Subdue earth, prevent fires

While our forests continue to burn, it is impossible to understand why the so-called environmentalists cannot see that their policies are erroneous. For instance, they claim that they want to prevent global warming, which is an unproven theory, but the burning of millions of acres of forests has to put more pollutants into the atmosphere than the automobiles they lament.

They pretend they want to protect the spotted owl. But where do the spotted owls nest after their habitat is incinerated? That is, if the spotted owls survive the fires. They do not want any roads to be built through the forests, while roads would help firefighters to get quickly to a blaze before it could spread. They want no harvesting of mature or fallen trees, but doing so would lessen the danger of fired. They say that dead trees serve as nurse logs for new trees. Have you notices - those trees growing out of the nurse logs do not do well. The fact is that fallen timber serves as the fuel that burns up the live trees.

One of the first things God told our first parents was to “subdue” the earth. They ignored what God said and they paid the consequences. We also pay the consequences when we ignore Him. To “subdue” the earth does not mean to leave it to its own demise. It means to care for it, develop it and, among other considerations, to prevent forest fires.

John C. Wilkens

Oak Harbor

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