<p>Annette Lathrop</p>

On a recent trip to Portland, the litter patrol was out working along I-84 near Stanfield. Yellow bags marked a greening, cleaned right-of-way a sharp contrast to the trashy area ahead. Like many, I wonder, how can people trash our countryside?

Alongside those with environmental roots, I am dismayed at the throw-away society we have become. Opening a razor package from Costco, with three times as much plastic as product, is ridiculous as well wasteful.

Coming from a ranching background, a rich agrarian heritage, loving and valuing the land runs deep in my veins. As the original conservationists, those in agriculture pass this legacy of love down from one generation to the next.

I grieve that landfills are full of the instant gratification generations disposals from razors to diapers, as well as the insane plastic packaging. We are spoiling land for generations to come.

At first blush, it seems I have much in common with those soon to be celebrating Earth Day. With an eye toward making better choices to keep our water, air and soil clean, hundreds of thousands will rally April 22, celebrating and educating the need for a healthy earth. Planned activities include tree planting, cleaning up litter, biking, and recycling. Making the day festive, entertainment includes parades, concerts, even poster contests. All echo a cry you can make a difference!

Todays celebration is very different from the first Earth Day, a date now recognized by most as the beginning of the modern environmental movement.

April 22, 1970, America was a different place; it was fashionable, particularly with youth, to join in the collective conscience of the moment. Protests were the order of the day. Anti-war protests were losing stream, however. Leaders cognitively sought to capitalize on an emerging consciousness of environmental issues and to channel the energy of the anti-war protests toward the environment. Demonstrations then were mass marches often angry, always impassioned. Twenty million, that first Earth Day, took to the streets and parks demonstrating for their new cause.

That Earth Day ignited an outrage over the polluting of our land, water, and air. As a consequence, we have laws in place today protecting the environment.

As millions celebrate, activists quietly go about pushing a new value system. In this worldview, humans are not created to be stewards of the earth, rather are a part of the human family, also called the web of life. This web consists of everything on Mother Earth. Their belief system honors every tree, drop of water and form of life, equating them with, and therefore devaluing, human life. This worldview is constantly being dripped, dripped, dripped in todays media, even worming its way into public school curriculum.

Those with this agenda have successfully implemented buzz words like green and sustainable into the American lexicon. Gaining acceptance and repeated often, they are slowly but systematically changing the cultural mindset. Wanting to make a difference for good in our environment, the ordinary Joe or Jane buy in; the buzz words have a narcotic-like feel-good effect. Even corporations are successfully using them in their marketing.

The flip side of this worldview demonizes the original land stewards farmers and ranchers. Using a complaisant media to attack an industry these activists know little about, and speaking as experts, they have successfully indoctrinated the public. The results, a low public opinion of the agriculture community, the providers the food we need to survive. Those, who in the last 50 years have doubled production using half the acreage with a watchful eye on caring for the land they till.

The web of life worldview forces removal of dams, favors wolves and fish over ranchers and farmers, jobs and the economy. It supports dictating equality in the name of the environment. This is a stark contrast from our historical agricultural values which, while caring for the environment, provides food, jobs, and personal freedom.

Wallowa County conservative thinker Annette Lathrop enjoys teaching kids and tending cattle.