The World and Everything in It — January 27, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The United States has a record-busting deficit, yet the government plans to send out more money it doesn’t have.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, World Tour. 

Plus a woman in Alabama is teaching America how to cook for the soul.

And commentator Janie B. Cheaney with some help on taking care of God’s green earth.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, January 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden: administration set to boost vaccine supplies to states » President Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. government will soon begin shipping larger supplies of coronavirus vaccines to states. 

He said with more than 400,000 Americans lost to COVID-19, battling the virus is a “war-time” effort. 

BIDEN: And we’re using the Defense Production Act to launch a full scale war-time effort to address the supply shortages… 

Speaking at the White House, he said the government is ramping up weekly supplies by at least 15 percent. 

He also said his administration will help states to organize their vaccination efforts by giving governors a three-week forecast of vaccine supplies. 

Biden signs exec. orders aimed at racial equality » The president also spoke to reporters on Tuesday just before taking his pen to another stack of executive orders—this time with a focus on racial equality.  

BIDEN: We have never really lived up to the founding principles of this nation to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives. And it’s time to act now.

Biden said he’s rescinding the Trump administration’s ban on diversity and sensitivity training in the federal government. 

He’s also ordering the Department of Justice to end its reliance on private prisons. That means the DOJ will not renew most contracts with private facilities. He called the order the “first step to stop corporations from profiting off of incarceration.”

Biden is also asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reassess a change made by former HUD Secretary Ben Carson that raised the bar for proving unintentional discrimination. It also gave defendants more latitude to refute such claims. However, that rule change has been tied up in federal courts.

White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said Tuesday…

RICE: These aren’t feel-good policies. The evidence is clear. Investing in equity is good for economic growth, and it creates jobs for all Americans. 

The president also signed an order Tuesday reaffirming the sovereignty of tribal governments over their lands. 

Senate gridlock ends as two Democrats vow to guard filibuster rule » Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate can finally get rolling after days of gridlock.  

With the chamber now split, 50-50, the Senate was frozen as party leaders clashed over a new power sharing agreement. But they have now agreed to move forward.

Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell locked horns on one paramount issue: the filibuster. 

That’s the rule that allows the minority party to block legislation that can’t muster at least 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate. 

Without that rule, a simple 51-vote majority would be enough. But McConnell argued…

MCCONNELL: The bar for lawmaking is high. It should be high. Even if both [parties] take turns being slightly frustrated by it. If your legislation can’t pass the Senate, you don’t scrap the rules or lower the standards, you improve your idea.

Since the 1800s, both parties have often used the rule to block legislation that would otherwise have passed with a simple majority. But many Democrats say it’s time for a change.

Schumer said Tuesday…

SCHUMER: For the last six years, Leader McConnell and the Republicans turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard. 

McConnell demanded the filibuster rule be protected but Schumer said no. 

SCHUMER: Now that Leader McConnell has relented on his demand that was preventing the Senate from moving forward with an organizing resolution, we can begin work. 

McConnell dropped his demand when two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema vowed that they would not vote to end the filibuster.

While the chamber is evenly split, Vice President Kamala Harris breaks the tie in any 50/50 vote.

Sec. of State Blinken ready for work after Senate confirmation » Newly confirmed Secretary of State Tony Blinken is expected to start work today after senators approved his nomination on Tuesday. 

AUDIO: The yeas are 78, the nays are 22. The nomination is confirmed. 

The 58-year-old diplomat served in the Obama administration as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser. 

Blinken will take the wheel at the State Department charged with carrying out President Biden’s foreign policy plans. Much of that will center on reversing former President Trump’s “America first” approach. 

Blinken testified on Capitol Hill last week, telling lawmakers that “American leadership still matters.” 

BLINKEN: When we’re not engaged, when we’re not leading, then one of two things is likely to happen: either some other country tries to take our place, but not in a way that likely to advance our interests and values, or maybe just as bad, no one does, and then you have chaos.

But Blinken told lawmakers that he also agreed with many of Trump’s foreign policy efforts. He specifically mentioned U.S.-brokered diplomatic deals between Israel and several Arab states and a tough stance on China.

However, the Biden administration is interested in reforging the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018.

Judge bars Biden from enforcing 100-day deportation ban » A federal judge on Tuesday barred the Biden administration from enforcing a 100-day deportation moratorium. 

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary restraining order sought by Texas. Tipton said the administration had failed “to provide any concrete, reasonable justification for a 100-day pause on deportations.”

The moratorium went into effect Friday and applied to almost anyone who entered the U.S. without authorization before November.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: President Biden’s economic stimulus plan.

Plus, Janie B. Cheaney on the true definition of dominion.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, January 27th, 2021.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you are. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up, government spending.

REICHARD: Yeah, and then some. It is Washington Wednesday, after all.

EICHER: Well, it is and it’s time to analyze the latest Covid relief package likely to be coming out of Congress—as we’ve reported—the dollar figure being bandied about is $1.9 trillion.

REICHARD: Some of the items in that legislation are directly related to pandemic relief: $160 billion for the national vaccination effort, $170 billion to prepare schools to reopen. But the rest? It’s mostly for tangential matters and because it far exceeds tax revenue coming in. It will of course dramatically increase the debt burden for people not yet born. 

Joining us now to parse all those enormous numbers is Brian Riedl. He is a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute. 

Good morning, Brian!

BRIAN RIEDL, GUEST: Good morning. Glad to be here. 

REICHARD: Let’s start with the so-called stimulus checks. At the end of last year, Congress approved sending $600 to most Americans. That was on top of the money sent out in the spring. President Biden wants to add another $1,400 per person to that total. That proposal was popular among politicians on both sides of the aisle. But you say it’s not necessary or even helpful for the economy. Why is that?

RIEDL: Yeah, it’s pretty easy for politicians to be in favor of handing out money to people. Everybody loves checks. Everybody’s really grumpy about the shutdown and feels like the government owes them a lot of money for it. The problem with the checks primarily is that they’re not targeted. The checks go to everybody, every family up to a very high income whether you’ve lost a dollar or not. And the reality is that most of the people receiving the checks have not lost a dollar of wages or income during the pandemic. That is just not a good use of stimulus dollars. It’s $600 billion added to the national debt that really serves no policy purpose.

And some say, well, this will stimulate the economy. It will get people to spend. Well, the last stimulus checks were almost entirely saved. In fact, the savings rate hit the highest level ever in America last spring because they were largely saved. And that was in a weaker economy. This time around, the economy is even a little bit stronger than it was a year ago when we did the last rebate checks, so this is all going to be saved, too.

See, the problem right now in the economy is not that people don’t have money to spend, it’s that certain industries have been shut down so you can’t spend the money at these industries. You know? Airlines, hospitalities, restaurants. Giving everybody more money without actually opening the industries to spend the money isn’t really going to help the economy at all, it’s just going to increase the savings rate. 

REICHARD: How might this be better done, then? Maybe just targeting to people who really need the help in the form of unemployment benefits? Would that be better? 

RIEDL: Yeah, I think right now the primary role of government in terms of the economy after we try to get the vaccine and reopen the schools is to help those who have lost income. It’s to replenish lost income. Unemployment benefits are extremely important right now and Washington at this point is being very generous with them. They’re replenishing 100 percent of the lost wages for the typical person who’s lost their job. There’s also grants to distressed companies to make sure they don’t lay people off. I’m not sure that there’s a policy purpose to write thousands and thousands of dollars of checks, though, to families making $200,000 a year who haven’t lost a penny. I don’t really know what policy purpose that serves, other than everybody likes free money so it’s popular. 

REICHARD: The president also wants to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 dollars an hour. Restaurants and small businesses are already struggling. What’ll happen to them if this becomes law? 

RIEDL: Yeah, minimum wage is another policy that sounds good in the abstract because everybody wants workers to get paid more. But the reality is when you raise the minimum wage too high, instead of getting wages, people just get laid off because their employer can’t afford to pay them that wage. The Congressional Budget Office said that even if you raise the minimum wage gradually over five years during a booming economy, it would still cost 1.3 million jobs or as many as 3.7 million at the top range. But starting it off during a recession is even worse, when employers are already struggling to stay open, raising their costs is just going to get people laid off. It’s not going to get them raises.

And the craziest part is raising the tipped minimum wage, what those like waiters and waitresses make, from $2.13 all the way to $15. So, when you think of restaurants suffering right now, millions of restaurants have gone out of business, the industry is teetering on the brink of collapse, and Biden wants to increase their minimum wage for waiters and waitresses by 600 percent? That’s economic malpractice.

It’s the worst possible time to do that. It’s going to drive a lot of these teetering businesses, particularly restaurants, on the brink of bankruptcy right out of business. Some places can afford a higher minimum wage. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, maybe, can afford $15 an hour, but places like Biloxy, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, where the average wage is lower and prices are lower, they’re going to drown. It’s going to kill jobs. It’s the worst time to do this. 

REICHARD: This is supposed to be a temporary relief measure, but as you’ve noted, most massive Washington spending plans have a way of becoming permanent. What are some of the elements of this proposed package that could end up sticking around for a long, long time?

RIEDL: You know, we saw this in the last time when we had the trillion dollar stimulus bill in 2009, there were a lot of expansions to the earned income tax credit, the child credit, the American opportunity tax credit that were all supposed to be temporary and once you create that benefit, politicians don’t want to take it away, so they end up making it permanent. In this case, we have another EITC expansion—Earned Income Tax Credit. There’s another expansion of the child credits. There’s childcare subsidies. SNAP benefits.

They’re all listed as temporary, but realistically, when they expire a year from now, there’s no way members of Congress are going to let them expire. They’re going to build their own constituency and everyone’s going to say keep the expansion of the child credit, keep the expansion of the EITC, don’t take it away. And Congress will just keep renewing it. And the cost could be enormous. The one year expansion of the child tax credit will cost about $120 billion. But if you make that permanent, then over the decade, it’s $1.2 trillion instead of $120 billion. Which means the whole Biden stimulus package really won’t cost $1.9 trillion over the decade, it really will cost closer to $3 trillion over the decade, once these policies take on a life of their own, build a constituency, and get renewed.

Now, I’m not saying we can’t increase the child credit, but let’s do this outside of the stimulus at a time where we can actually look at the long term budget, look at other competing priorities, find ways to pay for it, and not do it as a temporary emergency when we know this is just a backdoor way for a permanent program. 

REICHARD: So if it passes, what would this proposal do to the already staggering federal deficit? The debt load per person already stands at roughly $80,000 dollars. What’s that mean for the average American?

RIEDL: Well, the deficit numbers are pretty scary. We’ve already spent $3.4 trillion on the pandemic in the last year. A lot of it has been necessary. You need to find a cure, you need to help those who have suffered. But because they’ve gone somewhat excessive, if we do this $1.9 trillion bill, that will be over $5 trillion. To put that in context, by the time this bill is spent, about a quarter of the national debt will be the result of the pandemic. [laughs] A quarter of the entire national debt will have occurred in the past year because of the pandemic. Deficits of $3-4-5 trillion. We’ve never seen this before.

I was worried before the pandemic hit that the deficit was about to hit $1 trillion a year on its way to $2 trillion in a decade. Well, now we’re looking at $3-4 trillion a year for repeated years. And even when the pandemic ends, we’re looking at deficits of $1-2 trillion a year as far as the eye can see. The numbers get really scary because as the debt gets bigger, the interest costs get bigger for the federal government. And we’re already facing all sorts of budget problems with Social Security and Medicare, to the point that within a couple decades, the biggest part of the federal budget is going to be interest on the debt. In fact, we’re going to get to the point where half of all your federal taxes just pay the interest on the debt, which means it’s not paying to defend the country, Social Security, Medicare, or roads. Half of your tax dollars are going to pay interest. And even that’s under an assumption of low interest rates.

If interest rates rise, you could have two-thirds of your taxes eventually paying the interest on the debt. Like I said, you want your tax dollars to go to things that benefit you, not pay interest. That’s why we have to pay attention to these deficits that go into the trillions of dollars as far as the eye can see. 

REICHARD: This proposed stimulus package seems unlikely to pass in its current form, because the Democrats don’t have the 60 votes they need in the Senate. Is any part of this likely to win bipartisan support?

RIEDL: They’re not going to get 60 votes, you’re correct, for the current package because $1.9 trillion is too much and Republicans are not going to support a $15 minimum wage during a recession. The two options for Democrats are to either shrink the policy down to the bare bones that are the most important, such as funding the vaccine, reopening schools, the Republicans might agree to the rebates, and having a skinnier package that can get 60 votes. Or doing it through this reconciliation process that can pass with only 50 votes.

But even then you’re not allowed to raise the minimum wage in a reconciliation bill, so they would have to take out the minimum wage. And, even then, they’d have to get every Democrat in the Senate to support it because they only have 50 Democratic Senators.

So, you still — even then, if they go the reconciliation route that only requires 50 votes, the package will still probably shrink somewhat to get everybody on board, and they won’t be able to do the minimum wage. That’s probably the path forward right now is to use this reconciliation measure that can pass by 50 votes but then have to kind of throw a few of the provisions overboard.

REICHARD: Brian Riedl is a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute. Thanks so much for joining us today.

RIEDL: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa correspondent Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Rebels advance on CAR capital—We start today here in Africa.

The newly elected government of the Central African Republic declared a state of emergency on Friday. Anti-government fighters control two-thirds of the country and surrounded the capital, Bangui, last week. UN peacekeepers repelled the attack.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French]

The UN special representative for the country urged the UN Security Council to increase its involvement or risk having the rebels overthrow the government.

The latest unrest follows last week’s announcement that incumbent President Faustin Archange Touadera won the majority of votes in December’s election. But fear of violence kept turnout incredibly low—just one-third of eligible voters. A coalition of rebel forces disputes the results.

Fighting among ethnic groups began in 2013 after the predominantly Muslim Selekas seized power in a coup. A militia loyal to the government forced the Selekas out in 2014, and a backlash against all Muslims followed.

Seven UN peacekeepers have died in attacks since the December 27th election.

Riots against COVID curfew in The Netherlands—Next we go to Europe.

AUDIO: [Sound of crowd followed by pops]

Anger over a new curfew in The Netherlands has sparked nightly, violent protests across the country. Protesters set fires, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, and looted shops.

The protests began after the country’s prime minister announced a nighttime curfew to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. It is the first time the Dutch have faced a curfew since World War Two. The country was already under strict lockdown measures, with schools and non-essential shops shut since December.

Officials say the curfew is necessary to stop the spread of a more contagious strain of the virus. 

Troops clash along China-India border—Next we go to Asia.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Mandarin]

A spokesman for the Chinese government urged India to avoid “unilateral actions” that could complicate a tense situation along the two countries’ shared border.

Chinese and Indian troops clashed last week, just four days before officials were scheduled to discuss the conflict over the disputed border area. Indian army officials downplayed the incident, saying local army commanders quickly resolved it.

But the two countries are no closer to solving their years-long dispute over the Himalayan region. Both sides have mobilized tens of thousands of soldiers, artillery, and fighter aircraft in the area, raising fears of armed conflict between two countries that have nuclear weapons.

Chinese miners rescued—And finally, we end today in eastern China.

AUDIO: [Clapping, voices]

Rescue crews pulled 11 survivors from a collapsed gold mine on Sunday. The men spent two weeks underground after an explosion and cave-in blocked their only exit.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Mandarin]

On Monday, officials announced they had discovered the bodies of nine other men who died in the initial explosion. Another man who survived died of a head wound just days before the rescue. One man remains missing.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: If you’re in the market for a house with lots of character, well, listen up. 

A charming historic 4-bedroom home built in 1878 is for sale in the quaint riverside town of Guildhall, Vermont.

The property listing mentions recent renovations such as radiant floor heat, replacement windows, and a repaired dormer. And a jail! 

REICHARD: That’s the character part. 

See, the house was built for the jailer of Essex county with a prison block attached to the house for several inmates. Cut down on his commute time to work that way. 

The jail’s not been used as a jail for more than 50 years, but the thick steel bars still look serviceable. 

As real estate agent Jennifer Allen told WPTZ…

ALLEN: There will not be another person probably that you would ever know in your life that owns a jailers house and an attached jail.

And if that’s what’s important to you, then the fact that the price tag has doubled in just two years’ time ought not really to matter.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 27th. So glad you’ve joined us today for The World and Everything in It. 

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next, a social-media success story. When lockdowns meant more people cooking from home, a grandmother in Alabama used Facebook to share her skillet skills.

EICHER: Brenda Gantt had no idea her cozy kitchen visits would be a hit with this foodie generation, but they are. From salmon patties to spaghetti sauce, her cooking posts routinely dish up more than a million hits.

WORLD Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson traveled down to Andalusia, Alabama, to bring us the story.

GANTT: This is my front porch… 

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Brenda Gantt’s home is a ’70s sprawler facing a black-topped county road. 

GANTT: I was raised in Tuscaloosa, then my husband brought me down here. I’d never even heard of this place, but I love it… 

Thanks to Gantt and her cooking videos, Andalusia, Alabama, gets Googled a lot these days. 

VIDEO: [GIVING INSTRUCTIONS]

She and her biscuits hit the big time last March, and now the 74-year-old can’t sit on her porch without strangers slowing their cars to gawk. And when she goes shopping, everyone wants to take a picture with the Facebook phenom. 

GANTT: Then one woman ran out from behind the counter, and she couldn’t see me. I couldn’t see her. And she said, “I knew it. I knew it.” She said, “I recognized your voice.” 

Gantt’s easy smile and silver ponytail are on magazine covers, and she’s been on the Kelly Clarkson Show. It’s hard to believe all the attention started because Chris Harwell and other men at Gantt’s church wanted “Miss Brenda” to teach their wives a few of her cooking secrets. 

CHRIS: I used to tease Ragan. I’d say, “I’m going to send you over there one Saturday morning so you can learn how to make those biscuits…”

The COVID lockdown was the catalyst Gantt needed to make good on those requests. Late one night, Harwell was rocking his son and scrolling through Facebook. He landed on Gantt’s personal page.  

CHRIS: And I see Miss Brenda right there. She’s making biscuits. And it was like this thing of gold.

Harwell, along with lots of others, shared the video. It’s had more than six and half million views. Gantt got thousands of messages.

GANTT: How do you do butterbeans? How do you do all this other stuff? And I’m thinking, “Bless their heart. They really can’t cook. You know, America needs help here… 

VIDEO: [BRENDA INTRODUCING A VIDEO]

Gantt doesn’t follow a schedule for posting her videos. But two or three times a week they appear, straight from her kitchen with its basic appliances and antique chopping block.

AUDIO: [GANTT DESCRIBING BACON PRESS]

She has a drawer full of seasoned iron ware, but her prize culinary tool is a 1970s Chef Boyardee can with the ends cut off. She uses it to shape biscuits. 

Gant’s recording setup is simple, too: her iPhone in a plastic stand on her kitchen counter. 

GANT: I pick it up and take it around the kitchen with me. It’s very primitive.

And that’s part of the draw. Followers say they love her because she’s so real. They also love her rice pudding. Cabbage casserole. Dumplings.    

GANTT: I think that I’m bringing back memories. They said, “I wish I had watched my granny cook.” You know, we’ll just as kids walk around the kitchen. We’re really not paying attention. Well, now they’re paying attention to me.

They’re definitely paying attention. The “Cooking with Brenda Gantt” Facebook page has 1.7 million followers. 

Adjusting to that kind of fame hasn’t come easy for Gantt, in spite of her sure footing. A couple of months in, a grandchild said she missed her “Big Momma.” Gantt also took on obligation that kept her from regular church attendance. 

GANTT: But I’m fixing that. You know, we live and learn, don’t we?

Gantt says her goal has always been to help people. Her social media success just gives her a new way to do it, especially since her husband died.  

GANTT: I thought, “Well, what’s my purpose in life?” What is my purpose? Before that, it was to take care of him. Love him. Be his wife, you know, be his helpmate. So I’m glad now that I can help people. That motivates me.

Messages from fans across the globe show Gantt that people are hungering for more than mac and cheese. They’re hungry for soul food. 

GANTT: One of the followers said, “You know we love your cooking, Ms. Brenda, that’s the cake. But you telling about Jesus — that’s the icing on the cake.”

It’s a surprise platform for Gantt. She takes her role seriously.  

GANTT: It tells in Scripture for the older women to teach the younger ones. Now that doesn’t just mean in cooking. That means in life skills, getting along with your husband, raising children, appropriate dress, all kinds of stuff.

But that kind of investing is really nothing new for Gantt. She’s been faithfully teaching women like Chris Harwell’s wife, Ragan, all along. 

RAGAN: …to serve your family, be hospitable to other people, sharing what God’s doing in your life over a meal…

But now with such a reach, like in this dessert post from last summer. 

VIDEO: [As unto the Lord…]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Andalusia, Alabama.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Here’s commentator Janie B. Cheaney now on taking care of our land.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: Fall rains and cooler temperatures have brought a reprieve from this year’s catastrophic wildfires, but climatologists agree that the West will remain a tinderbox for the near future. Some put all the blame on climate change, but others have been pointing, with increasing urgency, to federal management policies from the early 20th century, including a zero-tolerance policy toward all wildfires—stomping them out, wherever possible, by midmorning after the day they were spotted.

More experts are insisting it’s better to let normal wilderness wildfires clear out the undergrowth quickly with no permanent damage to mature trees. Controlled burns in farm country could create firebreaks that keep seasonal blazes from feeding on themselves.

So, why aren’t controlled burns and managed fires the policy? Ask almost any Western fire manager and he’s likely to sigh in frustration. To clear forests in California alone would mean burning upwards of one million acres per year. The current average is about 20,000. It can take months to jump the environmental hoops, and a planned burn can get shut down within hours because of smog levels or complaints by the neighbors. And there’s always liability: nobody pays for cancelling a burn, but a fire that jumps its boundaries can consume jobs and reputations, as well as millions of dollars.

Added to all that is environmentalism’s quasi-religious attitude toward nature that demonizes all forms of development, even responsible forestry. “[S]ocial political realities get in the way of doing a lot of what we need to do,” admits one Forest Service ecologist.

The first book of the Bible sums up “What we need to do” in one word: dominion. To the extreme environmentalist, dominion means domination. It’s actually much more than that. The earth is the Lord’s, but he granted humans the privilege and responsibility of caring for it—which means caring about it. Dominion generates creativity, innovation, order, and plenty. It’s the unseen foundation for science and technology. It’s participation in the ongoing creation narrative, open to any human being with a mind and a skill.

Environmental activists often cast humanity as the villain against a victim who’s fighting back. “Mother Earth is angry,” they say. But the fall that set humans and nature at odds didn’t cancel the dominion contract, just made it more fickle and fraught. While humans can be the cause of environmental degradation, they are more often the cure, gifted with the ability to self-correct and solve problems. One reason the Eastern U.S. doesn’t have massive, chronic wildfires is not just because it’s wetter, but because much more of it is privately owned. Farmers and foresters generally take better care of what belongs to them, benefitting the land as well as the landowner.

Federal land-management policy needs to change, but you still have dominion in your own backyard. Even a well-tended flower bed pleases man and glorifies the Lord.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: We’re hearing about children showing signs of pandemic strain. We’ll talk with psychologists about what parents can do to help.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. 

Go now in grace and peace.

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