Environmental Stewardship, part 2

God, the Creator of all things, rules over all and deserves our worship and adoration (Ps. 103:19-22).

The essay, from Environmental Stewardship, contrasts the biblical role of the environment, one where man is given a special role as steward, to what some environmentalists believe, that all creatures are equal. The other aspect of environmentalism is to look at history. What actions as a group cause environmental issue and what helps the environment?

The freer, wealthier coutnries have experience consistent reductions in pollution and improvements in their environment, while the less free, poorer countries have experience increasing environmental degradation.

The essay spends a whole section going over the benefits that we have seen in the last few centuries. It then shows how economic and environmental trends relate. There is a correlation between the economic development of countries and the environment. When a country has quite poor and no economy, there is little pollution. As their economy grows, there is an increase in pollution. This is natural because you have people that are most worried about survival -- not about the environment. But once they reach a certain level, the environment starts to improve, and, after time will be better than when they were a poor country.

Paul Erlich postulated that as population grew, affluence increased, and technology increased, you would see an increase in pollution. Emperical evidence has proved this wrong. In fact, there is an inverse correlation between these factors and pollution.

The essay next talks about some of the current environmental concerns: population growth, global warming, and rapid species extinction.

Go to the Acton Website if you want more info or to order the book Environmental Stewardship. This is a great start if you are concerned about the well being of the earth and the poor. And, in fact, people will die because of poor policy decisions. The essay has an estimate of 19,300 to 30,000 premature deaths per year in the United States if the Kyoto Protocol were fully adopted.

Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition

I am in the middle of the Protestant chapter of Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. This was published by the Acton Institute and contains four sections. The first section is The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. The next three sections are essays from Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives on environmental stewardship.

The Protestant section starts out with the Theological foundations of environmental stewardship. It then goes on to show the ethical reasons for stewardship. It is a well referenced essay with both biblical references, and 77 footnotes of research and publications.

This essay had six editors, four of whom are professors at colleges and seminaries. Just reading through quickly can be done, but I will want to go back and follow some of the biblical references, which is how I recommend other's read it, too.

(to be continued...)

Effective Stewardship: Wisdom on the Environment

The Acton Institute sent me a copy of Effective Stewardship: Wisdom on the Environment which I watched yesterday. This is a twenty minute film that is very well done. It is both well paced but packed with great insights into the complex problem of caring for the environment.

One of the points they brought out was our responsibility to the world’s poor. That environmental policy would be felt most by the poor. In fact, those that are the poorest may die because of policy choices. "Ideas have consequences."

They also dealt with global warming. They asked four questions:

1. Is the earth really warming?
2. Is it man-made?
3. Is it harmful or beneficial?
4. Do the policies do what they are intended to do?

To be good stewards we have a responsibility to look at these questions seriously, and, when we can understand the consequences then move forward.

You can get the video to find out a brief overview of the answers to the questions above. For people locally, you can borrow the video from me.

In His Love,

Paul

P.S. They also sent a collection of essays on "Environmental Stewardship" which I will blog about later.

False Prophets

Matthew 7:15-16 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them..."

Even before his death, Jesus warned us about false prophets that would come.

Matthew 24:24-25 "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time."

Beware of the Bears!

My teenage daughter likes to tease me about my thinning hair by calling me Baldo. At supper this evening, she said she had been reading 2 Kings 2:23-24.

From there Eisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths come out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

So now I have a response to her teasing:

Beware of the Bears!

Reasoning

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 1 Co 13:11