By Ken Laue

As school bus driver buddies, Scott and I use Google Maps for field trips and other routing needs. As fishing buddies we did the same for our own trip.

But the dark blue line and easy-as-pie directions gave no hint of a narrow dirt road that grew slower and rockier by the mile.

Why were we on a ragged ORV trail where it took an hour to go three miles?

My sure beats walking quip of a mile or so back was no longer relevant.

By now we were even happy we brought the gas-guzzling SUV at $3.45 a gallon and not the Corolla.

As we climbed up into the Graham Mountains amid steep drop-offs, Scott hinted strongly that it was okay to turn back.

But you can't just turn around on a one-lane, boulder-strewn Jeep trail with a steep slope on one side and a sheer drop on the other.

You’re too busy craning just to see over the vehicle's nose-up hood and steering to avoid the next rock that wants to smash a differential.

I pointed out these facts to Scott.

But Arizona Game and Fish was recently in the news for setting aside locations in the Graham Mountains for a rare species of trout, Oncorhynchus gilae, commonly called the Gila trout.

This particular reservoir offered us the opportunity for our first glimpse of one of Arizona's only two native trout species (the other is the Apache trout which I have seen, but that's another story.)

Thanks to the efforts of conservation-minded men who set out in the 1960's to rescue the species from extinction, Scott and I got to see our Gila trout.

Over a couple hours time I watched through the crystal clear mountain water as a school of large specimens examined every lure, bait, worm, and powerbait I tossed at them and literally turned up their noses. One trout took a powerbait only to spit it out in disgust before I could set the hook.

Scott once again out-fished me, catching and releasing two on his trusty Mepps spinners, but I was skunked.

But what a sight to see. Beautiful Gila trout!

So what’s this Field and Stream article doing in a publication like Bullseye?

I’m going somewhere with this.

My dad was an Army officer and a nature lover stationed at Ft. Huachuca. I grew up roaming the canyons looking at birds or catching butterflies.

I fished in the officer's pond and learned about the men who brought back the elk to Arizona after its extinction here in the early 1900's; about those who preserved the last of the buffalo, and how decades ago Ft. Huachuca was a preserve for a herd of buffalo.

I had a Christian Scout Master and I learned to love creation because it was God who created it. We were environmentalists in the true sense who sought to preserve nature out of respect for its Creator and because that kind of respect demanded responsible stewardship.

Responsible outdoorsmen, hunters, fishermen, and other nature lovers spearheaded conservation in those days.

But somewhere along the way, radical elements crept into the preservationist picture, espousing the belief that the main problem with the world was that mankind was having too many babies.

The best thing for the environment was birth control and abortion. The more the better.  Humans became a vermin species crowding out other species. That cockroach you stepped on has as much right to live as you do, don't you know?

More and more leftists became involved in conservationist causes, turning the movement away from any responsible and reasonable philosophy.

In the 1980's when AIDS was first coming on strong in Africa, I had a workmate who actually rejoiced as he saw it reducing the human population and thus helping the environment.

Many people still think like that.

As a college student I was even guilty of radical environmentalism. I participated in "eco-vandalism," that is, trying to sabotage development (in my case, graffiti-izing housing development billboards).

My favorite book, just before I got saved, was The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abby, a novel about a protagonist who was an eco-vandal.

I was saved about a year in 1980. Roe v. Wade, the landmark case legalizing abortion in the U.S., was several years in effect, and coming on strong as I held our newborn Melissa in the hospital.

Holding her in my arms, I realized that the environmental movement advocated her abortion rather than her life. I became increasingly outraged at the thought of that, the more I was swept up in the miracle and magic of her birth.

As a pre-salvation college kid, I had once agreed with the zero population growth radicals. Getting saved had restored a right perspective regarding human life.

William McGurn, who among other credentials was once George W. Bush's speech writer, gave a speech in March 2011 at Hillsdale College, and it was published in Imprimis, March 2011. 

One of the points he makes in the article is that progressives and humanitarians call for population control while Christians and economists disagree. The idea with the first group is that human beings are breeding themselves into oblivion by overpopulation.

Thomas Malthus, a British clergyman, was one of the first voices predicting that mankind would overpopulate itself beyond sustainability. That was way back in 1798.

Since then, McGurn notes, prominent men such as Robert McNamara have considered overpopulation a graver threat than the growing specter of thermonuclear war.

Writers such as Paul Erlich, with his book The Population Bomb, have stated that we must by any means have population control. His book was widely popular with three million copies.

McGurn explains how the zero population growth philosophy has played out dismally in nations that have enforced it (or tried to) such as China, India, South Africa and Namibia. I recommend that readers look at McGurn's entire article, The Not So Dismal Science:  Humanitarians v. Economists, which also explores slavery in the 19th Century and other issues.

He points out the irony of the zero population zealots, as the average lifespan and average income have increased dramatically worldwide – even as the earth's population has gone from one billion in Malthus' day to over six billion today.

After pondering these things, the conclusion I came to is the thing that Jesus loved the most – Suffer the little children to come onto Me, and forbid them not – is what the forces of evil aim their most vicious attacks against.

Remember Herod and how he slaughtered the babies in an attempt to kill the baby Jesus?  Or Pharoah, and the order to kill all male Hebrew babies?

Herod is no longer with us, nor Pharoah, but that spirit is.

Prominent voices today, such as leftist politicians in our own country, call for the slaughter of the innocents.

That’s abortion, for those of you in Rio Linda.

Parents, be wise, for Satan's attack is aimed at the young. If he can't kill our children through abortion he'll try to take them into bondage or kill them spiritually. 

Watch out for the pimps who will kidnap your teens if you let them go to the mall alone or run around unsupervised at night. Or gang members who will do things with your kids if you're too busy for them. Watch out for the pervs salted throughout our neighborhoods.  Just for grins sometime, look up all the registered sex offenders in your quadrant of your city. And that's just the ones who've been caught.

Watch out for the education system that seeks to "educate" your kids away from the faith.

In the physical realm, I believe as Christians we can be good conservationists.

God put us here to put the resources of Earth to good use. But that also means we must act as good stewards. Just like you wouldn't invite me to stay in your home and expect to come back to find I trashed it, God expects us to care for His creation.

But being extreme green radicals that elevate the environment above human life is not what God calls us to.

No, not by a long shot. God put the resources of Earth here to serve the needs of man.

But humanists and leftists have made out the environment to be of supreme value and humans (especially babies) to be the vermin destroying the environment.

The world says prevent or abort the babies, and educate (brainwash) those that make it through away from their Creator.

Today's green movement has crossed a line. They are at odds with God.

The Extreme Green, I dub it.

I rejoice that as a Christian I can enjoy God's natural world and I can love babies and children. These things speak of His supreme creativity and matchless intelligence.

But God also calls you and me to be responsible stewards of all that He has given us until He comes back again – whether that's in a couple of days or a couple of decades.

That includes not only caring for the environment, but even more, being stewards of the gospel in the hearts of our babies and young people.

The environment is God's gift to us. Raising babies to know Him and walk in His ways is our gift to Him. More, it is our debt to Him, the One who loves children.