more powerful than we know

At our Atlanta Beyond Oil meeting last night, the first of the arguments against Christian environmentalism that I listed in my last post was brought up: the argument that God wouldn't allow humans to become powerful enough to destroy the earth. I didn't bother refuting this in my last post, simply because it has always struck me as too absurd to be worth denying. But according to the speaker we heard last night from Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, it's an argument that is still often cited, so I'll attempt to address it.

The most obvious Christian response to this argument is the passage so often used as an excuse to destroy the earth: Genesis 1:28, which speaks of man's "rule" or "stewardship" over the earth. This has often been misunderstood as permission for us to use the earth however we want. But the inevitable other side of the coin is the understanding that we do have power over the earth--power to destroy as well as to care for. If we really are stewards, then we have the power to waste as well as to nurture.

And even apart from the implication of that verse, there are numerous passages that speak specifically of the influence of man's actions--and especially man's evil--on the earth. Take Romans 8:

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Rom. 8:20-22)

Or go further back to the story of the Fall, when God tells Adam:

Cursed is the ground because of you. (Gen. 3:17)

The implication is unavoidable: what people do has an effect on the earth. We have more power than we want to admit.

And perhaps it's that, more than anything else, that makes me an environmentalist. The idea of individual responsibility is one I prefer not to emphasize in comparison to corporate responsibility, because I think personal choice and responsibility has become overly important in our individualistic American culture. But the dichotomy I feel between the two is strangely ironic, because, although Christian theology is far more communal and corporate than American society, it was Christianity that first brought the individual and his importance to reality in the ancient world. Individuals were nothing until Christ came along. And so I think the power of even an individual over his environment and the world--the influence that each of us has--is still a very Christian understanding.

Last night at our ABO meeting, one of the scientists present brought up the IPCC reports on climate change. He pointed out the fact that the IPCC has to run numerous varieties of "adaptation scenarios," because we can't predict what the results of climate change will be just by looking at the data. We can't predict the results with any kind of scientific certainty for one simple reason: one of the most important factors in predicting the future is the human element. The human response, and the changes we make or don't make, will have a huge impact on the end result. What we do does make a difference. What you and I do, individually, makes a bigger difference than we know.