Mormonism And Earth Day, Environmentalism

[Matthew J. Tandy]

I am still around and lurking occasionally, but I have not had the time to participate or read as much as I once did here. However, I recognize the inestimable power and collective knowledge of the MADB membership, and once again turn to you for help.

Several years ago, I came across an old book or pamphlet, I don't remember which. It was essentially a vast collection of quotes from apostles, prophets, and early church members about man as a wise steward, along with some history on LDS and environmentalism. There was a fair amount of the quotes about not hunting for sport, caring for animals, and more. Probably some vegetarian stuff in there, but I am not sure.

The main element I am looking for is the history of the church and Earth Day. Once upon a time, before Earth Day existed, we had our own. It was run by the primary or Sunday School I believe and was recognized throughout the church. Then Earth Day came along, and after a few years we combined our celebration into the national celebration.

1) If anyone can find info on the earth day aspect, I would greatly appreciate it. I was in discussion with someone about this specifically.

2) If anyone can find the entire book/pamphlet, I will kiss your feet and laud your sheer awesomeness. :-)

I've searched the internet (which is how I first ran across it, though I don't remember how) and am only pulling up a bunch of crappily done green mormon blogs that seem completely oblivious to their church's own history in the matter.

Thanks!

[Nathair/|\]

You may be thinking of Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, compiled by Richard D. Stratton. It is a wonderful little book and I use it a lot in my studies of Druidry for Latter-Day Saints.

[Matthew J. Tandy]

Holy cow! You are both quick and awesome! That is exactly the book I was looking for! I have no idea how you knew that based off of the limited info I gave and that the book is rather obscure, but you are the man. I laud your sheer awesomeness. In light of not having actual feet to kiss, just know I would kiss them if you were here.;-)

[Nathair/|\]

It was the only book I could think of that fit the description. In lieu of kissing feet, just tell all your friends about the book.

[BCSpace]

You may be thinking of Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, compiled by Richard D. Stratton. It is a wonderful little book and I use it a lot in my studies of Druidry for Latter-Day Saints.

The cover seems to depict Jesus standing on paved ground in a stone and cement city admiring the decorative plants; in line with the counsel given by example in Helaman 3:9. Shall we judge this book by it's cover?

[thesometimesaint]

Matthew J. Tandy:

Welcome back. We missed you.

"Stewardship and the Creation" by George B. Hardley, Terry B. Ball, and Steven L. Peck is pretty good too.

[Loran Blood]

duplicate

Edited August 10, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Loran Blood]

I'm just wondering what business Latter day Saints might have celebrating Earth Day at all given its origins, philosophy, and implications for both the gospel and the sociocultural environment (liberal democratic, rule of law and individual liberty based social and economic forms) in which the church has arisen and thrived? Notice how, the moment "environmentalism" comes up, it acts as an immediate attractant to the following:

You may be thinking of Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, compiled by Richard D. Stratton. It is a wonderful little book and I use it a lot in my studies of Druidry for Latter-Day Saints.

While there is a substantial quantity of critical reflection and analysis that can be brought to bear on the environmental movement from a gospel standpoint, the above goes a very long way to alerting us to the dangers environmentalism poses to both our own individual spirituality and intellectual stability as well as to our civilization as a whole, of which the restored gospel is a part because of the fundamental nature of that civilization.

[volgadon]

The only problem I could see with an anthology of quotes from the brethren on taking care of the earth and being kind to animals is if one focused solely on it. Same could be said though or any gospel topic.

[thesometimesaint]

Loran Blood:

The original impetus for the modern day environmental movement.

See Cuyahoga River: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1642

Edited August 10, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[Loran Blood]

Loran Blood:

The original impetus for the modern day environmental movement.

See Cuyahoga River: http://www.ohiohisto...ry.php?rec=1642

Upon what basis do you make this claim (your source only mentions that it "helped spur" that movement, which indicates that the movement already existed as a body of ideas and that the fire was one of many influences on its development as a philosophy having definite policy applications)?

At the very least, any claim of "original impetus" would have to look at first principles and core philosophy, and the founding ideas and attitudes of the modern environmental "movement" are to be found in the works of one Rachel Carson, arguable the mother of the movement's core ideological stance and approach. Though the maturity of the movement is usually dated from the first Earth Day in 1970 (the interesting reemergence of a pagan, pantheistic worldview in primarily secular guise but including religious or quasi-religious elements), its origins are to be found earlier (and the fundamental mindset has a pedigree that takes us back well before the sixties).

Edited August 10, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Nathair/|\]

Brother Blood,

While I have virtually no doubt that there are many claiming to be environmentalists who are actually interested in using it as an excuse to promote totalitarianism; it isn't impossible to oppose tyranny and still care for the well being of the rest of our Heavenly Father's creations and follow the teachings given to us through the prophets at the same time.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Nathair

[Jeff K.]

Environmentalism is much like religion. There are many different philosophies that come into play. And the belief within that genre will affect the view the person has of other environmentalists.

I have known two "Earth First" individuals, they would see most people as being parasites upon the earth with equal rights to bears, they strongly believe in a strict and quick reduction in human population. I have known hunters who style themselves environmentalists becasue they want to protect an important part of their lifestyles and seek to maintain the forests for that reason. I believe most of us exist between those two poles. The church does believing in caring for and maintaining the earth. How it should do that is of course up for debate.

[Loran Blood]

Brother Blood,

While I have virtually no doubt that there are many claiming to be environmentalists who are actually interested in using it as an excuse to promote totalitarianism; it isn't impossible to oppose tyranny and still care for the well being of the rest of our Heavenly Father's creations and follow the teachings given to us through the prophets at the same time.

I agree with you completely. I have always considered myself to be a conservationist; one who believes in the "wise use" of our resources, which includes, not only use as resources, but preservation and the avoidance of needless pollution and despoliation. Nature has value and importance beyond what human beings can do with it in an economic sense, but that value exists on a hierarchical scale of values which must be judiciously and intelligently balanced against one another.

That view is about as far from contemporary environmentalism as one could, I think, wish to go.

[thesometimesaint]

Loran Blood:

No large movement is the product of just one person/idea. I can equally claim that the environmental movement started with Adam. He was to tend The Garden, not turn it in an open sewer.

However the modern day environmetal movement did get its original impetus from a Ohio river that caught fire. That did lead President Nixon to establish the EPA(Originally Nixon vetoed the bill because of funding concerns, but was overridden by Congress). He went on to appoint William Ruckelshaus. Who essentially defined the mission, scope, and authority of the EPA.

As bad as Nixon was, and he was a badddy, he was light years ahead of the presidents who came after him.

[Jeff K.]

Loran Blood:

No large movement is the product of just one person/idea. I can equally claim that the environmental movement started with Adam. He was to tend The Garden, not turn it in an open sewer.

However the modern day environmetal movement did get its original impetus from a Ohio river that caught fire. That did lead President Nixon to establish the EPA(Originally Nixon vetoed the bill because of funding concerns, but was overridden by Congress). He went on to appoint William Ruckelshaus. Who essentially defined the mission, scope, and authority of the EPA.

As bad as Nixon was, and he was a badddy, he was light years ahead of the presidents who came after him.

If I might add a word in regard to movements... Jesus Christ

[thesometimesaint]

Jeff K.:

Agreed.

Ps. As a movement where would Christ be without his Apostles?

Edited August 11, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[Loran Blood]

Loran Blood:

No large movement is the product of just one person/idea. I can equally claim that the environmental movement started with Adam. He was to tend The Garden, not turn it in an open sewer.

I didn't say it did. Carson, however, created the original intellectual and political "impetus" for what eventually became the modern environmental movement, complete with its aversion to modern technology, chemophobia, romanticization of nature, and sense of moral equivalency between humanity and animal life.

However the modern day environmetal movement did get its original impetus from a Ohio river that caught fire. That did lead President Nixon to establish the EPA(Originally Nixon vetoed the bill because of funding concerns, but was overridden by Congress). He went on to appoint William Ruckelshaus. Who essentially defined the mission, scope, and authority of the EPA.

As bad as Nixon was, and he was a badddy, he was light years ahead of the presidents who came after him.

While it is interesting and necessary to discuss the environmental movement and its philosophy in light of gospel teachings, you're already attempting to lead this thread down into a deep political hole here and I'm afraid it wouldn't be a good idea for me to follow you there. All I will say is that the connection of William Ruckelshaus to the pseudoscientific hysteria surrounding DDT and Carson's claimed apocalyptic "silent spring" due to its continuing use, its banning here in the United States unilaterally by the Ruckelshaus EPA, followed by deep pressures and sanctions from the UN and numerous western European nations on African nations to abandon DDT production and use, and the consequences of these actions for people living in the Global South, and most especially Africa, are now well known.

The very existence of what can only be understood as a rogue government agency like the EPA poses clear and serious threats to the continuance of both a free and civil social order grounded in deliberative democratic structures and the rule of law (government through accountable representatives through the consent of those so governed)

I think it could be safely said that the environmental movement itself poses the deepest, gravest, and certainly one of the most pervasive threats to such a social order present among us in overt political and economic form in the last days I think environmentalism poses an unusually serious threat to what members of the Church take to be the inspired principles of the nation's founding, as well as providing an alluring and self gratifying alternative gospel in place of the real article.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Loran Blood

[thesometimesaint]

Loran Blood:

Blah blah blah.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Minos
TSS has left the building

[Loran Blood]

Loran Blood:

Blah blah blah.

This would earn me a ban threat. Do you feel you have special privileges here that others do not? Are you lacking anything of intellectual substance with which to respond to or rebut my commentary? My entire post was idea based and had no personal content at all, and this is how you respond?

Blah blah blah.

My sentiments exactly.

If you respond in kind you will also be removed so just keep the topic moving and we will remove derailers.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Minos

[Jeff K.]

Jeff K.:

Agreed.

Ps. As a movement where would Christ be without his Apostles?

As a movement, where would the apostles be without Christ?

[Loran Blood]

I didn't say it did. Carson, however, created the original intellectual and political "impetus" for what eventually became the modern environmental movement, complete with its aversion to modern technology, chemophobia, romanticization of nature, and sense of moral equivalency between humanity and animal life.

While it is interesting and necessary to discuss the environmental movement and its philosophy in light of gospel teachings, you're already attempting to lead this thread down into a deep political hole here and I'm afraid it wouldn't be a good idea for me to follow you there. All I will say is that the connection of William Ruckelshaus to the pseudoscientific hysteria surrounding DDT and Carson's claimed apocalyptic "silent spring" due to its continuing use, its banning here in the United States unilaterally by the Ruckelshaus EPA, followed by deep pressures and sanctions from the UN and numerous western European nations on African nations to abandon DDT production and use, and the consequences of these actions for people living in the Global South, and most especially Africa, are now well known.

The very existence of what can only be understood as a rogue government agency like the EPA poses clear and serious threats to the continuance of both a free and civil social order grounded in deliberative democratic structures and the rule of law (government through accountable representatives through the consent of those so governed)

I think it could be safely said that the environmental movement itself poses the deepest, gravest, and certainly one of the most pervasive threats to such a social order present among us in overt political and economic form in the last days. I think environmentalism poses an unusually serious threat to what members of the Church take to be the inspired principles of the nation's founding, as well as providing an alluring and self gratifying alternative gospel in place of the real article.

[Matthew J. Tandy]

Since I started this thread, let me throw in the purpose of the book:

1) To show that hunting for sport purpose is against the will of God

2) To show that the Church and it's members are sinning in their selective application of the Word of Wisdom in that they consume large quantities of meat needlessly. Much of the arguments for this consumption (or justifications for why it only applied to a society of that time) are specifically addressed by apostles and prophets and shot down. Indeed, it seems that there is open avocation for a slow and gradual move of the inhabitants of the earth, especially in the Church, to become vegetarians (but not vegans).

3) And for the purposes I was looking for it: I simply remembered some points about the church having some sort of environmental day that merged with a national one. I thought it was earth day, but it turns out it was Humane Day, which makes a bit more sense. I find it interesting that on Humane Day in the church, the lessons on that Sunday were specifically to be about the humane treatment of God's creatures.

Lest there be any confusion:

1) I do not believe climate change is heavily (if at all) affected by man.

2) I do believe pollution is disgusting and all efforts on a personal level should be made to care for the earth as wise stewards.

3) I do not believe the government should have a role in this beyond perhaps encouragement. I am a constitutionally based libertarian.

4) I really like meat and barbeque. I am also very much against excessive use and any kind of abuse. Various talks and sermons from church leaders has recently led me to evaluate my consumption of animals in general as I am neither starving or in need of the fat for winter insulation. I just find animals to be the tastiest things ever placed upon this earth and ridiculously easy to prepare.:-) I am not sure however that is a good enough reason when God has said that the life of every animal we take we will have to answer for. God does not outright forbid the use of meat, but he does expect us to use it sparingly and only when in time of need.

[Loran Blood]

Since I started this thread, let me throw in the purpose of the book:

1) To show that hunting for sport purpose is against the will of God

With which I am in essential agreement.

2) To show that the Church and it's members are sinning in their selective application of the Word of Wisdom in that they consume large quantities of meat needlessly. Much of the arguments for this consumption (or justifications for why it only applied to a society of that time) are specifically addressed by apostles and prophets and shot down. Indeed, it seems that there is open avocation for a slow and gradual move of the inhabitants of the earth, especially in the Church, to become vegetarians (but not vegans).

This is problematic, as those very same apostles have essentially ignored this entire question for generations and have never defined how much meant is "too much." Vegetarianism is not an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ,, and hence, this would seem to bespeak the personal agenda/belief of the author. Indeed, vegetarianism poses problems of its own regarding the large combinations of foods necessary to supply the full compliment of amino acids found in concentrated form in meat. For some groups (such as Eskimos and other traditional peoples under similar environmental conditions), vegetarianism is out of the question. While there is little doubt that we westerners eat too much meat (as well as a bit too much of everything, it would seem), it is also the case the modern mass farming of cattle and poultry etc. on a mass scale for human consumption has been key to the eradication of the perennial problem of the under consumption of protein that has dogged human society from time immemorial up until the industrial revolution and beyond. It would seem that what constitutes "hath no need" is difficult to put a clear finger on.

3) And for the purposes I was looking for it: I simply remembered some points about the church having some sort of environmental day that merged with a national one. I thought it was earth day, but it turns out it was Humane Day, which makes a bit more sense. I find it interesting that on Humane Day in the church, the lessons on that Sunday were specifically to be about the humane treatment of God's creatures.

I've never heard of it. Was this something confined primarily to Utah and the western states? Honestly, I had never heard of it all the time I lived in San Diego, and have never heard of it out here on the east coast.

Lest there be any confusion:

1) I do not believe climate change is heavily (if at all) affected by man.

Good for you and Kudos to you for thinking for yourself and being intellectually independent.

2) I do believe pollution is disgusting and all efforts on a personal level should be made to care for the earth as wise stewards.

Agreed.

3) I do not believe the government should have a role in this beyond perhaps encouragement. I am a constitutionally based libertarian.

4) I really like meat and barbeque. I am also very much against excessive use and any kind of abuse. Various talks and sermons from church leaders has recently led me to evaluate my consumption of animals in general as I am neither starving or in need of the fat for winter insulation. I just find animals to be the tastiest things ever placed upon this earth and ridiculously easy to prepare.:-) I am not sure however that is a good enough reason when God has said that the life of every animal we take we will have to answer for. God does not outright forbid the use of meat, but he does expect us to use it sparingly and only when in time of need.

Paul says, I believe twice in the NT, that the teaching of abstinence from meat is contrary to the gospel, so a "wise use" approach is the best, it would seem.

Edited August 14, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Matthew J. Tandy]

This is problematic, as those very same apostles have essentially ignored this entire question for generations and have never defined how much meant is "too much." Vegetarianism is not an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ,, and hence, this would seem to bespeak the personal agenda/belief of the author. Indeed, vegetarianism poses problems of its own regarding the large combinations of foods necessary to supply the full compliment of amino acids found in concentrated form in meat. For some groups (such as Eskimos and other traditional peoples under similar environmental conditions), vegetarianism is out of the question. While there is little doubt that we westerners eat too much meat (as well as a bit too much of everything, it would seem), it is also the case the modern mass farming of cattle and poultry etc. on a mass scale for human consumption has been key to the eradication of the perennial problem of the under consumption of protein that has dogged human society from time immemorial up until the industrial revolution and beyond. It would seem that what constitutes "hath no need" is difficult to put a clear finger on.

Hyrum Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Joseph F. Smith, and one other (George Albert?) were all by and large vegetarians. It's been a while since I read about it, but it started with Hyrum, and his descendents carried it on off and on. In general, they practiced "not refusing" ala Paul when given, but in their personal lives abstained. Further, the concept for vegetarianism is one where those who can it seems should, while those who can't (native Eskimos for instance) are not under any condemnation whatsoever. Same with those who need meat to make it through the winter or in times of drought. Hence, forbidding meat is wrong. We should not teach it is forbidden. This is not the same as teaching that when the option exists, we should not choose meat. I think that for the vast majority of 1st world country citizens, that is a viable option. Further, we can grow more protein per acre via nuts, beans, and other super-high protein foods that also have much greater side benefits (anti-oxidants, fatty acids, etc). I personally do not have a physical need for meet. Ultimately I believe it is a personal decision, hence the scriptures teach that we are held personally accountable for the life of every animal we kill. Like many things in the gospel, the right or wrong seems to be completely situational.

I've never heard of it. Was this something confined primarily to Utah and the western states? Honestly, I had never heard of it all the time I lived in San Diego, and have never heard of it out here on the east coast.

Hasn't been around for at least 60 years. I would be surprised if you had heard of it.:-)

Paul says, I believe twice in the NT, that the teaching of abstinence from meat is contrary to the gospel, so a "wise use" approach is the best, it would seem

Not quite. 1 Timothy 1:4 speaks about commanding to abstain from meats as being wrong. Again, I don't think one could justify commanding the abstinence of meat. There are just too many situations where it is necessary to basic survival. But as the Word of Wisdom says, it is to be used sparingly, and only in time of famine or winter, and not by commandment (which is the same with the whole of the Word of Wisdom).

It's an interesting topic.:-)

Here is a link to the Google Book preview I found. Chapter 4 has the Humane and Bird Day history.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ijxhs7hnZ8QC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false