I want to be a good steward of my part of the earth. I think I always have. My parents taught me the evils of littering and some of the joys of gardening. I learned other joys on my own. All of my married life we have kept the house warm in the summer and cool in the winter to save energy (and perhaps our air conditioner). We’ve taught our girls not to waste water, especially during the last several months of the drought, and for watering our house plants we have collected rain water. I know I could do more, but it’s a challenge when it seems everything we’re told about saving the environment is hype and lies.

The latest is National Geographic’s upcoming special, “Six Degrees Could Change the World.” Will the ocean rise 80 feet? You can stop it by turning off your TV and recycling it. It’s an energy hog.

The magazine site states, “Obviously, the most straightforward way to stop the frighteningly rapid rate of climate change is to reduce humans’ output of carbon dioxide by 60 to 80 percent.” So do your part by breathing less, please.

I’ll try to heed Mr. McCain’s advice by calming down, but I hope if he is elected president, he won’t make me change my light bulbs. I don’t want the Department of Energy telling me I can’t use incandescent light bulbs when the alternatives, compact florescent bulbs, really aren’t much better. Their light spectrum is different than the one put off by incandescents, and what is this about special recycling? I can’t put them in the trash can? Is that on the packaging?

Sweden is supposed to be leading the way on this front, but apparently the great Swedish recycling success is as shaky as Ivar Kreuger’s wealth. I’m disenchanted. Who do you believe?

Back in November, NASA reported on its study of the Arctic Ocean. “Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,” said the lead scientist from the University of Washington. And yet just last week NPR had a spot on a cruise of Antarctica which tried convince us that the cracking glacial ice was our fragile earth breaking up under our feet. I wonder if they question the cracking sounds in their freezers.

Environmentalists have no credibility with me, which is why I’m frustrated with our government’s refusal to drill for oil in the arctic wasteland and their capitulation on so many other points with people who appear to be striving for American failure, third world poverty, and in some cases the termination of undesirable people. What’s a descent steward of creation to do?