Prepare yourself for an aggressive American movement on the environment, driven by the right wing of the Republican party!

The American conservation movement was originally kicked off by Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, when in the early 1900s he set aside over 200 million acres of national forest. In the following century the focus on the environment gradually shifted left on the political spectrum, to the point where now most people assume that the Democrats are the more effective party when it comes to "saving the earth."

But that's about to change. There is a growing awareness in the Republican party that the earth's environment is at risk. And the fundamentalist evangelical churches are right in the middle of the discussion, with a growing conservationist movement that has the potential of turning conventional wisdom on its head.

Check out http://www.rep.org/ or http://www.conservamerica.org. The fundamentalist Christians have already started to frame "saving God's creation" as a political position, as at http://www.earthlight.org/...

They even have a name for it: "Creation Care." http://society.guardian.co.uk/... They have conferences on ths subject, and people like the New Life Church's Ted Haggard SPEAK at those conferences. http://www.creationcare.org/...

And the Republicans can actually DO SOMETHING about it. Reducing energy consumption implies driving smaller cars, for example. Fundamentalist preachers can frame this as "You need to get rid of your SUV and buy a Prius because you're screwing up God's beautiful earth"--and their constituents will go out and sell their SUVs.

Conservation, energy, and the environment are already being positioned for use as planks in future Republican campaigns.

The effect on Europe? America may soon come up with proposals for international treaties that put Kyoto to shame--and with enforcement provisions that make it impossible for anybody, including Europe, to avoid them.