The primal cause of the environmental degradation that we are seeing in the world today is a direct result is MONOTHEISM. How, you ask can the idea of one god do all this? Early monotheist eschewed the animism in the earlier pantheistic religions and as such perpetuated the idea of the separation of mankind from nature. We officially were better than everything else and in fact were give cart blanch by our godhead to have dominion over it all and take over, as it were. Not good. As if that were not enough we have to add European RATIONALISM to the mix after the Renaissance which gives us the means to really exploit nature. Descartes' idea of dualism didn't help either. Move on to American CAPITALISM, consumerism and materialism and POW!! you've got it. Everything is about entertainment and the individualism.

In the last twenty years we can add millenarianism as if things weren't bad enough. A result of fundamentalist thinking, millenarianism basically causes people not to care about things like environment destruction since the world is coming to an end anyway and complete breakdown of the environment will only help it along. It is not a big help to have our major seats of power occupied my people who think like this.

Surely, a second coming is at hand, surly we can change thousands of years of thinking about our relationship with the earth. Can it truly be our destiny to destroy the earth and ourselves in the process?