{"id":567,"date":"2011-01-20T16:29:43","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=567"},"modified":"2011-01-20T16:29:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:29:43","slug":"biophobia-and-boycott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=567","title":{"rendered":"biophobia and boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"

I talked with Alan Jenkins who is involved with the Earth Covenant Ministry<\/a> through his Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. \u00a0 (Earth Covenant focuses on trying to promote more environmental stewardship in the face of some tremendously bad environmental practices these days. \u00a0 For one, Earth Covenant exhorts people “…to use food, water, energy and other natural resources in a mindful way.”<\/em>) \u00a0 To get people thinking this way, Jenkins said we have to expose them to more encounters with nature. \u00a0 To that end, he is taking a group of local youth on a canoeing and camping week soon. \u00a0 He noted that environmental author David Orr uses the term “biophobia” to describe a lot of the populace in America at this point. \u00a0 We interviewed Orr at Oberlin College in Ohio several years ago for our position paper on the environment. \u00a0 Orr notes that biophobia is basically a fear of ‘anything nature’ anymore. \u00a0 And how many respond to nature now, for the most part, is we ensconce ourselves in temperature controlled office space, temperature controlled homes, temperature controlled cars… Nature, in essence, has become the “enemy.” \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 Weighing in on China…<\/strong> Among other things, America is concerned about a trade imbalance with China and the perceived need for their currency to appreciate. \u00a0 We also pay at least lip service to their human rights record. \u00a0 In that vein, our administration would go beyond lip service and, for one, focus on the 130 million abortions in China in the past 30 years, many of them “forced.” \u00a0 Example:<\/strong> \u00a0 The World Magazine<\/em> \u00a0 recently reported on Wujian, who become pregnant “…without the necessary birth permit” under the China One-Child Policy<\/strong>. \u00a0 The magazine reported: \u00a0 Wujian went into hiding, but was tracked down. \u00a0 She was then forced into a “grizzly hospital” with other women facing the same fate. \u00a0 She begged for her child’s life, as doctors pulled the baby apart with scissors. \u00a0 She caught a glimpse of the bloody foot of her nearly full-term child. \u00a0 “Through my tears, the picture of the bloody foot was engraved into my eyes and into my heart… and so clearly I could see the fine, small, bloody toes,” \u00a0 she lamented. \u00a0 “Immediately the baby was thrown into the trash can.” \u00a0 Note 2:<\/strong> \u00a0 In essence, America has allowed this type of horrific human rights abuse to be trumped by economic concerns. \u00a0 Our administration would ‘draw a line in the sand’ saying until this kind of thing (along with jailing and torturing of pro-democracy advocates, religious persecution, etc…) stopped in China — there would be a complete trade boycott<\/em> with that nation. \u00a0 \u00a0 And yes, I realize the economic domino that might happen as a result. \u00a0 But sometimes, well, you’ve just got to do what’s right without all the complex geo-political rationale (read: rational lies).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I talked with Alan Jenkins who is involved with the Earth Covenant Ministry through his Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. \u00a0 (Earth Covenant focuses on trying to promote more environmental stewardship in the face of some tremendously bad environmental practices these …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}