EnviroStewardship: Bonhoeffer of the Vanities

Once a month, I turn the blog over to my dad, who writes an "Environmental Stewardship" column for his church's newsletter. Anyone citing or borrowing today's post is asked to credit John Berge.

Golden snub-nosed monkey

Not everybody agrees with the positions I expressed in last month’s essay on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a last ditch effort to fight man-made extinctions of endangered and threatened species. That certainly is to be expected. If everyone agreed with me, there would be little reason for me to write these essays. Some people apparently believe that no threatened or endangered species should limit one’s ability to make a profit. Others oppose the ESA with apathy.

So, with sincere apologies to the German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote something similar to this from a Nazi prison cell, I dare to paraphrase or parody one of his more famous quotes:

When the Passenger Pigeon went extinct, I said I wasn’t a pigeon and so I did not speak out.

When the Western Black Rhinoceros went extinct, I said I not only wasn’t a rhinoceros but I don’t live in Africa, so I did not speak out.

When the Rocky Mountain Locust went extinct, I said that might be a good thing, so I did not speak out.

When the Orange Roughy was going extinct, I said I don’t eat that many, so I did not speak out…


…Sometime later, when the human species went extinct, there was no-one left to speak out.