Our Companions in Creation
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 06.15.05
This Treehugger is not a vegetarian, a conservative, an American or a Christian. Nonetheless he was blown completely away reading former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully's conservative Christian case against factory farms in Canada's National Post. He sees it as a moral issue: " I had come to view the abuses of industrial farming as a serious moral problem, a truly rotten business for good reason passed over in polite conversation. Little wrongs, when left unattended, can grow and spread to become grave wrongs, and precisely this had happened on our factory farms." The Post had an edited version that is not online, but read the longer original ::Fear Factories in (arggh) the American Conservative.
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Arggh indeed. I love it when autopilot lefties get their preconceptions pulled out from under them. I'm no christian either, but as a consumer of organic food and humanely farmed meat I can see that this is a moral issue as well as a matter of eating better. I don't like it when any religious group tries to force its views on me, but I can see that christian convictions on this, and on other matters are genuinely good. Perhaps if you can see past your autopilot arggh reaction to a conservative publication you might read other articles in it or even start listening to what conservatives say. We're real people, just like you.
The "Dispensationalist" and especially the "Dominionist" movements of the Christian Right have had their say: http://www.theocracywatch.org/introduction2.htm. We all ought to be glad that other rational, Christian viewpoints are being brought to the fore. Moreover, we ought to think twice about calling animal rights issues "environmental" because to do so provokes some pretty irrational and unrelated responses, detracting from our ability to address far more significant problems like climate change and soil erosion.
Yes, this is a rather bizzare place for this piece.
However, I have know a rather pationate Vegetarian Christian who dd her thesis on the history of the Bible, Christianity and vegetarianism/animal welfare.
The stereotyped view of environmentalists are jobless, emotional, reason free burnouts. The stereotyped view of conservatives is an immoral, hypocritical corporate blowhard.
And yet in reality, many environmentalists have a decent education, work from a scientific basis and shower now and then. (gasp!) Is it much of a stretch from there to conceive that some of those conservatives might not be hypocritical and actually do care about the world - even the religious ones?
You might be surprised how much of your readership is either religious or falls into one of the wide range of "conservative" thought.
Evan - thanks for reinforcing my point. I could be accused of trolling here at TreeHugger as I generally only chime in to criticize awful designs - such as the butter churner or some other decadent toy - or to counter egregious anti-conservative bias. But I really think TreeHugger.com is doing good work and I come here every day to read up on environmental issues and products. It would be even better if the editorializing was not occasionally "leftie autopilot". Or perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if there was some sort of balance from a conservative co-editor.
Just so long as flame wars did not cause Treehugger to disable comments from readers - as has so often happened in the past on popular sites.
Hey guys, I would not find these things if I did not subscribe to the National Post and the Wall Street Journal ,two very conservative publications. I apologise if my "arrgh" bothered you, none of us are doctrinaire or we would not have published a link to the magazine. I have also corresponded with the author, and he says that he has had lots of people tell him about the posting on treehugger, so clearly a lot of conservatives read us. Thanks for the support and comments.