What’s Our Response to Environmentalists.

Here’s what you do: use as much plastic as you possibly can. Get as much plastic residue and microplastics into your body and your young children. I mean you don’t want your kids having healthy brains because they might start to think and possibly be concerned about the air they breathe and the food and water they consume. No, it’s much safer to just fill them up with plastic while you still can and so they won’t have healthy minds capable of rational thought. What could possibly be wrong with plastic? I mean, it just goes to a landfill and stays there right? It definitely doesn’t reenter our water and food supplies, and certainly doesn’t break into microplastics and fill the air. That would be insane!

Go show those libs!

My response is that I have one garbage can that everything goes into. I’ve never recycled.

Our response is: ledidi, the passuk tells us in bereishis 8:22 that Hashem will control the climate for eternity but ledidaichu, at least be moideh to the fact that science tells us that the world is billions of years old and has always had hot streaks and cold streaks, hot climates and ice ages, many of which happened long before humans were even present so what makes you think that all of those climate changes over the millions and millions of years were natural and humans had no power to cause it or prevent it but THIS one is different?

Our response in galus is to shut up. If a Jew (religious or not) asks what Judaism says about it then bring Torah sources to the best of your ability. If you don’t know any go to Aish.com or any reputable website that gives sources.

Rocky, unfortunately many online forums, particularly of the kiruv variety, traffic in misinformation, to use a modern term.

Aish is extremely zionistic, moreso than mainstream israeli news outlets. It’s actually very embarrassing for us, because a jewish student who is disillusioned with zionism when they learn about der yassin and the other atrocities of the secular zionists, then they see “Orthodox judaism” whitewashing it… it’s doing us no favors.

Kiruv places like to quote the same ridiculous “proof” of environmental activism that the RCA used years ago. Chazal say that Hashem took Adam all around gan eden and said “look how beautiful my creations are, take heed not to ruin my world”

Do you know who has ever taken that medrash to mean physical destruction or pollution?

You guessed it – zero.

The seforim, including the ramchal and maharal, say it means that we shouldn’t destroy the world through sin.

All throughout chazal and tanach, the one destructive force is sin. Not pollution. Not aerosols. Not greenhouse gasses.

To say that these non-sinul entities destroy the world is like saying that the Holocaust happened because of mikrah, just nature.

It’s apikorsus and denial of Hashem’s hashgocha, and denying that it is sin and mitzvos which benefit and destroy the world. Not what kind of car you drive.

I wonder why Jewish people have such a strong bias against environmentalism?

Shimon Nodel,

Just curious why you assume that concern about microplastics and other toxins is a liberal issue?

Shimon, the liberals often create new environmental issues when they try to restrict the use of one material by replacing it with others. They can’t do anything right. Ok don’t use fuel so use more batteries instead. It’s narish.

Quay,

For the same reason so many Jews are “biased” against the animal rights movement. From its outset, many in the environmentalist leadership have pursued the “rights of mother earth” (a Greek Goddess) with a dogma crosses the line into religious extremism. It’s one thing to feel a sense of responsibility towards Hashem’s creations but another to believe they have rights superseding those of humanity.

We should of course care about the state of the olam haze that Hashem created for us. There are a lot of non-controversial things that we do: do not things away, fruit trees, city layout, not damaging property.

The problem start with philosophies that make hard-to-prove claims that require, somehow, for money to flow from us to them. So, it then becomes entirely possible to pursue these goals at the expense of simple things we are required to do. Say, decrease population or at least have less kids to save the planet; close down nuclear and coal powerplants to increase dependency on Arabs and Russians.

Bottom line, we are for environment – goodm healthy Jewish environment.

So instead of plastic straws let’s destroy all the trees to make paper straws which last maybe one drink before falling apart and then we all have less oxygen and food. Do you liberals think these ideas through before blindly following? Liberals don’t do anything right.

aaq, the apikorsus, unadulterated anathema of yiddishkeit that you so nonchalantly throw around, about decreasing the population in order to help the environment, made me make a double-take. You start out with mitzvos of bal tashchis…and you end up with denying the mitzvah of lesheves yatzarta and le’erev al tanach yadecha?!!?!?!?

it is a mitzvah to have as many children as possible after fulfilling the minimum, chazal say this explicitly. the torah is NOT concerned with limited resources, because “hayad Hashem tiktzar?”

And to prove it in physical terms that you might be more agreeable with in your heresy, scientists predicted mass famine if the population continued to increase in the 1960s.

Well, the population more than doubled in the worldf since then…and guess what? There’s less world hunger now than ever before in recorded history!!! That’s Hashem’s way of showing how twisted, evil and anti-life the people are who subscribe to your heresy.

Avira > that we have the ability to destroy or help it without it being Hashem’s will.

this is nothing new and applies to everything. We go into business and deal with people whose only goal is money, into medicine where everyone feels they are in charge of health. So, you first make sure that your motivation is correct, protect yourself from bad influence, and then try to make them see the better side.

> the people are who subscribe to your heresy.

cool down. As I said I am for environment, for good Jewish environment.

It’s not proven?? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard recently. The evidence is all around and literally in front of you. Take your head out of your artscroll gemara for one moment

Shimon, if there’s something in the world that requires me to get ky head out of a gemara, the dvar Hashem, and enter into the words of goyim reshoim, then I’d rather have my head in the gemara for as long as I’m able to, and I don’t have to worry about the tzar ham’nabayach, barking screaming evil doers who want there to be less life and who think that they control the world, for better or worse.

As for evidence, when i was a kid, the scientists were saying that in 10 years, coastal cities would be submerged, there would never be any snow, and in 20 years life would all be destroyed. They made so many predictions that at least some of them happened, so they can point to them, ignore their false claims, and say “look, we were right!” And the masses gobble up their nonsense.