"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!"
by William Leonidas
THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... (Genesis 1:1)
Perhaps we need search no further to discover the relationship between the modern-day environmental movement and our eternal Christian theology. We believe all of God's works are sanctified, and, as the quotation above sets forth, its inhabitants, and the very existence of the material universe is a result of God's work. Any act profaning that creation, then, is an act against God.
St. Basil, in his Homily on Genesis, says that "it is right that any one beginning to narrate the formation of the world should begin with the good order which reigns in visible things. I am about to speak of the creation of heaven and earth, which was not spontaneous, as some have imagined, but drew its origin from God. What ear is worthy to hear such a tale? 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' I stop struck with admiration at this thought...The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken....It is because they knew not how to say 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that all was given up to chance. To guard us against this error, the writer on the creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God: 'In the beginning God created.'
"I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator.... Listen, Christians, you to whom it is forbidden to 'recompense evil for evil' and commanded 'to overcome evil with good.' Take the bee for your model, which constructs its cells without injuring anyone and without interfering with the goods of others. It gathers openly wax from the flowers with its mouth, drawing in the honey... and injects it into the hollow of its cells.... After having spread the wax like a thin membrane, she distributes it in contiguous compartments which, weak though they are.... each cell in fact holds to the one next to it.... the angles of the lower hexagons serve as foundations and bases to those which rise above.... See how the discoveries of geometry are mere by-works to the wise bee!
"Virtues exist in us also by nature, and the soul has an affinity with them not by education, but by nature herself.... Thus without lessons, it comes that temperance everywhere is praised, justice is in honor, courage admired, and prudence the object of all aims; virtues which concern the soul more than health concerns the body.... In truth the most difficult of sciences is to know one's self."
THEOLOGY IN ACTION
The following ideas were adopted from various sources.
1) Hot water is the second largest consumer of electricity or fuel in your home. And in many parts of the country, water is increasingly difficult to supply. The normal faucet flow is about 3-5 gallons of water per minute. By attaching a low-flow faucet aerator, you can reduce the flow by 50%.
To determine if your showerhead is a water waster, try the bucket test. Fill a one-gallon bucket from your showerhead at normal pressure. If the water overflows in under 20 seconds, you are a candidate for a low-flow control.
2) The fuel consumption of hot water heaters can often be improved by taking several measures. Aerating the shower head is one. Chances are, your water temperature setting is higher than it needs to be. 130 degrees average is a good temperature that will lower your need to use cold and hot water together and decrease the amount of heat loss from the heater. If you use a tank heater (as opposed to a coil heater), you can benefit from insulating your heater with a pre-fab blanket. And everyone can benefit from insulating the hot water pipes.
3) It may seem incredible to some of us, but many drivers are still using leaded gasoline. Drivers of pre-1976 cars often believe their vehicles must use leaded gas. It is not true that performance is compromised by using unleaded gasoline, and reducing the dispersion of one more heavy metal, lead, from our water and air is undeniably beneficial.
Fumes from gasoline help create the excessive amount of ozone that exists not where it belongs high in the stratosphere but at the earth's surface. The plastic hoods on many gas pump nozzles are supposed to control vapors. Do not pull back the vapor catcher when you pump your gas. And try to fit the hood over your gas tank orifice when you fill up.
Finally, sometime in the future, gasoline alternatives which are less environmentally polluting will be available to the public. Welcome these changes rather than helping to create the inertia that too often stifles good ideas from being applied. These fuels include corn-based ethanol, methanol, and natural gas. They burn more completely than gasoline, giving off less CO2 and other greenhouse gases and particulate.
4) Mr. Edison's brainstorm was a great idea, but an improvement in lighting is available of which many of us are not aware. The compact fluorescent light bulb is a big energy saver. They last longer and use about 1/4 of the energy of an incandescent bulb. For example: a 60-watt incandescent bulb lasts about 750 hours. A fluorescent bulb with 1/3 the wattage will generate the same light and burn for 7,500 to 10,000 hours.
Fluorescent bulbs are considerably more expensive, so a quick economic analysis is in order. A fifteen dollar fluorescent bulb will burn for 10,000 hours and cost $25.00 to purchase and use. Thirteen incandescent bulbs would have to be purchased to get the same amount of light. Cost of purchase and use: $60.00!
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