Op-Ed Piece Supports Conservation Initiative

Post a Comment » Written on May 1st, 2007     
Filed under: News
CHICAGO, IL (May 1, 2007) – A guest opinion piece, co-written by Evangelical Covenant Church President Glenn Palmberg, calls on Christians to support a conservation initiative. It has appeared in newspapers across the country.

The op-ed piece, Animals and Ecosystems Deserve Protection, was co-authored with Philip Clapp, president of the National Environment Trust (NET). The writers call for billions of dollars more to be spent each year by the wealthiest nations in the world to combat the effects of global warming on wildlife by contributing to the Global Species Rescue Fund (GSRF). The authors reason that the financial commitment is relatively small – “about one percent of what the world spends every year just to exchange foreign currency.”

The environmental trust, a non-profit, non-partisan group, began the fund campaign in 2006 “to raise awareness about the imminent extinction crisis and to pressure international and bilateral agencies to increase funding for targeted international conservation efforts.”

In their column, Palmberg and Clapp, write that “Governments, businesses and organizations of all kinds will need to come together to prime the financing pump.”

The column draws from scientific studies and theological reasoning for support of the campaign.

“Environmentalists believe animals and ecosystems deserve protection both for their own sakes and because people depend on them,” Palmberg and Clapp write. They add that “the world’s poorest one billion people live so close to nature — farming, hunting and gathering what they need to feed, clothe and house themselves — that they depend on wildlife and healthy ecosystems for their very survival. Such concerns bring environmentalists into accord with those motivated by faith who have long accepted the imperative to protect and care for the least among us.”

The writers also point to the biblical narrative as part of their call to creation care. “After Noah was called on to become the first preserver of species, a covenant was established with every animal for all the generations that followed. The picture that emerges from the Bible is of a God who delights in and respects all creatures,” the writers say. As a result, they continue, “Not only must we do everything still in our power to stop global warming, we also need to build the modern-day equivalent of an ark.”

Palmberg and Clapp write that “Saving the world’s species is ultimately an article of faith. Whether you are an environmentalist, a Christian, or, increasingly some combination of the two, it is beginning to dawn on everyone that it is simply wrong to destroy what we did not create.”

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