"Mom! I had a little accident."

"Camila, Camila, what did you spill now?" says Mom as she arrives armed with a cloth. "Oh, no. Not chocolate milk again! Camila. When are you going to learn not to spill!"

People who are concerned about the environment can identify with this kind of frustration. They are upset when oil spills continue to harm coastal waterways, when tons of plastic garbage continues to wash up on shore, when industries avoid environmental regulations and get away with it, when forested hillsides are clear cut, or when they learn that seventy percent of important fish stocks are over-harvested at sea. Understandably, they too are saying, "When are people going to learn?"

It is quite understandable, then, that grassroots en­vironmental organizations are springing up to defend the remnants of our natural heritage and to promote sustain­able use of resources. Personally, I am an active member of the Hamilton Naturalists' Club in Hamilton, Ontario. Our ninety-two-year-old organization in the first place promotes the enjoyment of the many natural areas that Hamilton has to offer. Additionally, our aim is to protect ecologically sensitive areas and provide input about big building projects to municipal authorities.

In contrast, other environmental advocacy groups have grown into large-scale organizations that will, at times, assume unscientific positions, use questionable methods, and base their actions on principles that are at odds with biblical principles. Founded in 1971, Am­sterdam-based Greenpeace is one of the largest of them with almost three million members and offices in forty countries. Other large organizations are the David Su­zuki Foundation, the Green Cross, the Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth International. Besides these, there are government organizations like Environment Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Many of these organizations are interconnected, associated with the United Nations Environment Programme. The aim of this United Nations branch is, as it claims in the 2010/2011 Formative Evaluation document, to help;

...States (governments) cooperate to achieve agreed environmental priorities, and support efforts to develop, implement and enforce new international environmental laws and standards.¹

Thus, there is a large-scale environmental movement, to no small extent orchestrated by both the UN and the Earth Charter Initiative, to drive political agendas around the world. Ideally, both organizations advocate the formation of a global government that can make laws and rulings and have the power to enforce them on a global scale. All these connected organizations form the Green Machine.

The fact that this Green Machine is taking on a re­ligious flavour is no secret. Check out the Earth Char­ter Initiative online ²and you will find a new morality summarized in sixteen commandments to be enforced throughout the world. These new commandments have been placed in what's coined the Ark of Hope at the UN Headquarters in New York City. "³The Ark of Hope has all the dimensions of Israel's Ark of the Covenant, complete with poles, but it is covered with five panels representing mostly pagan and mystical elements.

After having introduced the Green Machine, a num­ber of questions arise about these groups in relation to educational matters. First, are any of these "green" or­ganizations affecting our curriculum? If so, why and how should they affect our curriculum? What kind of approach should Christian teachers take in regards to the environmental issues? How can they successfully be incorporated in a curriculum that's based on the Reformed confessions? We will deal with these questions in the rest of this article.

Realistically, what students learn at school is influ­enced by the following four factors: the province's Ministry of Education curriculum expectations, the implementation of these expectations in textbooks, the school vision, and the views of the teachers. So in what way do these factors interplay to promote the aims of the Green Machine?

Curriculum⤒🔗

Let's begin by looking at a policy framework named "Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow" that was adopted by the Ontario Ministry of Education. The introduction to the framework states:

The policy framework seeks to move beyond a focus on symptoms – air and water pollution, for example – to encompass the underlying causes of environ­mental stresses, which are rooted in personal and so­cial values and in organizational structures. It seeks to promote changes in personal behaviour and or­ganizational practices that will allow us to minimize our ecological footprint, while also fostering greater community engagement in meeting that goal.⁴

Clearly, the Ministry of Education in Ontario wants to change the values and behaviour of our young people in regards to the environment. It tries to do this by injecting environmental issues like climate change, biodiversity, and recycling into every single subject area. Literally. So, for instance, in dance classes students pretend to wave their bodies like trees in the wind. In language arts, students read stories about a boy who tries to save a small woodlot from being developed. In geography, the issue of responsible use of natural resources ought to be taught. Chemistry is to alert students to the harmful ef­fects of countless synthetic chemicals. One of the three overall goals mentioned in the Grade 9/10 Science cur­riculum document is that students have to learn how to relate science to technology, society, and the environ­ment. And students are expected to encourage changes in the home as well. According to the policy framework, schools ought to,

create opportunities for students to ad­dress environmental issues in their homes, in their local communities, or at the global level.

So, is the Ontario ministry influenced by the Green Machine? Absolutely. It even acknowledges that fact in the introduction of that framework. "Acting Today, Shap­ing Tomorrow" was written in response to the fact that the United Nations declared the years 2005-2014 the "United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable De­velopment." The principles in this document are in line with the Earth Charter. Many governments throughout the world are implementing similar programs in their jurisdictions. In other words, the UN and its Earth Char­ter, the document resting in the Ark of Hope, influences what is taught in our classrooms.

Textbooks have to follow government curriculum in order to receive funding from the government, so it is no surprise that "Investigating Science 9" by Pear­son follows the pattern. I'll give you some examples. In a unit on ecology, there are three chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the actual concepts related to ecology. In the second chapter we look at the impact of human activ­ities on ecosystems, none of them positive. Chapter 3 is entitled, "Governments, groups, and individuals work together to promote sustainable ecosystems." (A bit of a surprise that the United Nations is not included in that title. Then again, the UN is probably included under "Governments"). In other words, only a third of the unit is actually spent on teaching Science. The rest involves sociology and solving adult problems.

In the Grade 10 Science curriculum, the Ontario Min­istry of Education deemed it fit to squeeze in a whole unit on Climate Change. The Grade 10 Pearson textbook series follows a similar division as the Grade 9 textbook men­tioned before. One-third is actual Science and two-thirds consists of suggested proof that humans are responsible for climate change and, here is the kicker, that local, na­tional, and international governments exist to solve that problem. As examples of cooperation between countries, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol are referred to. For good measure there is a "Great Canadians in Science" page featuring Dr. David Suzuki, a cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation and an environmentalist who at one time urged McGill University students to do whatever it takes to jail Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for committing "intergenerational" climate crimes.

From both these examples you can see that these textbooks are taking it one step further than the On­tario Ministry of Education. Environmental activism is being taught in classrooms across Ontario. I don't have data about other Canadian jurisdictions, but I would im­agine that environmental issues play a large role in those schools as well.

Implementation←⤒🔗

So how should a Christian teacher deal with these topics? Are there some dangers inherent in promoting the agenda of the Green Machine in a Christian school? In the first place it must be made clear that the notion of sustainable development, a pillar of the green move­ment, is not a new concept but is one that is perfectly in line with biblical teachings. The Sabbath year taught the people that the land they were allotted was not their own but belonged to God. All Israelites who had land were actually tenants, God being the Landlord. One year out of seven, landowners had to share their land with others, especially the poor, who could gather whatever would grow without cultivation. The land had to lie fal­low. This gave the land, under God's blessing, a chance to rejuvenate and bear enough fruit and crops for the next six years. As landowners left the land untouched they thereby showed their dependence on God. Thus, instead of using their resources in a reckless and greedy manner without regard for others, they had to use their allotment in a responsible way, always keeping the well-being of others in mind.

These principles still apply today. Anyone who owns land today is God's tenant. God lets us use his creation. He cares for it, renewing the forests with new growth and replenishing the fish stocks year after year. Self-evident­ly, he wants us to care for it as he commanded Adam and Eve to take care of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15) and rule over the fish, birds, and living creatures (Genesis 1:28). By utilizing resources faster than God renews the earth from year to year, we are not keeping the well-being of future generations in mind. Just as we take care of our bodies in order to remain in good health, avoiding sub­stances that are poisonous, so we should take care of the earth and not poison it through greed and recklessness.

This means we can applaud the main aim of the green movement: to keep the earth livable for future generations. And there is no justification for the claim, which I've heard more than once, that we shouldn't con­cern ourselves too much with environmental issues on the basis of the fact that this earth will pass away and God is going to make a new heaven and earth. After all, the exact same principle would then have to apply to our bodies: "Let's eat whatever we feel like, even if it's bad for our bodies, since God is going to give us new bodies anyways." No Christian would support that claim.

However, other aspects of the green movement are not supported by biblical teachings. As a matter of fact, the motivation, the methods, and the perspec­tive with which we approach environmental issues are completely different.

First, let's look at the difference in motivation. Chris­tian motivation for protecting the earth's environments is found in our cultural mandate as mentioned above. However, many advocates of the green movement find the reason for protecting the earth in creation itself. They are making an idol out of creation, rather than seeing man as the crown of God's creation. In line with evolu­tionary thinking, man is just one of many organisms; who are we to take the rights of other organisms away? In Spain they have gone so far as to assign human rights to apes. Last February, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Lori Marino was one of the scientists presenting the Declaration of Rights for Cet­aceans: Whales and Dolphins, which she says is,

based on the principle of equal treatment of all persons and calls for a cetacean's right to life, to movement, to the protection of their natural environment and not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.⁵

They plan to take their declaration to the UN to give it more teeth so it can be implemented around the world. They may not succeed right away, but I have a funny feeling that in a few years it's going to end up in a textbook as an issue for students to debate.

Another objection to the Green Movement is their methods. The methods Christians use to protect the envi­ronment must be done within the context of the command­ments. We must speak the truth and obey the government. However, environmental organizations are known for their regular use of poorly researched data. For instance, Greenpeace at one point in time had come up with the idea of banning Chlorine, one of the elements of the Periodic Table and essential for bodily growth. Some green activ­ists, after they have become convinced of their position, will find whatever data they can to prove their point. And the sad thing is that scientists, who are supposed to be un­biased, are used as tools to further their cause. What may cause these scientists to abandon their rigorous approach? Some want to ensure funding for their projects. If they tell a government funding source, "We studied shoreline erosion along the Atlantic coast and it doesn't seem to af­fect the Puffin colonies there," the funding may dry up. But if they say that shoreline erosion harms the growth rate of Puffin chicks and we need to study this further, they are more likely to get funding. So there is always a temptation on the part of scientists to find a problem. The upshot? Teachers should be skeptical of claims made by the environmental movement unless they are based on solid facts and data. Do some background reading. Don't go by what newspapers say. Most newspapers have gone in cahoots with each other and decisions about environ­mental issues like global warming are made at the execu­tive level and all reporters are expected to toe the line. As a journalist, questioning manmade global warming can get you fired.

Talking about global warming, what are teachers to think of this issue? It can be hard to make up your mind as a teacher. Is it true? Is the burning of fossil fuels re­sponsible for higher temperatures around the globe? Is global warming anthropogenic? The good news is, you don't have to answer that yourself. Have the students look at the facts and have them decide. At Guido de Brès Christian High School, grade 10 students studied the unit on Climate Change by studying the facts (using the Inter­net, rather than newspapers!), taking a position, and de­bating the issue with students who had come to a differ­ent conclusion. We also watched both "The Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore and "The Global Warming Swindle" by UK's Channel 4 so students were exposed to both sides of the debate. This would be suitable at a high school level.

Naturally, at the lower elementary school levels it doesn't make sense to have students analyze adult prob­lems, so just stay away from controversial environmental issues. And if you as a teacher are not convinced about an issue, just leave it and move on to more factual concepts. However, at both elementary and secondary schools we can do many practical, hands-on activities to teach stu­dents good environmental stewardship. Organize park cleanups, initiate recycling and composting programs, do investigations to assess environmental degradation, start a vegetable garden, or plant trees and you'll be fol­lowing both Ministry of Education recommendations and teach students to fulfill their cultural mandate at the same time.

Perspective←⤒🔗

There is one more aspect that sets us as Christians apart from the Green Machine: the perspective with which we approach environmental problems. At the present time the natural world is subjected to too much degradation, pollution, abuse, and greed. People can re­spond in three different ways:

1. ignore the problem and let the next generation deal with it;
    
2. desperately try to solve these problems ourselves, no matter what it takes;
    
3. address problems as best as we have the opportun­ity to, while at the same time confessing that God is in control and will renew this earth so he can again see his glory in it.

What wonderful, glorious perspective. We act with real hope. This doesn't make us passive at all. It makes us dedicated to honouring and serving the God who created this world and who will renew it again for his church.