The Choice of Survival of Life on this Earth is in Human Hands
As I’ve written about plants, animals, insects, and humans in community on our interdependent planet Earth, perhaps you can now see that the true nature of our planet Earth is a broad-based community. Everyone and everything thrives by helping each other provide everyone’s and everything’s needs for sustenance. If we didn’t have the plants and animals and insects, we can not live here on earth. We must come to not only appreciate this benefit on our planet but to really appreciate every part of the Web of Life that God created for each and every species and to care for every part of that web of life..
There are 17 prophets in the Old Testament of the Bible. Over the next three weeks I’ll be referring to the prophets holding up a mirror to us humans which shows us the state of our hearts and minds and souls. Here is the prophet Obadiah who has only one chapter. In Obadiah 1:15, he writes: “The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.” [NIV] Obadiah is thought to have been written during the Babylonian exile.
The species of plants and animals and insects are limited to how they were designed to fulfill their part of the community of plants, insects, animals and humans. God gave us humans free will and dominion over the earth. It is our choice what we do on this earth. We humans are the cause of Global Warming: In the quote below, are a list of the four causes of Global Warming which is now planet-wide on this Earth.
“Four Major Gases that Contribute to the Greenhouse Effect
1. Carbon Dioxide is released through natural processes(like volcanic eruptions) and through human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.
2. Methane comes from both natural and human-caused sources. Methane comes from plant-matter breakdown in wetlands and is also released from landfills and rice farming. Livestock animals emit methane from their digestion and manure. Leaks from fossil fuel and transportation are another major source of methane, and natural gas is 70% to 90% methane.
3. Nitrous Oxide is released during commercial and organic fertilizer production and use. Nitrous oxide also comes from burning fossil fuels and burning vegetation and has increased by 18% in the last 100 years.
4. Chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) These chemical compounds do not exist in nature—they are entirely of industrial origin. They were used as refrigerants, solvents(a substance that dissolves others,), and spray can propellants.”[1]
Therefore, it is up to us to make the changes that are needed today. It is up to us to change this threat of Global Warming which is so real today. We need to be the change that is now needed here on this Earth! That was the huge task God gave us when He granted us dominion over the living species on this planet, including ourselves.
The question for us is this: Will we see to it that life on our planet not only survives, but thrives or will we allow it to die off in the coming years and eventually no longer be able to support any life?
We’ve had two huge wake-up calls in the last five years. First, there was Covid epidemic which required us to work together across national lines to create a vaccine that would stem the tide. And we did it! Now, for us Americans, I believe that Donald Trump’s election as president, is the second wake-up call. He supports the gas and oil and coal industries! He ignores the needs of most of the people in our country. He only supports billionaires and companies that donate to him tons of money for his re-election bid and for his own pocketbook. It doesn’t matter what they ask him to do for them, he just wants the money. He’s not interested in serving anyone else or any other needs than his own increasing wealth. That’s why he ordered the army to capture the president of Venezuela and his wife and bring them back to the States. Venezuela has tons of oil. So, President Trump did that illegal action for the benefit of the oil and gas industry. So, that’s how he is happy to serve the rich and the corporations who would have a lot to lose if he wasn’t oriented in this way.
For the last six months I’ve been reading the prophets of the Old Testament in the Bible, a chapter or two every morning. After a few months, I realized that the prophets are really holding up a mirror to the Israelites and to all peoples throughout the centuries, including us. The mirrors reflect our sins back to us and our lack of caring about what God has planned for this planet. Unfortunately, instead of looking at our lives and what we are doing with them, we refuse to access the consciences within each of us in order to protect ourselves from having to change by projecting the harm we have done by not following God’s desires for us for the people we consider less than us—the African-American descendants of the former slaves, the Latinos, Asians, and immigrants. They are the problem, not us white people! They do drugs and steal and murder! And yet, each and every human being was made in the image of God and is loved by Him [Genesis 1:27]! We ignore that truth! We use the same attitude about global warming. “I’m not dojng anything that wrecks our planet! I don’t have to worry about global warming!”
Jesus did a great job of describing what we are to do in this lifetime in His statement of purpose as He started His work here:
“To proclaim good news to the poor…
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,…recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Luke 4:18-19]
Then, in His Two Great Commandments, He called us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself [Mark 12:30-31].’ “
We have in Jesus a clear statement of what God’s overall purpose is for us. We must take care of this Earth and all its residents, so that we humans along with the rest of life here on Earth will thrive. If we don’t see dominion as caring for the earth and its living species, then we will use the earth for what each of us wants without caring for the health of all the species. And, we will drive it into oblivion, just as we are doing now. We are for the most part ignoring the threats of global warming and continuing with our plastics use, with coal and gas and oil uses without any thought for the danger to every species on this planet, including ourselves.
We , Americans, were gradually tackling this problem that affects everyone of us with the idea that we would gradually reduce our use of these poisons to the Earth by 2030, until President Trump was elected and refused to act on what the scientists had been saying for decades about Global Warming (and vaccines).[2] In fact, he erased all the protections that were already on the law books and took overly generous amounts of money from these corporations for his campaign to be president and to him personally, basically bribing him. He, in response, canceled all the restrictions on their use, just as Trump wanted, along with the oil and gas industries.
[1] https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/causes/
[2] https://apnews.com/article/epa-trump-zeldin-fossil-fuels-transformation-1e9de2d2f9e1cba13922374478b463b1