Yes, the enviros are busy as Santa’s elves. But instead of confecting toys for good girls and boys, they’re out to make Christmas ever less merry and bright.
Their newest concern (what’s an environmentalist without a concern? A day without sunshine, it would appear) is to prevent celebrations that have used frankincense for Christmas services for oh, two millennia, from using it now.
No, no Congressional action — yet. But if you were planning to celebrate the gifts of the Three Wise Men, you’d better buy some extra frankincense this week and freeze it for the decades ahead, after Dutch and Ethiopian environmental scientists have warned that the ancient tree that produces the fragrant resin is, like baby seals and spotted owls, endangered.
According to last night’s Telegraph,
The number of boswellia trees, which produce frankincense, could drop by half in the next 15 years and all but disappear in 50 years, figures suggest.
The incense has been a key part of Christmas since one of the Three Wise Men carried it as a gift to the newborn baby Jesus.
Dutch and Ethiopian researchers say that a combination of fire, cattle grazing and insect attack could destroy the boswellia trees.
Dr Frans Bongers of Wageningen University in Holland, which carried out the research, called for boswellia plantations to be left alone for five to 10 years to encourage new growth.
What are these scientists going to warn us about next? The shortage of myrrh? Tree ornaments? Wrapping paper?
I hear the forthcoming research project of the Environmental Protection Agency will be to examine Santa’s headquarters at the North Pole, with the idea of ordering the white-bearded doyen of Christmases past to forsake his historic home and move to Antarctica. They suspect global warming in his present digs.
Is there anything environmentalists don’t want to ruin with their never-ending urge to “protect”?
You don’t see as many rocks as you used to. So many have been pulverized.
In answer to your question: No, there is nothing they won’t “protect”. However, I doubt seriously these people even plant a tree. The radical environmentalists are all about making everyone miserable as they are.
The trees aren’t as valuable as they once were — there’s no market for frankincense. At one time they were literal gold mines.
*shrug*
Look up the fate of silphium. It happens. The world survives.
“What are these scientists going to warn us about next? The shortage of myrrh? ”
Certainly the price of gold has shot up….
My #1 son’s girlfriend is a strident environmentalist. She truly believes “The Earth” has more of a right to life than people do.
She thinks all people should be crammed into high density cities and as much of the remaining land as possible should go back to wilderness. That includes my yard! She offered to help me “restore” our property.
But….she lives her values, and I do respect her for that…they have no car, shop via local farmer co-ops, only buy from thriftshops, live in a certified enivoro-groovy building…she works for a non-profit that restores the river in their city…all good stuff. What’s funny is my son works for Amazon, who is duking it out with Walmart to be the largest purveyor of consumer goods in the country. Ha Ha!
I hope you’ve explained to your son that his girlfriend is a dangerous fanatic.
Wait until they make you a grandmother. You should find her theories on child-rearing quite amusing. Unless she decides not to breed for the good of the planet. Either way, good luck to you.
“But….she lives her values” No she doesn’t. She’s still spewing carbon dioxide, isn’t she? And, if she’s a vegetarian, more than her share of methane…
I think we need to be careful with this whole concept of “respecting people for living their values.” Mostly because a number of people have bad values. If you knew someone deranged enough to be a PETA adherent, would you respect him for fire-bombing animal research centers? Or trying to kill scientists?
The same goes for the Sixties gang of morons. Do you “respect” Bomber Bill Ayers for “living his values?”
Somewhere, this moral relativity has got to stop. Perhaps we could start with something simple, like “Eating People Is Wrong.”
(It is, you know.) So is blowing up three thousand innocent people for wacko religious ideas.
And so, by the way, is this nutso green chick. I guess the guy will discover this in ten years, during the divorce, when she makes a passionate appeal to the healing power of crystals.
The only crystals with healing power are large-carat diamonds. Everybody knows that.
But….she lives her values
Except she doesn’t, or should would kill herself to save the Earth, since it’s more important than she is and her very breath (carbon dioxide) is destroying it.
And of course she, like all enviro visionaries, has an innate sense of how the
“natural state” of a given ecosystem should look and function.
I think I would take up her offer to restore my yard, at her expense. Just for starters, I’d send her to acquire all necessary permits. I’d require a property survey to verify property lines and easements. Followed by a licensed landscape architect’s approval of her design. That should keep her busy for 6 months to a year, long enough to lose interest and move on to more important projects. Like restoring the mighty Mississippi.
Every time I see people jump on a bandwagon I get worried. Agreement is the booby prize. The column is about the lunacy of the people who want to protect everything, not about the girl who “lives her values.” How convenient to jump all over her, especially since none of you knows her, and she is not here to defend herself. You are agreement cowards.
At the risk of appearing to jump on your bandwagon, Pundit, I find your comment to be on point and all the comments about the girlfriend of a previous commenter to be ridiculous. As you say, they don’t know her and none of their comments addresses the thrust of the column. Good for you for standing up for good sense. Thank you.
I think you’re easily worried.
Could ? Drop by half?
How’s about “Could double” if they let farmers claim the trees as their own, instead of gov’t property. Or even, I don’t know, ask the Israelis about orchard management. They could even be persnickety, and ask other orthodox practicioners about dry-land farming. they could get excited, and ask american evangelicals about orchard management.
There’s at least one African nation that went from despoiled wasteland to green when viewed from space simply by letting the farmers own the trees in their fields.
It would be an avoidable tragedy of the commons, if they kept up their usual “protection” rackets.
If they hooked up with an evangelical agronomist, they’d have buyers for every posh, over- the- top Christmas pageant. There’s at least a few communities that survive on selling palm crosses to American congregations at Easter. Plus, let’s see, distribution to the Christian bookstore chains, for keeping around the house. or even, health food stores, for scented everything but deoderant. ( I thought the no- deoderant thing was a joke, but no- there’s no deoderant at the local health food store.)
There are perfectly nice Ethiopians in America. Could they text their relatives, and clue them in that the Dutch aren’t the most reliable buyers for religious wares? And that they might not even have a clue about what a religious market-place for the item would look like? And that, maybe, possibly, they might want to look into this whole ” orchard” thing? They’ve done it for coffee, they can do it for frankincense.
Thanks Greenpeace,now we have great white sharks to add to our worries in taxachusetts!