Celebrating Earth Day

The Easter season is holy to many of the world’s faiths. But this year, it seems to have become a time for the revival of an ancient religion--the worship of nature.

The publicity over Earth Day (or is it now Earth Month) goes far beyond a legitimate concern over the environment. We are asked to pay homage to a hostile planet on which humans would have become extinct if not for the progress and technology that environmentalists fear so intensely. We are asked to sacrifice for the good of this angry god we live on. Do not cut back the jungles that are strangling so many of the Third World nations. It might cause global warming. Sacrifice your air conditioning and refrigeration and your plastic cups. They might deplete the Earth’s ozone layer. Make any sacrifice required to preserve endangered species that you may never have heard of--but let’s put limits on the growth of the human population. Unproven theories such as the “greenhouse effect,” the ozone layer depletion theory, and overpopulation have become dogmas, accepted without question. Worship, sacrifice, faith--the marks of environmental extremism and of all other religions.

In the U.S., freedom of religion is a constitutional right--but so is separation of church and state. Courts have prevented the teaching of “creation science” in public schools, ruling it was religion not science. It’s time we examined courses in ecology and environmentalism for the same reason.

THOMAS A. SCHENACH

Huntington Beach