Last month the National Association of Evangelicals, sans Ted Haggard, announced an effort to begin protecting the environment. This extremely belated decision is quite a change from two decades ago when the Secretary of the Interior for the then Evangelical in Chief, Ronald Reagan, announced that environmental issues were a waste of time because of the impending return of Christ who wouldn't allow us to self-destruct before he got here.

But, now even Pat Robertson has come around, and no longer thinks that Global Warming is a hoax perpetrated by the evil Christian hating, Gay loving, feminista left.

According to the NAE's announcement they will start looking for ways to "reverse the degradation of Creation," and "not allow it to be progressively destroyed by human folly." Naturally, I have some suggestions for ways they can help.

First step: They should actually mean what they say. On the same day that the NAE announced their new stand on the environment, there was an announcement on the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance's website saying the exact opposite. For some, this contradiction says that there is a split in the Evangelical community over the whole issue, and I agree, but it also points to the NAE's attempt to play both sides of the issue, which will ensure that their current flow of money will continue pouring in to them. Money that people like the NAE's former leader, Ted Haggard, will need for prostitutes and meth.

However, the most important step they could take, would be halting their attempts to take science back to the Dark Ages.

The people who are now calling for "fundamental change in values, lifestyles, and public policies required to address these worsening problems before it is too late," and are pledging to "work together toward a responsible care for Creation and call with one voice to the religious, scientific, business, political and educational arenas to join them in this historic initiative" are the same people who routinely call for an end to the study of real science in American public schools, and are thereby promulgating their ignorance of science.

While famous failed attempts at dumbing down our children in places like Pennsylvania, and the comedic back and forth on the issue by educators in Kansas draw a lot of media and public attention, it is the daily battles fought by fanatic undereducated educators that really harm our society's chances to do something positive about the damage we have done to the Earth's environment.

Luckily, other economically powerful countries and groups like Japan and the European Union aren't as stupid as ours when it comes to science education, which goes a long way toward explaining why the richest and most powerful country on the planet consistently ranks behind virtually every European and Asian country in terms of the science and math proficiency of its students.

Luckily for the rest of us, these same countries have taken positive steps to help matters, despite the current American administration's continued road blocks over the past six years.

If the NAE really wants to make positive steps toward a survivable environment, then they simply need to take several steps away from public schools and education, and accept the Constituion's stance on religion and government, thereby allowing people who know what they are doing to get things done.


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