The Environment: Skip the Complex, Focus on the Simple

These days there’s a lot of wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Over what? We can think of many things. But near the top of the list is the environment.

 

We hear a lot in the media about “global warming.” Wait…that’s so last decade. Now it’s called “climate change,” because whether it gets too cold or too hot, whether it rains too much or not enough, we can still blame it on climate change. When I was growing up, we called it “weather.” 

 

During the late 1960s and early ‘70s, newspapers, magazines and science journals were running feature articles about “global cooling” and “the coming ice age.” Living in the Midwest then, my family and I experienced weeks of extreme cold and blizzards, which seemed to support those predictions. There were also reports of an impending natural gas shortage, fanning fears there wouldn’t be enough fuel to heat homes during that frigid period. Thankfully, the prognosticators were wrong. 

 

As for today’s festering and fomenting environmental debates, some might claim “settled science.” However, one certainty about science is that it’s never settled. Consider the scientists who were convinced the earth is flat; that the sun revolved around the moon; that blood-letting leeches could cure diseases; and that “there is a world market for maybe five computers.” In case you don’t know, computer scientist Thomas Watson, president of IBM in 1943, made the latter prediction. 

 

Global environment problems are far too complex, too hard for most of us to understand, much less solve. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about the world God created. In fact, the Lord stipulated from the beginning that humans were to serve as stewards over all He had made.

 

In Genesis 1:27-28 God declared what some theologians call “the cultural mandate”: After creating man and woman “in His own image…God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creative that moves on the ground.’”

 

This assignment, Bible scholars tell us, was to serve as “keepers of the garden.” Not just the garden of Eden, from which Adam and Eve would be evicted following their sinful disobedience, but all of God’s glorious creation. He was delegating to them dominion over the earth. And to us.

 

The problem is, we haven’t done particularly well with that. Just drive the highway and observe the litter collecting along the roadsides. The oceans are teeming not only with fish and other aquatic life but also with plastic bottles and various kinds of refuse. We could cite numerous other examples of what we might call “dominion malfeasance.”

 

We can do better. We should do better. Even though the task seems overwhelming. The earth might be a microscopic speck on a map of the universe, but it’s still big to us. What impact can one person possibly have? Maybe that’s one reason it seems easier to cede the responsibility to the government and the scientists. Unfortunately, mixing politics with science is never good – as we’ve seen so clearly in recent years.

 

What can we do? Getting serious about not littering would be a good start. But I’m thinking of another option that takes very little effort. And it can quickly become a good habit. What I’m referring to is a simple practice relatively few people engage in: Recycling.

 

Frankly, I’m amazed that with its fingers in so many of our pies, governments don’t put forth a stronger effort to persuade people to recycle things like paper, plastic, metal and aluminum cans, and plastic bags.

 

My wife and I have been doing this for several years, and we’ve cut about in half the amount of stuff we take to the curb in our garbage can. The plastic bottles and bags, paper of all sorts (including junk mail), soda and food cans we used to throw in the trash we now take every week or two to our local recycling center. 

 

This might not sound very spiritual, but it’s one way of being obedient as stewards of what God has made and entrusted to our care. When Jesus told His parable of the talents, in which three servants were entrusted to different amounts of money to handle while their master was away, that might not have sounded very spiritual either. But He was teaching an important principle. 

 

Those who were deemed “good and faithful servants” had been “faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things” (Matthew 25:14-30). On the other hand, the “wicked, lazy servant” received no reward. He was cast out.

We don’t have to be “tree-huggers” or “save the planet” fanatics to recognize our role, as small as it may be, in the stewardship of this wonderful world God has given to us. It might seem like a small thing, but this honors our Lord. We might not have any direct effect on changing weather patterns, but we can keep some plastic bottles from being swept out to sea.