Video message comes during Earth Day 2010 observance
A new video on the Adventists About Life YouTube channel offers motivation from a Seventh-day Adventist health expert for combating pollution.
The video comes during the week concerned citizens, corporations and governments in 190 countries worldwide observe Earth Day 2010, the 40th since a United States senator first launched the day of emphasis in 1970.
Designed to motivate awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment, this year's Earth Day focuses on climate change, "an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean-energy economy," the emphasis day's official website states.
Noting that disposed plastic waste is collecting in floating masses in the world's oceans, Allan Handysides, Adventist world church Health Ministries director, spoke on the byproduct of such "virtually indestructible" waste. Beyond being an eyesore, "as it breaks down [plastic] becomes small particle matter that absorbs the toxins, the mercury and all these chemicals," which are then ingested by sea life. "They eat it and it gets into the food chain," he said.
"We are polluting our planet. Does it matter? Do we care? Well I care," Handysides said during the video. "We care because this is God's world."
Launched last fall, Adventists About Life is a YouTube channel designed to stimulate conversation and offer a distinctly Adventist perspective on issues ranging from faith to poverty and, most recently, pollution.
In conjunction with the Copenhagen Climate Summit late last year, Adventist world church president Jan Paulsen first spoke on the Christian's relationship to the environment for Adventists About Life.
"Like many other '-isms,' environmentalism has been taken over by political agendas, and we say, 'We don't really want to go there,' but quite fundamentally, caring for the environment goes back to our earliest beginnings," Paulsen said during the brief video, in which he stated that concern for the environment is rooted in God's creation of the world.
Paulsen also urged Christians to embrace a "simpler life," that eschews consumerism and an attitude that sees resources as disposable.
To watch Handysides' comments and other Adventists About Life videos, visit youtube.com/adventistsaboutlife.