"God is an absent landlord"

"God gave us the forest so that we could take what we need. My ancestors are not angry. There are still many trees in the forest."FRANCEL, a villager in Madagascar, on widespread poaching of rare rosewood trees.

And so, once again, humans condone or even encourage the total destruction of a rare resource by invoking “God”. The idea of stewardship is totally missing from God’s equation apparently. The forests of Madagascar are already more than 90% gone, the most valuable species of tree, rosewood, is more difficult than ever to find, and the wood hungry Chinese are demanding more and more trees.
In an unrelated article this morning the opinions of Britons are reported to be moving quickly to the skeptical side of global climate change. Are these two news reports really unrelated? Let’s look more closely.
A disinformation campaign about climate change has been waged since the early 2000’s, when the Bush Whitehouse began the systematic dumbing down of science. The worlds industrial giants would lose big time if real measures to address climate change were adopted, so a worldwide media effort has been underway to minimize the impact of scientific reports and to bolster the ideas that big businesses were socially concerned and would do the right thing by us. And in the UK it has worked. And in the USA it has worked. And in China it has worked. Many people around the world no longer think of the climate “wierding” as unusual or threatening.
And that leads to apathy when Madagascar allows the raping of its last rainforests. Madagascar is already one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of around $2.50 a day. A growing population on a deforested landscape filled with incredibly poor people governed by corrupt officials who are corrupted by industrial players. Just change the name to “Haiti” and you get the picture.
But we don’t have to worry, do we? See, Francel, the villager quoted above, is sure that God is behind him and his ancestors aren’t angry. Well I got news for Francel. His ancestors are really pissed, and God is an absent landlord.
Image and reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/africa/25madagascar.html?scp=1&sq=rosewood&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/opinion/17friedman.html