Atrazine Anger

Dateline: 26 April 2006

I heard on the radio a couple days ago that the European Union has recently banned the use of atrazine in E.U. countries. That got my attention.

The report stated that atrazine is the #1 selling herbicide in the world. 70 million pounds of the chemical killer are used by farmers in the U.S. each year. It is used primarily by corn growers to suppress weeds.

The E.U has banned atrazine because it recently came to light that the toxin has a significant “adverse biological effect.” What that means, in part, is that atrazine was found to destroy the reproductive ability of frogs. That understanding led to further research where it was found that atrazine causes breast and prostate cancer in mammals. Not coincidentally, people who work closely with the chemical have significantly higher rates of those cancers.

Atrazine runs off the fields, into streams and lakes, and finds its way into the drinking water supply. The acceptable U.S. drinking water standard for atrazine is 3 parts per billion. But new studies have found that as little as .1 part per billion (that is 1/30th of the standard) is enough to do harm. According to the news report, atrazine has been found in groundwater as far as 600 miles from where it was applied.

In light of the new findings, the Environmental Protection Agency here in the United States has NO intention of eliminating or even limiting the use of atrazine. Why would an agency of the government, charged with protecting the environment (which includes the people who live in the environment), NOT ban a widely-used synthetic poison that is making people sick?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because the EPA is a government bureaucracy, and like every government bureaucracy the EPA is subject to political influence. And the chemical companies have a lot of political influence because they rake in a whole lot of MONEY when American farmers slather 70 million pounds of atrazine over the earth each year. Atrazine is a cash cow. Safety is really beside the point. MONEY is what it’s all about. And keep in mind that we are discussing just one of many such chemicals.

Atrazine is yet another example of how corporate-industrialized agriculture is a sham and a failure. The monster proudly boasts that it “feeds the world” but, in the process, it poisons the environment, causes innocent people suffer and, in many instances, kills them with impunity. Such lives are sacrificed on the altar of profit and success.

When technology kills innocent people as a “side effect” it is inherently wrong. I dare say it is evil. It is the result of sin and rebellion against God. He created the earth and all that is in it and when He was done He said, “It is good.” God made it good and sinful man destroys it. In the book of Romans, Paul says that creation longs to be set free from the bondage of sin. Creation longs to be set free from things like atrazine.

I don’t believe the average modern Christian really cares much about atrazine. Most modern Christians do not really believe in exercising responsible stewardship of the earth. The concept of sustainability is foreign to them. They see the earth as expendable—something to be exploited and used up in the process of supporting the ease and comfort that come with their high standard of living.

This is, I believe, the natural extension of modern evangelical thinking that Christians are going to be raptured out of this world at any moment. That being the case, so the thinking goes, why should Christians give much concern for husbanding the earth? Few Christians will outright admit to that way of thinking, but actions (or lack of actions) speak louder than words.

And, by the way, doesn’t the Bible say that God is going to replace the earth with a new one someday? If that’s true, then we can exploit and destroy to our heart’s content, right? Let us eat, drink, be merry, and ravage the earth, for tomorrow we get a new one. Such thinking is also a sham and a failure.

That God will one day create a new earth does not give His people license to destroy the one He has placed us in now. I do not think God winks at the pillaging of creation for vainglory achievement and personal profit. How presumptive and prideful and evil it is to assume such an attitude.

Any government that protects the corporate-industrial destroyers has forsaken it’s God-given mandate to protect the innocent. And Christians who buy into the technological destruction should be ashamed of themselves.