why does the church take a back seat to enviromental issues?


bcguy
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The Church has been telling us to plant a garden and to not buy stuff we don't need for years.

If prophetic warnings of wars, desolations, and economic catastrophes aren't going to convince the membership to fall into line, I doubt prophetic warnings of global warming will do very much either.

And that's what I mean. Just because the church hasn't come out with a specific endorsement of "Global warming is happening, people! Shape up!" the steps we can take to combat it are right there in the Scriptures and Conference Talks and the like. The church isn't silent on the issue at all. They're just too subtle for some thick heads to get. :lol:

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Every time I hear about how we are destroying the environment, I just look at pictures of what Southern California looked like in the 1800s. I live in a city with lush green forests. Back then, there was one tree surrounded by miles and miles of dust. Man's intervention has done far more good here than harm.

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Every time I hear about how we are destroying the environment, I just look at pictures of what Southern California looked like in the 1800s. I live in a city with lush green forests. Back then, there was one tree surrounded by miles and miles of dust. Man's intervention has done far more good here than harm.

i dunno the one tree surrounded by miles of dust has its own beauty some of the towns in the desert in Southern California can only be described as armpit of the universe.

And as beautiful as I find San Diego (my favourite place on Earth) some times its hard to find it through the smog:)

-Charley

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i dunno the one tree surrounded by miles of dust has its own beauty some of the towns in the desert in Southern California can only be described as armpit of the universe.

-Charley

Try Lewiston, ID. Hot, humid and it stinks to high heavens (paper mill), its even in a depression.

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Guest Alana

In your car? Is it electric? If it burns fossil fuel, you are probably better off staying at home because, you are polluting the air for no other reason but to satisfy your inner child. :D

You can't use a horse and buggy either because those horses, man, their farts give such a huge carbon footprint. :D

So, for earth day, I'm going to... avoid eating beans.

I'm glad to see you got my point:) My inner child likes to go for lots of car rides. She also likes to eat off paper plates.

Is it possible to do these things and still respect our planet? Do we turn off the light when we leave a room and recycle only because we get money back? When we see some garbage on the ground do we pick it up, even if there isn't a trash can near by and no one is around to see our heroic act? I love being frugal for frugality sake. I like using things that are reusable rather than disposable things because it feels like the right thing to do. But it's a balancing act, at least for myself. This is our Earth and we need to take care of it, but I find a lot of the environmental fervor that is happening lately very annoying and hypocritical.

Are those who drive SUV's and flush after they pee and not eat organic BAD people? I'm not saying that we shouldn't care about these things. I am saying that a little bit more calm and common sense would be nice. A lot of the time the thing that is the best for the environment is the best thing for us as individuals. Growing our own food, buying dependable reusable products, being careful with our resources. Lately though, the motivation I sense in doing these things isn't because it's good for us and the environment but because it's BAD not too. All the guilt associated with the current envirnomental movement bothers me a lot, and not in a way that's making me feel guilty.

I'm trying to say something here but not sure if it's coming out right, because i've never put this into words and I know I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to all of this. Regardless, the church has always promoted a 'waste not want not' philosophy. Frugality in our consumption of consumer products has also been praised in the church. Isn't this the base of what it takes to take care of our planet?

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Like most everything the church does the work toward environmental things happens with no fanfare or newspaper write ups. That's the way the church works. So many service projects happen with the members in "clean up/fix up" mode. On one of my folks missions they worked as Public Relations Missionaries. One project that the members in Peru started was caring for the gardens in the street dividers ... it started just in front of their building and grew to encompass the entire street. It is still going nearly 20 years later. just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't happening around the world.

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Perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone -- promote more physical activity.

Obese people generate way more CO2 than thin people, require more food to be produced as well as more gasoline to transport them from point A to point B.

If physical activity was promoted then people might walk or ride a bike to work or to pick up something at the store. They get in better shape and use less resources in the long run.

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Staying out of debt, having a food storage, paying tithes and offerings, having a savings: these things would all dramatically reduce environmental damage. There are two mindsets that drive purchases. One is a consumer mindset, the other is a producer mindset. The consumer mindset is wasteful, the producer mindset is very conservational. Everything the Church does and teaches is the producer mindset.

What is the producer mindset? Look to the parable of the talents. The good steward uses what he/she has to produce more, not to live off of. The consumer mindset looks only to accumulate, to bury talents. The producer mindset looks to use resources for the purpose of production. The Church operates as a producer, not a consumer.

-a-train

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I am interested if the Church takes a strong sustained position against the desire of the Energy Solutions Company (the single greatest polluter in the US) to make Tooele County the nuclear dumping ground for the world, just 90 miles upwind from the Salt Lake City Temple.

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Perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone -- promote more physical activity.

Obese people generate way more CO2 than thin people, require more food to be produced as well as more gasoline to transport them from point A to point B.

If physical activity was promoted then people might walk or ride a bike to work or to pick up something at the store. They get in better shape and use less resources in the long run.

Enough already. A new thread was started on this two days ago and immediately shut down because it's been hashed and rehashed (mostly by you) on this site dozens of times already. Enough.

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Innovative design and building construction are earning the new Mormon church history library accolades from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says the building is on track to be awarded a silver designation under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification system, known as LEED.

LEED certification is the nationally accepted standard for design, construction and operation of environmentally friendly buildings.

New Mormon church history library going green - Forbes.com

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It was briefly mentioned earlier on this thread but to many people were "looking past the mark" If there is a problem, which I don't think there is, I firmly believe it has to do with the affairs of the world.

Could there be a more wicked, greedy, lustful people than those who currently inhabit the world? Yet we continue to believe that the creator of all things is trying to tell us that limiting our carbon foot print is why were here on this Earth? Come on:eek:

Are we not familiar with the revelations concerning the signs that would precede the second coming of the Savior.

Hello, we currently live in the time period designated by scripture as the time of the Millennium. We should be more concerned about keeping the commandments and the covenants we have made with him, and raising a righteous posterity.

Yes being involved in government is important especially now as the constitution hangs by a thread, and the church sees the big picture, and the GLOBAL WARMING is not it.

It's Christ dummy:rolleyes:

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Fian... to be fair I just gotta say this.... If more people judged and talked less they would take up less oxygen and expell less CO2 emmissions..... and givin the amount of over talking we have on this earth if everyone talked a bit less it would really help.....

Now ....... why do you continue to push this train of thought of yours/?? why against people?????? what is your issue .... I am interested in understanding why you continually bring this subject up.....

Ok sorry did not see he was banned..... anyway still posting this... :}

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Frankly, I'm not too worried about global warming. I'm sure it's real to an extent, but I'm also certain that it will be "fixed" after Christ comes again and the earth is renewed to its paradisaical glory.

and now a word from our Sponsors... the National Organization for the Promotion of Sticking Your Head in the Sand.

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Fian... to be fair I just gotta say this.... If more people judged and talked less they would take up less oxygen and expell less CO2 emmissions..... and givin the amount of over talking we have on this earth if everyone talked a bit less it would really help.....

Now ....... why do you continue to push this train of thought of yours/?? why against people?????? what is your issue .... I am interested in understanding why you continually bring this subject up.....

Ok sorry did not see he was banned..... anyway still posting this... :}

because he is really a 600lb man, who eats 6 huge platefuls at every meal followed by 7 jumbo cokes, and he can't walk and right now struggles to type

-Charley

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I think that the teachings of the scriptures and the prophets have provided more than enough information which would help with the global warming problem if we would only heed them: keeping our surroundings clean, avoiding needless consumerism/materialism, getting back to nature (gotta love Elder Perry for his references to Emerson and Thoreau), and so on. Years ago the church implemented the combined meeting schedule to reduce travel time (and corresponding fuel emissions were also reduced). President Kimball pointed out more than once that keeping a garden would help us better appreciate the earth. What more do we need? If we feel the need to do more, then we are encouraged --even mandated--to do so on an individual level. Few of us would want to feel like the church is micromanaging our lives, which I'm sure some of us would suspect with each such program the church would implement.

Incidentally, way back in 1972, the New Era published an article by Hugh Nibley called "Man's Dominion", which remains one of the best pieces I have read on the topic. In 1978, it was republished in a collection of Nibley's essays with the following introduction added:

Ever since the days of the Prophet Joseph, presidents of the Church have appealed to the Saints to be magnanimous and forbearing toward all of God's creatures. But in the great West where everything was up for grabs it was more than human nature could endure to be left out of the great grabbing game, especially when one happened to get there first, as the Mormons often did.

One morning just a week after we had moved into our house on Seventh North, as I was leaving for work, I found a group of shouting, arm-waving boys gathered around the big fir tree in the front yard. They had sticks and stones and in a state of high excitement were fiercely attacking the lowest branches of the tree, which hung to the ground. Why? I asked. There was a quail in the tree, they said in breathless zeal, a quail! Of course, said I, what is wrong with that? But don't you see, it is a live quail, a wild one! So they just had to kill it. They were on their way to the old Brigham Young High School and were Boy Scouts. Does this story surprise you? What surprised me was when I later went to Chicago and saw squirrels running around the city parks in broad daylight—they would not last a day in Provo.

Like Varro's patrician friends, we have taught our children by precept and example that every living thing exists to be converted into cash, and that whatever would not yield a return should be quickly exterminated to make way for creatures that do. (We have referred to this elsewhere as the Mahan Principle—Moses 5:31.1) I have heard important Latter-day Saint leaders express this philosophy, and have seen bishops and stake presidents teaching their reluctant boys the delights of hunting for pleasure. The earth is our enemy, I was taught—does it not bring forth noxious weeds to afflict and torment man? And who cared if his allergies were the result of the Fall, man's own doing, and could be corrected only when he corrects himself? But one thing worried me: If God were to despise all things beneath him, as we do, where would that leave us? Inquiring about the issue today, one discovers that many Latter-day Saints feel that the time has come to put an end to the killing.

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Frankly, I'm not too worried about global warming. I'm sure it's real to an extent, but I'm also certain that it will be "fixed" after Christ comes again and the earth is renewed to its paradisaical glory.

I once heard another member saying flat out that is alright to despoil the land, sea and air in pursuit of a profit, since Christ would come and save us anyway. I remember saying to him that I had not known of Christ to follow the Sign on the Dollar, so that his proposed timetable for salvation from our own negligence and greed might not be accurate.

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I once heard another member saying flat out that is alright to despoil the land, sea and air in pursuit of a profit, since Christ would come and save us anyway. I remember saying to him that I had not known of Christ to follow the Sign on the Dollar, so that his proposed timetable for salvation from our own negligence and greed might not be accurate.

I'm with Wingnut. I think the mindset you're showcasing, Moksha (oh-well-Christ-will-come-so-let's-be-lazy) is abhorrent- but honestly, there's not much I can do other than decrease my negative carbon footprint and increase my positive carbon footprint (our trees outside need me to exercise and exhale more... they're hungry). I honestly don't think Wingnut was showing this mindset, either.

Today, I think the issue of global warming is a complete red herring in its presentation. Yes, we need to be worried about being good stewards of the earth- but in our political climate, (I wish it were otherwise) that's the least of our worries.

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I think that the teachings of the scriptures and the prophets have provided more than enough information which would help with the global warming problem if we would only heed them: keeping our surroundings clean, avoiding needless consumerism/materialism, getting back to nature (gotta love Elder Perry for his references to Emerson and Thoreau), and so on. Years ago the church implemented the combined meeting schedule to reduce travel time (and corresponding fuel emissions were also reduced). President Kimball pointed out more than once that keeping a garden would help us better appreciate the earth. What more do we need? If we feel the need to do more, then we are encouraged --even mandated--to do so on an individual level. Few of us would want to feel like the church is micromanaging our lives, which I'm sure some of us would suspect with each such program the church would implement.

...:huh: There is a huge difference between being responsible stewards of the earth and what God has given man domain over, and somehow blaming man for nothing just so you can tax him?:lol: And yes that will happen with cap n trade.

Don't we remember president Kimball also telling us that the reason the crazy carbon emitting airplane came to pass was to allow the gospel to be spread to all the earth. And since the Church is the second largest land owner in the county and one of the biggest cattle farmers I'm sure they are just trying to get rid of all those cows so they will stop farting and causing the earth to warm up. Since cows are number 1 or 2 on the list of carbon emitting crazies.

I mean do we really think that the God who created this world who saw the end from the beginning really didn't create a planet that could handle the presence of man?:rolleyes:

James E Foust gave a great talk while I was on my mission about the amazing technology the Lord has made available that would allow the earth to house as much as 60 billion people, through different types of scientific foods.

Remember one of the big pushes behind global warming advocates is population control and control in general they want to dictate to you what it means to be a responsible member of the earth:huh: Hmmm sounds a lot like Satan if you ask me.

Again do we have any idea what time we live in?:confused: And we are wondering why there are signs and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth beneath?:bouncing:

It's Christ you dummy;) Don't look beyond the mark.

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Every time I hear about how we are destroying the environment, I just look at pictures of what Southern California looked like in the 1800s. I live in a city with lush green forests. Back then, there was one tree surrounded by miles and miles of dust. Man's intervention has done far more good here than harm.

To each his own I guess. Southern California for the most part is a rat hole. All the major cities are urban death mazes littered with concrete, urine, trash and taxes. Sure, there are pockets of wealth and or environmentalism that keep certain areas natural and/or enhanced but unfortunately they are few and far between considering California's square mileage. I've lived on the coast for 25+ years and have witnessed first hand the over development and complete wiping out of the coastal resources. They just keep building and building and building. I'd take 1800's California over today any day.

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