Letters

Greens' agenda

Peter Finlayson

Contents - Jun 2011 - Buy a copy now Homily: The Meaning of Jesus' Ascension - Benedict XVI Why Pope Benedict removed Toowoomba's dissenting bishop - Michael Gilchrist Australia's Anglican Ordinariate on track - Bishop Peter Elliott News: The Church Around the World Redefining gender: an assault on human dignity - Babette Francis Archbishop Hickey: tribute to an outstanding Church leader - Brian Peachey Australia's seminary numbers continue to increase - Br Barry Coldrey Cardinal Pell: 'liberalism has no young Catholic progeny' - Cardinal George Pell Events: St Thomas More: still A Man for all Seasons - Emma O'Shea Letters: Catholic religious education: some grassroots views - John Morissey Moral values and the march of science - Archbishop Charles J. Chaput Letters: Greens' agenda - Peter Finlayson Letters: Climate change - R. Blackstock Letters: North Africa - Andrew Sholl Letters: Mark Twain - Fr. F.E. Burns Letters: Challenge - Fr. Bernard McGrath Books: JESUS OF NAZARETH: Holy Week, by Pope Benedict XVI - Fr Glen Tattersall FSSP (reviewer) Books: THE STORY OF THE LITURGY IN IRELAND, by Edmond Gerard Cullinan - Michael E Daniel (reviewer) Books: MARRIAGE: The Rock on Which the Family is Built, by William E. May - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: HEART OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: Thoughts on Holy Mass, by Pope Benedict XVI - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Events: Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy 25th Anniversary Events: Public Lecture - The Catholic Gift to Civilisation - Rev Fr Marcus Holden Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Pentecost, the feast of true hope for humanity - Bishop Arthur Serratelli

Peter Donald (May AD2000) is right in warning readers of the Greens' sense of urgency to hide the alarmist scam from public scrutiny in his support for Bill Kininmonth's (April AD2000) defence of Cardinal Pell's timely intervention into the climate change debate through his letter in Hansard.

However, I suggest there is another, well-hidden, driver of 'urgency' for the Greens Party and its fellow-traveller lobby to suppress the scam. That is, its ultimate longer-term objective of creating a world in which nature is the dominant 'right' with humanity subservient to that 'deity'. The climate change alarmist scam, along with protection of the environment, are but smoke-screens to capture the sympathy vote and gain the necessary political power to force through the Greens' policies.

It's not clear which period in the evolution of creation the lobby uses as its reference point for this environmental renaissance: 10, 100, 500, 5,000, 50,000 or more years ago, or even BH (before humanity)? What is clear from the occasional (careless!) utterance, and by inference from its public policies and behaviour, is that the role of humanity in a Greens' world is to glorify nature and allow it to develop according to uninhibited environmental influences.

I've not seen a human society model for the optimum Greens' world but we can deduce that it will be benighted with a (much) lower population than the present six billion, surviving at a low standard of living, with many at subsistence level. I don't have its estimate for a sustainable global population, but I believe its figure for Australia is seven million!

We can expect the economy will be based on Marxist principles, with little (energy-consuming) industry, and hence basic - even primitive - housing, no A/C, a 'backyard' agriculture and, with only modest tax revenue. Of course, there will be no public funding for independent schools.

The depopulation process is being helped along by the lobby's population-cleansing strategies (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage) already impacting, especially on Western society.

Food will be organic and mainly grown in local gardens with protein derived from plants rather than (domesticated) animals; that land having been returned to the nature-deity pool. Irrigation water currently used for food production will be diverted back to the river systems to flow out to sea, which will be packed with whales and protected edible fish!

As a (retired) agricultural scientist, I can with some authority suggest that as there is little scientific evidence to support the health benefits of organic food, those well-meaning citizens who produce or consume it in the belief they are helping the environment are, in effect, contributing to the Greens' campaign for a nature-driven world.

For a Christian, the policies behind the Greens' scams are largely contrary to the divine plan for creation, which places humanity above nature, with responsibility for its development and stewardship for the benefit of future generations.

Chapter 10 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, referred to by Br Barry Coldrey cfc in his review of Fr Paul Haffner's book, Towards a Theology of the Environment (April AD2000), sets out the governing principles for balanced creation management. They include the correct relationship between humanity and nature, the appropriate use of natural resources, the role of science in resource development, and sound environmental governance practices. I commend both books to the discerning reader.

PETER FINLAYSON
Creswick, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 24 No 5 (June 2011), p. 14