The Sad Nature of Anti-Environmentalism

Strong Wind by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (c. 1872).

There is nothing sadder than the heart of a man who considers nature to be ugly and wicked. For how far his soul has become so darkened and corrupted that the mere sight of a flower ignites his eyes with images of hatred and warfare?

This is not an essay, it is a crônica, which I crafted in order to reflect upon these haunting thoughts that have been piercing my soul deeply, like a blade made of steel crossing through my heart. The only source I have is the source of life itself, as men lost track of what exists beyond the material, that is, the factor of humanity.

The questions of Climate Change, Pollution, Forest Preservation, and many other issues have ceased to be serious alerts for the consequences into which the worship of man and super-production are leading humanity, and are now being used as rhetorical tools in order to defeat the arguments of their political enemies.

When a common man tries to stand up and make change for his community so that they all may have basic necessities, such as food, clean water and decent sanitation, another man at the table of a talk show crushes that man’s dreams by spreading lies and confusion merely because that is how most of them get paid within their daily lives.

And for what? Wealth? Power? I don’t understand it.

If your desire is Wealth, is it not written that “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 5:10)? And yet there are people who, in spite of being surrounded by a great sum of money, manage to have the decency to share a portion of their wealth with the less fortunate. Therefore, the problem must not lie in money itself.

If your desire is Power, not that which is derived from the Holy Spirit, is it not written that “Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live.” (Proverbs 15:27)? Or even that “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.” (James 3:16)? And yet, there were men and women across history whose wisdom outweighed their ambitions, thus making them great and noble even in the face of constant corruption. Therefore, the problem must not lie in power itself.

I wonder, how empty your life has to be for you to disregard all that which is beautiful, that which is our holy environment, which managed to endure even amidst this bleak and dull modernist world? Enclosed in these material things, when do you feel like yourself? When do I feel like myself? Not from wealth, not from power…from life! Our life began in nature, the ocean is our cradle.

I am not here to bore you with political morality, I am here to intrigue you with beauty. Have you spent your time cultivating instead of accumulating anxieties from that mass spectacle that we call “the news”? Or are you one of those men who don’t care for any conversation related to the Garden of God? Because the people who walked before you admired that garden which is plentiful and rich.

Perhaps even the house in which your grandmother or grandfather lived throughout their life, was once a joyful place surrounded by the good greenness of trees and bushes. The mirror of a culture’s health is the environment; if it’s sick and unhealthy, the problem lies in the hardening of humanity’s heart and soul. As a healthy culture is founded upon the preservation and love for our nature, for it is written, and has always been written:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)