, the House of Representatives passed the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic (CLEAR) Act, which includes full funding for the LWCF.
Now we wait. Will it also pass in the U.S. Senate? We need to push for full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund as legislation moves forward.
President Obama declared September "National Wilderness Month," stating that, "together, we must ensure that future generations can experience the tranquility and grandeur of America's natural places." We couldn't agree more. Our Jewish values teach us this very responsibility, as in the Psalms, where we experience Divinity most clearly through Creation. It's incumbent upon us to preserve America's great outdoors for the benefit of future generations.
Even while pursuing full funding for the LWCF, we at COEJL are still deeply committed to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, increasing our economic and national security, and pursuing renewable energy and green jobs. We still see the desperate need for comprehensive energy and climate policy to accomplish all this, while regulating and curbing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. In this, the hottest year in recorded history, our spiritual contribution to the national and global conversation on environmental policy is more needed than ever.
So without faltering in our efforts toward comprehensive climate legislation, let us take meaningful steps even now to protect our natural resources and heritage. We must urge our politicians to provide immediate, full and consistent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. And we must turn up the heat in a sustained effort against the scourge of climate change, which harms not just our land and water but people here and now, our human future and all earthly Creation. Both efforts are needed. Our descendants demand no less.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb and Terry Gips are board members of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL).
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Land and Water Conservation Fund
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The fruit of a tree is not the tree itself; but a cancer is a deviation of the life form itself. Thus, all forms of life that live upon the surface of the earth, and are nourished by it, are fruit.
does cancer destroys the being it is in ? yes
so mankind is defenilty a disease , not a fruit.
Instead of wondering, find a few examples and ASK. Then I would like if you report back with the results.
If I were to speculate, I would guess that determinism is more relevant than any particular religion. If you believe the Earth's fate is already determined, then no particular action or lack of action makes any difference. I am not of that kind; I *do* believe what I do makes a difference.
The environment doesn't need protecting: the environment needs protecting *from us.*
Because we're animals, we rely on the Earth just like our biological kin. If this doesn't motivate people to care, we're doomed. It has nothing to do with the will of a fabricated God: one that suspiciously has rather-human characteristics.
Sad, but true.
Your statement, *since God is concerned even to the thousandth generation in the future* depends on interpretation of (Ex 34:7) *Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.*
I interpret the first phrase as providing protection to thousands. The last three phrases together suggests several possible interpretations.
1) The parental training of children will continue to at least the fourth group of offspring's.
2) Generic altered lifes will out grow the alterations after the fourth reproduction of its seed.
3) The effects of Adam's believing in good and evil will continue through the fourth 21,000 year epoch, until the termination of civilization.
The third interprets as about to take place is why man are mutilating earth as drastically as we are. Earth is nearing world's end and the rejuvenation of itself until it's "a new heaven and earth" (Genesis 1:2 & Revelation 21:1). Uniting the Mayans' calender and Matthew 24:32-34 + Psalm 90:10, December 2012 civilization touches the western horizon and 2028 fall behind it. That's why I've learned the laws of nature (honey) an civilization (butter) (Isaiah 7:14-22) and have provided
http://prop1.org/protest/elijah/presentation.htm#presentation to assist any who becomes "born again" (John 3:8) seeking to survive that end.
In the Eastern U.S. this seems to have worked fairly well. But in the West huge areas are placed off limits to human development. Areas over a thousand times the size of Manhattan are set aside in California alone.
If these lands were set aside fairly, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. But we all know that national parks are set up next to rich, white peoples houses. The poor need not apply.
Too often conservation is used as a stick to destroy jobs for the poor and provide recreational and other benefits to the wealthy at public expense.
If we can change the philosophies of people, then we can change how people treat the world. When people believe that the world will end soon, they act in a way that may actually make the world come to an end soon (destroying the environment, etc.). But, when people stop believing that there is a set time and place the the world is going to end, then they will stop treating the world as if that event is happening soon. When people believe that the world will continue to be around for millions or billions of years to come, they will begin to act in a way that will help preserve the world for their descendants.
That belief system begins and ends with the theories of an apocalyptic god and an Armageddon. When people stop preaching apocalypse and armageddon, people will start caring for the world.
Why? What is the mechanism or connection? Pick three people of your acquaintances that do not particularly care for the earth; examine their religious beliefs. Do all three really have apocalypse views?
In my experience, people that don't care do not need a reason to not care. If they cite the apocalypse, which none that I know have, it is a scapegoat to save themselves from explaining the true nature of their negligence.
Noah in Genesis 8:21-22."Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
"As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease." "I believe that's the infallible word of God, and that's the way it's going to be for his creation," Shimkus said.Then he quoted Matthew 24:31.
"And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other." "The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood," Shimkus asserted. "I do believe that God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect."
Who is "we"? (tm)
I certainly didn't invent God. Is he patented?
Did you invent God? Probably not. So if you didn't, and I didn't, who did?
To assert there is no God is to know something that cannot be known, and that takes an act of faith.
Occams Razor kicks in when nobody has a clue, but wants to pretend to be knowledgeable about something. It has some merit, but is no substitute for knowledge.