On Faith and the Environment

Warmer days with longer periods of sunlight have been distracting my kids from homework lately and I can’t really blame them. But, Spring weather hasn’t distracted my attention from the price of gasoline or how quickly it drains out of my Volvo wagon at a paltry 17 miles per gallon around town.

According to the business magazine Forbes (www.forbesautos.com), one burned gallon of gas translates to 20lbs of CO2, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. So, driving just the U.S. average of 15,000 miles in a year makes me personally responsible for over 17,647lbs of carbon dioxide. You can figure your particular carbon footprint at www.epa.gov/greenvehicles.

Let’s see: 15,000 miles divided by 22mpg (average fuel efficiency according to Department of Transportation statisticians based on 55% city and 45% highway miles) times 20lbs per gallon times 247 million U.S. passenger vehicles. Well, you do the math.

Of course, maybe you’re a global warming skeptic. Maybe you think that a single cold winter disproves long term, statistical data. Some would-be debunkers of human contributions to warming even cite, as primary causes, clinically immeasurable, naturally occurring events such as volcanoes and flatulence from bovine and teenage boys.

On the other side of the argument, practical observers in business have concluded otherwise.

John Hofmeister has taken a pro environment stand as President of Shell Oil’s North American operations. In a Charlie Rose interview (see the video at www.charlierose.com), Hofmeister affirmed his industry observation that human efforts do significantly impact on global warming based on the amount of carbon emitted each year and the scientifically calculable effect per ton of carbon in the atmosphere.

Ray Anderson, Chairman of flooring maker Interface, Inc., has been guiding his company toward a goal of zero negative environmental impact for decades. Disgusted by the sheer amount of waste and rate of extraction of carbon resources, Anderson has innovated to drastically reduce waste, use fewer raw materials and decrease emissions from manufacturing. Anderson’s personal commitment even includes the swapping of out his executive luxury vehicle for a compact hybrid.

Are these guys are just kooks? If so, they’re highly successful kooks. Interface gross sales in 2006 were just over $1 billion and Shell USA revenues topped $26 billion. These are not tie dye wearing granola munchers but savvy industrialists whose agendas are productivity, efficiency, return on equity, profit margins, and shareholder value.

That said, Anderson has a serious indictment of the religious community.

In his book, Mid-Course Correction (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2000), Anderson stated that he was turned off by the church specifically because, in his experience, its views did not support environmental reality. It’s true that the environment has been a divisive, hot potato issue for the religious community in the last decade but if you want to make value choices informed by faith, environmental concern need not be a dilemma.

Simply put, human beings have a mandate from God to be stewards of creation.

Creation’s problem isn’t the debate between evolution and the book of Genesis, but our dismissal of inconvenient Biblical truths like God’s absolute claim over all of it. However it got here, we think it’s our creation, not God’s. We’ve got the mineral rights, the surface rights, and the air rights too.

Well God has made us many promises, but has never given away the farm.

The famous line in the first chapter of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over… every living thing that moves upon the earth” is not a license to freely exploit natural resources for profit. It’s a gracious provision of sustenance. Moreover, we Christians should re-acquaint ourselves with Leviticus 25:23/24 which commands: “… the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”

You don’t have to be a tie dye wearing, granola muncher or liberal theologian to make ethical value choices about the environment. Just read your Bible thoroughly. All of it.