Stewards of the Earth

It is a common sentiment in almost all human mythological and religious roots that man is meant to care for the earth. The biblical story of Adam and Eve is perhaps the best known version of Man being “put into the garden… to dress it and to keep it.” It is only natural then that from our combined human histories we see ourselves, the most rational beings on the planet, as the keepers of the earth, meant to care for flora and fauna alike.

So to lend credence to the biblical allusion, why is it that we have fallen so far? How is it that the human appears to no longer care much for the state of affairs all around us? We see the way in which environmental actions affect us, from the largest hurricane to the smallest microbial blight, we are very much attached to this world and it is very much attached to us. 

So how are so many people so skeptical about the affect we are having on the environment? Even John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, has his doubts about our immediate impact on the global environment. But in the end, whether or not global warming is a proven phenomenon caused by human interference or simply a natural cycle, does it matter? If global warming is simply a cycle and not caused by our greenhouse gas emissions, should this change the way we treat the planet? Should we continue to deplete natural resources and give up on recycling? If it’s not our fault, why should we care?

Even if global warming is not man-caused, we have certainly done enough to effect the planet with our waste, pollution and destruction of natural animal and plant habitats. These human habits go back a long way, farther than most, starting with the domestication of plant and animal species at the dawn of agriculture. From this point we have been changing the earth, slowly and almost imperceptibly altering the way in which the world breathes. 

We have changed the world, in ways no one could have foreseen. We are tied to the earth, and whether or not our greenhouse gasses have irrevocably changed the climate we owe it to the planet to do all in our power to treat her well. She is all we have to live on.

AceFisch | My Bio & Articles

I am an junior English major/ Philosophy minor at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Currently I am spending the spring of 2009 studying at the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland.