Genesis 2:15

Bill Moyers wrote a stirring piece on the new faith-based politics and the Bush environmental policy.

As much as Christianity can be a portal into a broader perspective on unity, truth, restoration, reconciliation and even salvation, for all people, it is only available for those willing to look.

Moyers laments that, "And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts."

Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups.

Why is this a problem for us? Moyers fears the stakes of wielding our power in the world are too high for the traditional blundering of fools we call "the history of civilization."

Ok. We exterminated the buffalo, the Indian, the forests the coasts, the oceans the rivers the lakes. Why would anything be different now?

What's different now is that our capacity for destruction is so great. So Moyers was particularly disturbed that he read in the news that the Bush environmental staff comprise an administration

• That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.

• That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.

• That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.

• That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

• That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million -- $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council -- to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.

He's wondering how he's going to fight for his grandchildren, for the future. He sounded reasonable, eloquent and desperate.