OPINION:
President Donald Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the United States will join a One Trillion Trees Initiative aimed at better managing and growing and protecting forestry.
Even this isn’t likely to sooth the savage beasts called Radical Environmentalists who populated the forum, though. Why not? Trump said he’d do it in God’s name.
And that, to the climate change alarmists, is simply insufferable.
Every good Green already has a god, and it’s called Nature. Or Mother Earth. The true God, the God of Creation of which Trump referred, is in the minds of environmentalists a figment of outdated Bible imaginations.
“We’re committed to conserving the majesty of God’s creation and the natural beauty of our world,” Trump said, The Hill reported. “[America] will continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing our trees and our forests.”
Trump also said he’s “a very big believer in the environment” — and guess what, so are most Republicans.
Environmentalism used to mean good stewardship of the resources. It used to mean recycling and reusing, taking care of what was within your domain to take care of, picking up trash along the roadside and in the parks, keeping clean the areas for the next person to enjoy — all common courtesies and common sense applications of, hey now, principles taught in the Bible, by Jesus, about honoring the creations and gifts of God.
Then the leftists came in and took over the movement.
Then the radicals came in with their hammers and fists and secular, pagan ways, elevating salamanders and bushes to the heights of humans and demanding protections above and beyond what’s sane for animals and vegetation.
Then came the Democrats with their designs to use environmentalism as a mechanism to control and regulate and tax and redistribute.
The left gave environmentalism a bad name.
The left set the environment as its god and pushed the real Creator to the side.
But planting trees, taking care of the trees that are planted and spreading the word about the anti-pollutant properties of trees are all good things — are all things, as Trump said, that elevate “God’s creation and the natural beauty of our world.”
Just don’t let the radical leftists take over the initiative. Next thing you know, they’ll be demanding houses be torn down to make way for the trees, and families be relocated so as not to disturb the vegetation.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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