You never know exactly what is going to tick someone off. Indeed, some people seem to be nothing but ticking time bombs.

Take Howie B. Hind, for example.

I think it is safe to say that the individual who wrote me the other day is not really named Howie B. Hind, nor does he live in Texarkana at 67 Running A Way. Actually, though, "behind" fits him pretty well and, without a doubt he is running away.

Run, Howie, run but you just can't hide.

Howie had a serious problem with a "Living Green" page we published in the newspaper last week.

The items on the page had nothing whatsoever to do with anything controversial, such as, say, global warming, which some still refuse to believe. Nothing about carbon footprints, power plants or anything of the sort.

Instead, it was the sort of thing you might find in a magazine like Consumer Reports. One story was about Murphy Oil Soap and Bon Ami having been naturally environmentally friendly for years. The other item on the page was a story on ten tips save water.

Yes, I know, this is edgy stuff.

Or at least it was to Howie, who scribbled comments all across the page, very few of which could be printed in the newspaper, even if I was inclined to bore you to tears.

But suffice it to say printing such material makes Howie "want to vomit" and he wants us to "get the hell off my planet." He signed his note: "One who has it and will spend it.

And therein lies the answer to the problem that plagues a lot of folks — not just Howie. They have come to somehow believe that this is "their" planet.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I'm not sure how anyone could get that idea. It is in no religious text that I know of, certainly not the Christian or Jewish Bible.

Being given "dominion" over the Earth is not nearly the same thing as being given ownership.

When you loan your car to one of your children, you've given them "dominion" over it for the time they have it in their possession.

You don't want it back with a dent in the fender and with no gas in the tank. You want it back just like you gave it to them and if they are nice enough to wash it before they return it, so much the better. They'll probably get to borrow it again.

Furthermore, I can't figure out how telling people how to conserve water would amount in anyone's brain to being a "liberal" idea. The word "conserve" always seemed to be pretty closely linked to "conservative."

Evangelist Chuck Colson, the former Watergate figure who turned his life a complete 180 degrees, recently broached the topic of how Christians should be guided on environmental issues. He is by no means fully convinced on the matter of global warming. Still, he had this to say:

But for Christians, the question of global warming should not stop us from identifying a critical worldview issue here — one on which every Christian can, or should, agree: and that's the importance of good stewardship toward the rest of creation. There are things we can do now to be good stewards that do not require us to get all of the answers that are going to come on global warming.... Can you think of one instance where Scripture praises excessive consumption or waste? I can't.

Colson realizes that, while politics might be entwined in some aspects of the environment, conservation — stewarship — is not open to question. It is something we are called upon to do.

Excessive consumption, though, seems to be the order of the day and not just by movie stars — though they all seem to be pretty good at it.

Like those movie stars, Howie apparently has a few coins in the bank and he believes he's fully free to spend them to waste resources.

If the world doesn't like it, to soften Howie's language, then the world be damned.

Which is, of course, the point. There are too many people like Howie and too few people like Colson and others who see that each person who fails in their duty of stewardship is doing his own little part to "damn" the world.

This isn't about an approching environmental doomsday, it is simply about doing what is right. If you do what is right, you never have to worry about facing doomsday.