Guilt Free Ecology
TerraPass is a way to assuage a guilty conscience caused by your car’s CO2 emissions. In the interest of trying to be balanced on the whole CO2 debate, here’s a link to their climate change blog with plenty of GW posts.
To each his own. But it sounds like a way for the common folk to buy into what Iain Murray calls “the new aristocracy:”
Al Gore justifies his enjoyment of a carbon-intensive lifestyle in a speech in the UK:
Translation: I am rich enough to benefit from executive jets and Lincolns because I pay my indulgences. All you proles have to give up your cars, flights and air conditioning. The new aristocracy; there’s no other way to describe it.
I can’t afford a G-5, but thanks to TerraPass, I don’t have to give up my car or A/C now.
You can do whatever you want with your money, and obviously this isn’t the worst way to spend it. But I hope people buying this service will make sure it actually goes to alternative energy and doesn’t become just another trough to fund global warming politics.
“Indulgences” is an interesting choice of words, by the way. If you’re new to church history, Martin Luther’s stand against this method of buying your way out of a guilty conscience had him branded by the Catholic aristocracy as a heretic. The way the global warming debate is going, the heretic label will be plastered on anybody who defies the religion of climate change. Maybe it’s fair to place the blame squarely on false religion, which has set up this whole notion that guilt is something you can buy or work your way out of.
Christ is the only answer to guilt driven ecology. As EEN describes in this series of Bible passages, people are guilty of sin (including pollution). God loved us enough to send Jesus to tell us first hand about stewardship, and then pay the price for our guilt by dying on a cross. He sends the Spirit of a risen Christ to transform our lives and ultimately all of creation. Christian ecologists are motivated by love instead of guilt, living out our thankfulness for what God’s done for us by loving others and caring for what God has made.
So rather than only spending our money to “make a difference,” maybe we should be spending more time on our knees getting to know the One who made us and everything around us, and find out what He wants us to do to be good stewards of it.
Look - You can toss a couple bucks in the offering plate and go home to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, or you can invest your life in a Christian community and volunteer your time. In the same way, you can toss your money at others to plant your tree for you, or you can spend a day picking up trash or planting trees yourself, and give God a chance to get you outside in his Creation for a while.
The choice is ours to make. The consequences are eternal. And as far as getting rid of that guilt is concerned, it doesn’t cost a red cent.
To each his own. But it sounds like a way for the common folk to buy into what Iain Murray calls “the new aristocracy:”
Al Gore justifies his enjoyment of a carbon-intensive lifestyle in a speech in the UK:
He said he was “carbon neutral” himself and he tried to offset any plane flight or car journey by “purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere”.
Translation: I am rich enough to benefit from executive jets and Lincolns because I pay my indulgences. All you proles have to give up your cars, flights and air conditioning. The new aristocracy; there’s no other way to describe it.
I can’t afford a G-5, but thanks to TerraPass, I don’t have to give up my car or A/C now.
You can do whatever you want with your money, and obviously this isn’t the worst way to spend it. But I hope people buying this service will make sure it actually goes to alternative energy and doesn’t become just another trough to fund global warming politics.
“Indulgences” is an interesting choice of words, by the way. If you’re new to church history, Martin Luther’s stand against this method of buying your way out of a guilty conscience had him branded by the Catholic aristocracy as a heretic. The way the global warming debate is going, the heretic label will be plastered on anybody who defies the religion of climate change. Maybe it’s fair to place the blame squarely on false religion, which has set up this whole notion that guilt is something you can buy or work your way out of.
Christ is the only answer to guilt driven ecology. As EEN describes in this series of Bible passages, people are guilty of sin (including pollution). God loved us enough to send Jesus to tell us first hand about stewardship, and then pay the price for our guilt by dying on a cross. He sends the Spirit of a risen Christ to transform our lives and ultimately all of creation. Christian ecologists are motivated by love instead of guilt, living out our thankfulness for what God’s done for us by loving others and caring for what God has made.
So rather than only spending our money to “make a difference,” maybe we should be spending more time on our knees getting to know the One who made us and everything around us, and find out what He wants us to do to be good stewards of it.
Look - You can toss a couple bucks in the offering plate and go home to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, or you can invest your life in a Christian community and volunteer your time. In the same way, you can toss your money at others to plant your tree for you, or you can spend a day picking up trash or planting trees yourself, and give God a chance to get you outside in his Creation for a while.
The choice is ours to make. The consequences are eternal. And as far as getting rid of that guilt is concerned, it doesn’t cost a red cent.
Comments