I would like to direct your attention to a speech by Bill Moyers entitled ‘There is no Tomorrow’. The speech was delivered at Harvard Medical School in late 2004. Moyers is a well-regarded journalist and the former host of ‘NOW with Bill Moyers’ on PBS. I think the speech is tremendously important since it speaks to the (im)moral values that inform the current and future politics of wildlife conservation.

Moyers argues that delusional theological and ideological ideas in culture and government pose a particularly dire threat to the well-being of people, animals and nature. He takes particular aim at fundamentalist notions of ‘the rapture’, since it excuses a wholesale disregard for peace, justice and environmental integrity.

You can find Moyers comments online at the TruthOut website, www.truthout.org/docs_04/120504G.shtml. The rapture index and associated ideas can be found at www.raptureready.com. The wildly popular fundamentalist fantasy novels of the Left Behind series are available from www.leftbehind.com and major bookstores everywhere. A random blog that came my way, the Palm Tree Pundit, nicely encapsulates Moyers larger points about our moral/cultural/political challenge, palmtreepundit.blogspot.com. I mention this blog not as a direct example of rapture theology. Rather it represents a constellation of American conservative values that, often unintentionally, has damaging consequences for people, animals and nature. Once again, in both science and politics, it is ethics that matters most.

Cheers, Bill