Save the Planet? Save the People

On her blog, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says, “To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.”

If you want to fight climate change, there is a Biblical basis for doing so, but this isn't it.

For one, the idea of Creation "needing" people is completely contrary to the Bible. If anything, the reverse is true.

Likewise, the Eden argument doesn't hold up, especially since we don't live there anymore. In fact, the curse texts seem to indicate that "climate change" is an inevitable result of man's sinfulness.

In essence, if you want to save the planet, you have to change the hearts of people.

The best Biblical case I've found for environmental responsibility comes from Ezekiel 34:18-22:

"Is it too slight a thing for you that you should feed in the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pastures? Or that you should drink of the clear waters, that you must foul the rest with your feet? As for My flock, they must eat what you tread down with your feet and drink what you foul with your feet! Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, "Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and with shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns until you have scattered them abroad, therefore, I will deliver My flock, and they will no longer be a prey; and I will judge between one sheep and another.""

The problem God has always had with pollution is not its impact on the Creation itself, but the harm it does to people. Clean water, clean and healthy food, clean air, all are essentials of life. Those who would deprive the poor of those necessities in the name of greed dishonor (and/or disobey) God far more gravely than those who fail to separate their recyclables. If you want to call on wealthy individuals, corporations, governments and societies to meet Biblical obligations, tell them to set their greed aside, provide for the poor, and protect the defenseless.

Then we can all breathe a lot easier.