Never before have so many ideas, inventions, costly equipment and broad-scale programs been employed to combat pollution. Yet, paradoxically, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the quality of life is deteriorating at an unparalleled rate. Why this dilemma? What is the way to solve our mounting pollution problem?
Houston, Texas WE shall never have, on a nationwide basis, absolutely clean air or pristine pure water. There is a necessary and acceptable amount of each pollutant that society will tolerate." Shocking statement? It certainly is. But this admission by a leading U.S. Senator was only one of many alarming facts and conclusions presented at the National Pollution Control Exposition and Conference we attended in the Astrohall in this bustling metropolis of south Texas, April 3-5. Addressing the 2,000 conference delegates from all across the nation were well-known U.S. Senators and Representatives, top spokesmen from the U.S. Public Health Service, leading state and municipal pollution control officials, plus top-level representatives from private industry. A full-range industrial exhibit with the very latest in pollution control equipment was on display. Ninety-two manufacturers and distributors were represented.
First-of-its-Kind Meeting
Never before had such a broad-based conference on pollution control ever convened. PLAIN TRUTH correspondents were on hand to report not only the facts, but the real meaning behind those facts. It's time you discovered not only what the causes of pollution are but what the "solution to pollution" is — because THERE IS A SOLUTION! This IS something that even the experts at this conference were seemingly not able to understand.
Nuisances — or Perils to Life?
The facts presented at this conference should shake the last ounce of complacency out of anyone who still naively believes that dirty air, polluted water and all other types of environmental contamination are mere "nuisances" which can be passively tolerated. Ten or twenty years ago, perhaps. But not today! "Our physical environment, sad to say, is being contaminated faster than nature and man's present efforts can cleanse it. We must reverse this process of deterioration before it is too late. We must cease degrading our environment and start to improve it." These were the words of Dr. Samuel Lehner, a vice president and director of the world-famous Du Pont Chemical Company. Dr. Lehner delivered the conference's opening-day keynote address. Echoing Dr. Lehner's words, Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia told the audience at the conference's banquet: "Only recently have we become acutely aware of the fact that we are exceeding nature's ability and capacity to reprocess the kinds and quantities of wastes which are being produced." The overall public unawareness of what man is doing to his environment has alarmed many of the experts. The Assistant Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Richard A. Prindle drove this point home: "The deterioration of our environment is a problem so vast and urgent that anxiety about it must not be confined to elected officials, professional health workers and conservationists. Every level and facet of citizenry is affected and must be concerned." Are you?
Pollution Foe Tells Ugly Facts
During the conference, we talked personally to one of the nation's leading "pollution fighters," Representative John Blatnik of Minnesota. Mr. Blatnik is a pioneer in water quality control legislation. He authored the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1956. In his capacity as Chairman of the House Rivers and Harbors Subcommittee, Representative Blatnik has toured every major harbor and inland waterway in America. Wherever he went, he told us, he found the conditions of the nation's waters "simply horrible." PLAIN TRUTH correspondent William Dankenbring asked Representative Blatnik whether every major river system in the United States is plagued with pollution. Mr. Blatnik's reply: "Practically, yes. The Mississippi River [for example] is already bad by the time it reaches Minneapolis... By the time it gets down to Iowa... it is getting quite serious, and south of that, by the time all the petro-chemicals and other industrial oils, chemicals, and slaughterhouse wastes along the way are dumped into it — from St. Louis on, it is impossible." From that point southward he said, the Mississippi is so bad that state health departments and the Federal Public Health Service have posted signs forbidding people to even eat lunches along the banks of it, let alone go wading in the water, or to water ski. The concentration of infectious bacteria in just the spray from the river, when deposited on a person's face or on lips, can cause typhoid, colitis, hepatitis, diarrhea, or infections in the blood stream. "In fact," said Representative Blatnik, "in plain, simple but honest language, it is rapidly becoming an open, running sewer. This is the great Mississippi River which splits the United States right down the center... This is true of the Ohio River, large rivers, small rivers — just name it."
"Punch a Hole in the Bottom of Lake Erie?"
We then asked Representative Blatnik to comment on the conditions in some of America's large lakes — specifically Lake Erie. Lake Erie, he replied, suffers from an extremely heavy concentration of industrial wastes. Into the lake from the areas around Detroit and Cleveland flow complex concoctions of acids, sulphides, gases, and petro-chemicals. This "gook" doesn't break up by being aerated. It settles to the bottom of the lake, similar to the way the watery part of milk settles to the bottom while the cream goes to the top. When fresh water flows in from Lake Huron it merely slithers across the top of this heavier density and on into Lake Ontario. There is no flushing action as there would be with organic or human wastes. Scientists and engineers who are working on Lake Erie are fearful that the pollution process in the lake may well have already passed the point of being reversed. Biologically, Lake Erie is already more than half dead, robbed of life-supporting oxygen. "What then can be done — if anything — to save Lake Erie?" we asked Mr. Blatnik. "This is merely a preliminary, speculative thinking on engineering lines," he answered; "but what you may have to do is punch a hole in the bottom of the eastern end of Lake Erie. It would be like cutting in underneath and boring a hole into a bathtub and having all this heavy stuff drain out." Just where you would dump all the "gook", of course, is a monumental problem in itself. Just to begin the complex task of restoring Lake Erie (if indeed it is now possible at all) would involve an outlay of half a billion dollars!
Cost of Cleanup Enormous
We then asked Mr. Blatnik what are the major obstacles in the way of cleaning up our polluted environment. "Oh, the major obstacle is very obvious," he replied. "It is the magnitude of the problem and the complexity of the problem." How much would an all-out assault on pollution in America cost? Hold on to your chair! If all forms of pollution were to be tackled, the combined industrial, municipal, state and private expenditures could rise as high as ten billion dollars a year for 20 years — or a total of 200 billion dollars! "We are racing against time" concluded Mr. Blatnik seriously. "Time is bringing us more people, and more people will bring us much more industry... and more competition and demand for water." Here Representative Blatnik hit on the crux of the problem — more people, more industry, and the crowding of both into less and less space in our complex, highly-urbanized society. Pollution is basically an urban problem. It runs concurrent with all of the other ills of modern city life — crime, juvenile delinquency, noise, congestion, frustration and stress upon the individual. Yet, cities are becoming larger all the time. Entering our vocabularies are such terms as "megalopolis" or "maxi-city" — each word denoting a giant sprawling urban complex in which all the ills of city living are compounded and maximized. Pollution is by no means limited to the United States. Most of the western world is in the throes of an industrial upsurge and is consequently experiencing the curse of contamination to some degree or another. But it is in America, the world's most highly developed industrial society, that the crisis has reached the "do-something-drastic-or-else" stage.
More to Come
Take water, for example. Over 90 million Americans today drink water that is either below Federal standards or is of unknown quality. Yet water demands throughout the U.S. are predicted to double by 1980. More significant than this is the fact that the amount and variety of waste materials dumped into our waters are destined to increase at an even faster rate than the water demand. By 1980 the nation will be producing enough sewage and industrial water-borne wastes to deplete the oxygen supply in all 22 river basins in the dry season! Air pollution is also increasingly a menace. Smog blankets are appearing over cities that once boasted of their clean air and healthful climates. Additional cities are destined to fall under the putrid cloud of pollution. Auto industry statisticians in Detroit, for example, calculate that city streets will contain twice as many cars by the year 2000 as now! Such greatly increased auto usage means more carbon monoxide, more photo-chemical smog, higher concentrations of poisonous lead in the atmosphere. Dr. John T. Middleton, Director of the National Center for Air Pollution Control of the U.S. Public Health Service warned those of us at the Houston Conference that the "true dimensions of the threat which air pollution poses to our civilization are just beginning to be understood." The lung cancer rate in large metropolitan areas, revealed Dr. Middleton, is twice as great as the rate in rural areas, even after full allowance is made for differences in cigarette smoking habits. The serious pulmonary disease, emphysema, has shot up eightfold in the last ten years. As President Johnson said in a 1967 speech: "Either we stop poisoning our air, or we become a nation in gas masks, groping our way through dying cities."
Heat Pollution
Other experts in Houston were concerned over a relatively new source of pollution — excess heat. Specifically, this concerns water used by electricity generating plants. When the heated water — which has been used for cooling purposes — is returned to streams, it raises the water temperature markedly. This stimulates the growth of algae and undesirable plants, prevents fish from mating and eggs from hatching. Heat pollution is expected to increase greatly in the next few years, due to the tremendous thirst for electric power. It has been calculated that power production — and therefore waste heat — will double by 1980. Nuclear-powered plants, move over, offer no solution. One of their most serious drawbacks is the fact that they release as waste even more heat than do conventionally powered plants. Assistant Surgeon General Richard A. Prindle, commenting in jest about this phase of the pollution crisis, said that if excess heat should ever melt the polar ice-caps considerably, resulting in a rise in the level of the oceans, mankind might at least be saved atop his growing coastal garbage heaps. Which brings us to the next point.
The "User" Society
The disposing of solid wastes — plain old garbage, if you please — has become an enormous headache to sanitation engineers. The third largest municipal budgetary expenditure in America now goes for waste disposal. The "garbage bill" for all of America last year came to three billion dollars! There has been a constant and spiraling increase in the per capita production of wastes. Recent studies in the San Francisco Bay area indicated that if all solid wastes were considered, the rate of production now approximates 8 pounds per day per person. What do today's overburdened sanitation men have to deal with (when they are not on strike)? Listen to these staggering statistics: Every year, we affluent (or rather, effluent) Americans throw away over 30 million tons of paper, 4 million tons of plastics, 48 billion cans, and 26 billion bottles! Greatly compounding the miseries of our solid waste engineers are these facts. (1) Americans are no longer consumers. They are mere users of products. They buy, they use, they dispose — in greater and greater quantities (4% more each year). (2) The objects we use and subsequently throw away are increasingly of an incorruptible nature. That handy plastic bottle that won't shatter when you drop it on the bathroom tile won't break down via natural decay processes at the city dump either. And the beer or soda pop aluminum can "just sits there" unperturbed, a virtual King of the Dump. The old tin (mostly steel) cans at least rusted away. Yet industry, seemingly oblivious to the overall problems and needs of our environment, continues to produce and sell non-degradable items. Someone has suggested man's eras should be summarized as the Stone Age, then the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Space Age... and now the Garbage.
Will Science Save Us?
Over and over again at the conference we heard the hackneyed expression "Technology created pollution. It can also solve it." But will the hoped-for new advances in science and technology clean up our polluted world to the extent that we can once again breathe clean air, drink pure water, eat wholesome, nourishing, uncontaminated food? Afraid not. Scientists do not intend to go that far. The committee on pollution of the National Academy of Sciences stated recently in its report on waste management and control: "The right amount of pollution must be planned with criteria set somewhere between the ideal of complete cleanliness and the havoc of uncontrolled filth." The so-called "right amount" of pollution, this report continued, "involves a calculable risk of society. It depends on where we are, what use we want to make of the environment and quality of cleanliness for which we are prepared to pay." Are you willing to accept this decision on the part of the scientific community? Are you willing to accept the opinion of a news magazine which in a recent issue claimed that in the search for solutions "there is no point in attempting to take nature back to its pristine purity." Why not? Why shouldn't our environment be clean — TOTALLY? Why should we have to tolerate a "little bit of filth"? Pollution is NOT necessary!
Drastically Needed: A Fresh Perspective
In his frantic effort to curb pollution, man is passing more laws, spending more money and conducting more research than ever before. And we can be thankful that he is! As one manufacturer told us, "If all the pollution control equipment in the U.S. were shut down for just one day while industry continued to operate, you would really appreciate how much is presently being done to control pollution." He predicted that any such shutdown would create a national pollution emergency almost immediately. But in spite of man's best efforts — with all the control machinery working — the fact still remains that we are losing the battle against pollution. Something new and greater must be done — and soon — if mankind is to survive! To use Dr. Middleton's words, "We have no alternative, then, but to seek a fresh perspective and to think and plan along new lines." But what "fresh perspective" — and along what "new lines"? Is there a solution to pollution? There is! And we bring you the good news that this solution will be in full effect well before the end of this century.
The CAUSE of Pollution
The cause of pollution is no secret. Many speakers at this conference clearly identified the culprit. "In its broadest dimensions, we all know that pollution is a by-product of industrial civilization, whether the system is capitalism or communism," said Dr. Lehner of Du Pont. John S. Lagarias of the Air Pollution Control Association added that air pollution problems "follow closely the rate of urbanization and the development of megalopolises... [and] the crowding together of people in closer and closer proximity." Addressing the entire group at the April 3 evening banquet, Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia stated: "Nearly all of the important and critical environmental health problems — air pollution, water pollution and the growing pervasiveness of pesticides... have been an undesired and unforeseen by-product of goods or services which society has wanted." These brief quotes lay bare the cause of pollution. Did you catch it? Pollution is caused by MAN, by man's lusts, his misdirected urban-industrial WAY of LIFE.
Racing to Nowhere
Today our society worships the false god of "Continued Economic Growth." He is also known as the god of Greed or Materialism. Upon his idolatrous altar we are willing to sacrifice our all — clean air, pure water, good food, health, happiness, and peace of mind and the well-being of our children. To do obeisance to this god, 500,000 to 600,000 people a year march as permanent pilgrims from rural areas to his metropolitan Mecca — our teeming cities. There they serve in his temples of technology — the factories, mills and plants — and breathe the acrid, sulphurous incense of industry which is continuously belched into the air like an ever-burning oblation. If this pilgrimage to the cities were to continue at the present rate, by the year 2000, 100 million more people would be occupying American cities and towns now occupied by 140 million! In fervent worship to this false god, 95 per cent of man's technological achievements are estimated to have been made in the last 20 years! And pollution has been a serious problem in roughly this same time period. Can't we see the connection? Isn't it high time we stopped to ask ourselves where we are going — and WHY? One is reminded of the story about the airline pilot who told his passengers over the loudspeaker, "I have some good and bad news. The good news is that we are making rapid progress at 530 mph. The bad news is that we are lost and don't know where we are going." The sad fact is that this becomes a true story when applied to our modern urban-industrial society. As Dr. Middleton so graphically stated: "In our single-minded devotion [idolatry] to achieving the benefits of science and technology we plunged ahead with the abundant materials at hand, without a very precise notion of where we were going, and without serious attention to the possible adverse side effects of our new activities on our environment." Yes, conceive, invent, design, develop, forge, produce and fabricate. And do it FAST — with a sense of urgency! But don't ever ask WHY. And don't stop to think where it will end. Incredible though it may seem, this is today's philosophy!
Confused Values
Hasn't it ever occurred to us that man can produce too much? Can't Western man see that he really doesn't NEED everything he desires? What we as a people need are fewer conveniences and less soft living and more CHARACTER! We need to realize that there are some things our factories can't produce. Things like sound minds, healthy bodies, obedient children, a purpose in life, peace of mind, happy homes and marriages — to name just a few. Examine our modern culture for what it really is. Many things which our industrial society produces are simply not good. Think of all the tons of newsprint consumed each year in producing cheap magazines, pulp novels and outright pornography. Many more of our manufactures are of a cheap, shoddy, inferior quality which serves to instill in both builder and buyer wrong character traits. (To see this, go to any cut-rate furniture store and see what the "bargains" are). Still other products are not as great a blessing as we think. For example, what do you find at a supermarket? A fantastic variety of food, mostly in convenient packages and often partially or wholly prepared, then preserved with a battery of unpronounceable and mostly harmful chemicals. (Food pollution was hardly touched at the conference — just the mention that there are 2400 food additives in commercial use today — preservatives, bleaching agents, artificial colors and flavors, sweeteners, emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, neutralizers, etc., etc) Society points to this variety and convenience as a great blessing. But what are we paying for it? The penalty of added costs and ill health! Wouldn't it be a much greater blessing to eat food that had a fresh, tree or vine-ripened taste, food without chemical preservatives and pesticides, food grown on healthy soil without unbalanced chemical fertilizers, food that isn't embalmed, food that contained all the rich flavor and nutrients that God intended? Isn't good health worth it? How can you compare a few moments' convenience to a lifetime of good health? Yet this is just one example of many where a convenience of our mechanized age is called a "blessing" even though it is robbing us of our health and therefore becomes a curse.
A Shocking Report
But let's not just look at physical pollution and its physical effects. The pollution of our surroundings exerts a tremendous influence on our mental and moral well-being. On the last day of the conference, Dr. Richard A. Prindle, Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S., spoke on the effects of pollution on man. After first explaining the effects that chemicals play in the pollution picture, he said: "Chemicals are only part of the known or suspected hazards of living in the mechanized, industrialized and urbanized environment of today. I consider the most important of these other hazards to be the many physical and emotional pressures which add up to a total pattern of unrelenting stress upon the individual... "Gone are the satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment in one's work. With the advent of modern specialization, man often feels that he is simply a cog in the machinery, endlessly performing the same routine task in the assembly line, in a never-ending battle for survival in a fiercely competitive, often brutal world..." Dr. Prindle continued his blistering indictment of modern man's way of life: "The individual is under constant attack from external influences such as congestion of all types, minor nuisances and daily hazards, noise at work, on the radio, on the television, noise from the telephone, the jets, the streets, and from people living close by. These assaults plus the lack of space and facilities for recreation and all the problems, stresses and frustrations encountered in the course of an average life can add up to an individual who is susceptible to the slightest infection that comes along, or who becomes one of the thousands who suffer from ulcers and other stress-related disorders..." What a penetrating indictment of our WAY OF LIFE! Yet with foolish pride we hail the trends of urban, industrial and technological growth as the "hallmark of our era." Don't misunderstand! There is a place for the right kind of cities and industry in a well-ordered society. A "right kind" of city or industry will enhance the TOTAL QUALITY Of human life and will enable the ones living and working in it to develop the true values of life. But what a rare thing this is today! Instead, "In almost every major urban area we observe the continual increase in crime and juvenile delinquency, in civil disorders, and in general degradation of the quality of life, and in congestion and in environmental pollution. Few of our cities today offer a foundation for a good life, much less the basis for a Great Society" (Senator Randolph). WHY? The answer lies in taking a closer look at the most basic reason of all for pollution — human nature.
Pollution and Human Nature
Human nature is a selfish nature of vanity, jealousy, lust and greed. It wants to GET, to acquire, and to have for the self. If this means upsetting the delicate balance of nature or hurting your neighbor — SO WHAT? If getting some small comfort or object for the self here and now means robbing a fellow human or future generations of a vital necessity of life — WHO CARES? That's their problem, the reasoning goes. This is the attitude of human nature. Human nature is completely hostile to God's law which says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Rom. 8:7 and Matt. 19:19). Our modern urban-industrial society is ideally suited to giving vent to this selfishness, greed and lust of human nature. It spawns a way of life that appeals to human nature. A leading pathologist in Canada emphasized recently: "Most of the blame for pollution comes from man's desire [substitute 'lust'] for short term economic gain. We tip things into [our lakes and streams] because it's cheaper, or spray apples because we want [again, lust after'] a bigger crop this year." But, said this pathologist, "We pay for years to come." How short-sighted man is! When man allows himself to so LUST for money, material things and polluted foods that he is willing to HURT his neighbor and his own physical, mental and spiritual well-being, then he SINS. He disobeys God's Law of Love and he directly and indirectly breaks everyone of the Ten Commandments. He breaks the first commandment by placing physical objects ahead of the true God, the second commandment by making an idol of these things, the fourth commandment by misusing time, the sixth commandment by hating his competitor or harming the health of his customer, the eighth commandment by cheating and defrauding, the ninth commandment in faulty advertising, the tenth commandment by coveting what does not belong to him. And the breaking of the third, fifth and seventh are a natural result of this kind of sinful living. Ever think of it that way?
Man: The Dirty Animal
There is yet another way in which human nature has a bearing on pollution. Not only is human nature selfish and lustful, but it is also lazy and dirty. It likes to make filth and pollution, but it doesn't like to clean it up! As one civic official lamented at the conference, "Everyone wants you to pick his garbage up, but nobody wants you to put it down — at least near him." Why do we have so many open dumps? Because it is cheap and requires no planning," reported Charles C. Iglehart, Jr. of the Kentucky Department of Health. He went on to say of pollution control programs that, "the problems are not technical, they are problems of human nature... cooperation; how to get along with your neighbor; interest in the community... These are the problems that must be worked out." These perceptive words hit the nail squarely on the head. Cleaning up pollution just isn't that appealing to human nature. Right now more than twenty percent of the budgeted jobs in pollution control in city, state and federal offices are going begging because of a lack of qualified men to fill them. Some of these jobs are in the $25,000 a year category! The only apparent reason seems to be, as one official put it, "Dealing with garbage is not as glamorous as a moon shot." Many people or industries clean up only when forced to do so. Man truly is, as a recent book was entitled, "The Dirty Animal."
How to Eliminate Pollution
There is a CAUSE for pollution just as there is a reason for every wrong result, a penalty for every broken law. Man's efforts at pollution control are failing because he is only treating the result. He isn't even trying to eliminate the CAUSE! This is why no amount of money, no new laws and no amount of research will solve the problem. These things don't eliminate the cause of pollution which is HUMAN NATURE and a WRONG WAY OF LIFE. Human nature doesn't like to face up to this fact. We like to kid ourselves that we can still solve the problem. "Modern technology has created the problem; it can solve it as well." Or, "Man created environmental contamination and he can also correct it." But the truth is, the problem is beyond man's ability to solve. Soon he will be forced to face that fact. Only God can solve the problem now — and He will! God will use "the total approach" men talk about today but are unable to accomplish. He will solve today's dreary catalog of ills — including the pollution problem — by ELIMINATING THE CAUSE of these problems.
An End to Man's Rule
For almost 6000 years now God has been allowing man to go his own way, to build a society based on raw, unbridled human greed and lust and on the deception of Satan the devil. Satan is the god of this world, and with his demons, he has "deceived the whole world" (Rev. 12:9). Today we are beginning to reap the cumulative penalties of this deceived, confused way of life with emphasis on material goods and pleasures. If you want to know what God thinks about this idolatrous materialism — and what He will Do about it — read Isaiah 2, beginning with verse 7: "Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures." What could more aptly describe our age of materialistic superabundance? This same verse says "neither is there any end of their chariots." Prophetically speaking (and this is for the "last days" — verse 2) this phrase refers to the 150 million pollution-producing automobiles, trucks and buses straining the capacity of America's and Western Europe's road system today! What does God say about our materialistic way of life? How does He evaluate it? Continue, verse 8: "Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down [in service to these idols] and the great man humbleth himself [before the same idols]: therefore forgive them not." What must happen to this materialistic age in which people have all but forgotten about their Creator? "... And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day... And the idols he shall utterly abolish" (verses 11, 18). Yes, we take great pride in man's accomplishments. We worship what man has made and done. We idolize our "sophisticated" way of life. Yet this very way of life would lead to oblivion without God's intervention! (Matt. 24:22) But a merciful God WILL intervene to save mankind from himself.
The Beautiful, CLEAN World Tomorrow
Once man has learned his lesson, God will help him to rebuild society and civilization. But this rebuilding will be done God's way and according to His Law of Love. Here in a nutshell is what will be done: The entire society in the world tomorrow will be based on the Ten Commandments summarized as love toward God and love toward neighbor. God's Spirit will be made freely available to all who desire to obey their Creator and follow His way of life. This is how God will solve the most basic of all pollution problems — CHANGING human nature! Further, God's society — even in the cities — will be based on supplying man's physical need — agriculture (Micah 4:3-4). God wants man to have a communication with nature. Man needs to see firsthand the growth of living things, both plants and animals. There is no better way for him to realize he needs to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually, to develop God-like character! There will be cities with their various crafts and industries, all right, but they will be very carefully controlled from above so that the quality of life and the quality of manufactures do not deteriorate. No more built-in obsolescence — no more emphasis on the latest model — but quality products inherited from generation to generation.
The Big Clean-up
Describing the beginning of His rule, God prophesied through Ezekiel: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be dean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you... And I will put my spirit within you [enabling man to overcome the pulls of human nature] and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them... "I will also save you from ALL your uncleanness's [from physical pollution as well as spiritual]... In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited" (Ezek. 36:25, 27, 29, 33-35). And now verse 38: "... so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men." Notice, it doesn't say "men packed into cities like sardines in a can" but "flocks of men," human beings with enough room to roam around in, to live comfortably and enjoy all the blessings of God's way of life. Notice also what the prophet Amos predicts for the happy people living in the soon-coming world tomorrow: "They shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them" (Amos 9:14). Imagine! Gardens in the city! — actually growing food — as in Amsterdam today — to be picked fresh only hours before use. Imagine people interested in having substantial gardens and working in them! The cities of the future will also be spacious enough to care for animals (Jer. 31:24; Zech. 2:4; Psalm 144:13). No more milkless milk and foodless foods. With good food and sufficient exercise, fresh air and sunshine, people will be robust and healthy instead of pallid and sickly. Yes, society in the world tomorrow is going to be far superior to anything on earth today. God promises: "And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit; and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezek. 36:11). This is the good news of how today's pollution problem will be solved! If you want to learn more about the happy world tomorrow — and how you can have a part in it — read our free booklet entitled The Wonderful World Tomorrow - What It Will Be Like. It will open your eyes.
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