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I was raised as a young child in Crane, Texas, about 30 miles south of Odessa. Both towns are in the Permian Basin, home to one of the richest oil resources in the world. In other words, I grew up in the desert around pump-jacks and refineries. Recently, I was invited to preach at a church in Odessa, which also offered me an opportunity to visit my nearby childhood home of Crane. In preparation for that visit, I pulled up the Google Satellite map for the area, which is captured above.

Seeing that image prompted these simple thoughts about the term "green" and its unfortunate association with today's environmental movement.

The environmental movement is not rooted in Christianity. That fact alone doesn't make it wrong. But it is important to remember that the environmentalism of John Muir and the Sierra Club comes from a Romantic belief in nature's immediate power to reveal truth and spirituality (such as it is). Arguments that environmentalism is simply an expression of the responsibility God gave man in the form of dominion and stewardship over the rest of nature are attempts to baptize the movement back into Christianity (at best), and revisionist more often than not.

Now the fact that environmentalism is rooted in sincere but natural origins does not make it inherently wrong, but it does make it inherently risky. Even the best ideas carry with them, to put it in familiar terms, unintended consequences. Unintended consequences often turn out to be the exact opposite of the intended consequences of the original idea.

Promoting the environment over the economy is intended to make the world a greener place. But in the case of west Texas, the contrast between environmentalism's intent and its actual consequence is as plain as the contrast between the desert brown and urban green in the pictures above. Environmentalism has co-opted "green" as an identifying characteristic of its movement. Anyone who listens to NPR has heard the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation promote environmentalism (along with other issues) with the phrase, "a more just, verdant, and peaceful world." A greener world sounds nice. Environmentalism will make the world greener. Ergo, environmentalism is nice.

The irony is that the environmental movement in west Texas promotes only a brown environment. The only green, as seen in the map above, is where money (a green in its own right) from oil has provided the resources to water lawns and parks and make a nice environment for people and other things that like grass and trees. Economic development has made Odessa and Midland green; environmentalism is trying to keep it brown.

Obviously, it's neither here nor there whether west Texas actually has oases of green or remains monochromatically brown. The point is more important. It's people who prefer green landscapes and who can actually develop them. But people need food in order to live. And they need money to buy food. And they need a productive economy to produce goods and earn money. So when environmentalists shut down economic development, as they are now doing again in west Texas by demanding that drilling be stopped in the Permian Basin in order to save the Sand Dune Lizard, they are actually killing the only possibility to develop green areas in that desert.

My point is not that environmentalism sadly minimizes humanity's role as the purpose for which God created the world, although I agree with that point.

My point is not that environmentalism misguidedly harms people by crippling their productivity and the economic development that goes with being productive contributors, although I agree with that point as well.

My point is simply that "green" is the wrong term for the environmental movement. It probably needs to be contextualized for each region, but it seems to me that "aiming arid", "bearing brown", or "doing dry" makes more sense as a catch-phrase for the movement than "going green."

Humans are stewards of the world and ought to be responsible with it because God gave it to us and He intends for it to serve us well. What we do to make the world better for mankind is what makes the world better.