Volume 33

As the war to save the planet intensifies, the world’s biggest corporations are choosing sides —the green front or the greenback. The experience of General Motors in the 1930s should serve as a lesson.

As the Depression intensified, G.M. wanted to strengthen its bus making business. So in partnership with Greyhound, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil, Firestone and others, the automotive giant formed a company called National City Lines to buy municipal streetcar operations and convert them into bus systems. The partners started with lines in both Saginaw and Kalamazoo, Michigan, plus Springfield, Ohio, before looking to bigger cities. In 1936 they converted New York City’s streetcars into G.M. buses, creating a huge opportunity for sales.

Driven by profit, National City Lines purchased the Los Angeles system in 1944. The company scrapped the city’s electric transit cars, tore down its power transmission lines, ripped up the tracks, and filled the crowded streets with G.M. diesel buses running on Standard Oil. “You will realize too late that the electric railway is unquestionably more comfortable, more reliable, safer and cheaper to use than the bus system,” said vocal critic E. Jay Quinby, who also warned of pollution. “But what can you do about it once you have permitted the tracks to be torn up?”

Shortly after streetcar “bustitution” began in the west, the federal government started to build its interstate highway system, with plenty of pressure from G.M. But in April 1949 — thanks partly to E. Jay Quinby — a Chicago federal jury convicted General Motors of criminal conspiracy with Standard Oil and Firestone to replace electric transportation with diesel transit and to monopolise the sale of buses. G.M. was fined $5,000. Senior executives were fined $1.00 each.

Today, Quinby’s warning sounds prophetic. While there was once a successful public system of clean electric streetcars across the U.S., it has been largely replaced by thousands and thousands of buses that dump untold tonnes of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, adding drastically to urban air pollution.

It would be reassuring to think corporations have learned from the sins of the past. But sadly, many remain more interested in clear profit than clear air. When it comes to the environment, the prophets and the profits are still fighting it out, and it’s the earth that suffers. The truth is, some of the corporations turning green are merely doing so out of jealousy. They’re looking enviously at money going to more environmentally-conscious companies and jumping on the bandwagon, but substituting marketing for responsible measures.

In some cases, the Church has been no less superficial in its commitment, but much of the current criticism is unjustified. It’s fashionable these days to bash Judaism and Christianity for what critics call millennia of environmental insensitivity rooted in Genesis 1:28. “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” God tells Adam and Eve. “Be master over all the fish and birds and all the animals.” According to some, the command to “subdue” and “master” the earth gave Jews and Christians a sense of permission to do whatever they wanted, regardless of ecological consequences.

But such a view neglects Genesis 2:15 where we read that “The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it.” Through the centuries, most believers have recognised their responsibility to look after the precious, fragile gift entrusted to them.

Christians haven’t always been faithful to that, any more than we’ve been completely faithful in any other area. Like some companies, the Church has let other priorities and self-interest interfere. Sometimes we’ve been so heavenly-minded we’ve done no earthly good. So, collectively, we need to do more to demonstrate good stewardship of the planet, leaving it cleaner — physically and morally — than we found it.

But it begins with each of us. We must use less, tread lightly, pick up after ourselves and safeguard the future. When it comes to our vision, we must see green, or God will see red.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at rgamble@bfree.on.ca