A crisis of degradation is enveloping the Earth. Never before has our own species wielded so much power over creation. Our ever-increasing population, now 5.2 billion, combined with our use of instruments to press Earth's immense energy systems into our own service, makes the human race a formidable force.
If our governing ethic were "the Earth is the Lord's and all that it contains," if we resolved to bless and keep the creation as the Creator blesses and keeps us, if we would affirm through our actions the long-standing belief that avarice and greed are vices -- then this crisis would not be upon us. What follows is a description of the seven major degradations brought on by our assault on creation.
Land Conversion and Habitat Destruction
Since 1850, 2.2 billion acres of natural lands have been converted to human uses. This compares with Earth's 16 billion acres that have some kind of vegetation (another 16 billion acres are ice, snow, and rock) and a current world crop land of 3.6 billion acres. Names given for this conversion of natural ecosystems include deforestation (of forests), drainage or "reclamation" (of wetlands), irrigation (of arid and semi-arid ecosystems), and plowing (of grasslands and prairies). The most extensive conversion under way is tropical deforestation -- at the rate of 25 million acres (an area the size of Indiana) every year. Of the 400 million acres of crop land we have taken for agriculture in the United States, we convert three million yearly to urban uses. Fields for grazing and crops no longer are "carved" from forests, they replace the forests, and houses replace the best crop land.
"Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field," warns Isaiah, "till no space is left and you live alone in the land" (Isaiah 5:8).
Species Extinction
Three species of creatures are extinguished daily. Their kind -- their lineage -- is cut off forever. Perhaps the rate is even higher, because we do not yet know whether there are five million or 40 million species of plants and animals on Earth; while we have named most temperate-zone species, we have not done so for those in the tropics.
Yet, named or not, they appear in our stores and lumberyards, as our lizard-skin wallets and shoes, as inexpensive plywood in our homes, offices, and boats. Children around the world are given pennies to bring in skins of living creatures that we soon will wear as items of fashion.
Expansion of homes and churches, elimination of the wood lot on the "back 40," and removal of vegetation once separating fields add to the destruction. Even butterflies, once so common in the everyday life of city and country, are now threatened by the loss of their habitat and the destruction of their food plants by herbicides. Some environmentalists now urge us to plant butterfly gardens as a natural "ark" for preserving these creatures, which otherwise might perish. Others urge preservation of remnant wood lots and prairies as natural "arks," hoping that the deluge of people subsides and finds its proper bounds.
"You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures," says the Creator to Noah, "male and female, to keep them alive with you ..." (Genesis 6:19).
Degradation of the Land
In much of the tall-grass prairie ("the corn belt"), two bushels of topsoil are lost for every bushel of corn produced. Pesticides and herbicides, made available by transferring Army chemistry after World War II to more "peaceful" uses, made it possible to plant corn, or any crop, on the same land year after year. Crop rotation -- from corn to soybeans to alfalfa hay to pastures -- was thus abandoned. Farm animals could then be kept in feedlots and confinements, fencing and fencerows could be removed to allow for intensified use of the land, and loss of topsoil to wind and water erosion could be compensated for by increasing fertilizer input.
Consequently, the soil life was devastated. Earthworms no longer inhabit farmland, the microscopic life of the soil has been severely altered, and birds no longer occupy fencerows and hedgerows that once separated the fields. The land never rests; the creatures have been driven off.
"When you enter the land I am going to give you," commands the Lord, "the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord ... But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands ... I will lay waste the land ... All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the Sabbaths you lived on it" (Leviticus 25:1-2; 26:14, 32, 35).
Resource Conversion and Production of Wastes and Hazards
Some 70,000 different chemicals have been created by our own ingenuity, 10,000 of which are part of the environment. Yet these are materials with which life has not had prior experience. Unlike chemicals made by organisms and geological processes of the creation, some of these chemicals destroy life or leave it utterly defenseless. Materials for producing these chemicals pose additional problems, such as oil spills that destroy the life and habitat of the shore and sea as well as human livelihood.
Not only chemicals, but every item in our homes, offices, churches, and industries are reworked parts of creation. Ours is a flow-through economy. We remove parts of the natural environment, making products and by-products and producing discards and wastes. Our economy taps creation's wealth at one point and discards its transformations at another.
Nature's economy is cyclical. Ecosystems sustain themselves by cycling materials. And nature's economy is threatened by our own. We interfere with its cycles on a grand scale, destroy its creatures, pollute its waters, mow down its plants.
"Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture?" asks the Sovereign Lord. "Must you also trample the rest with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?" (Ezekiel 34:18).
Global Toxification
A major feature of the dynamic weather, ocean, and river systems of Earth is their life-sustaining transport and distribution of materials around the globe. Of the thousands of chemical substances we have created, hundreds have been injected into the atmosphere, discharged into rivers, and injected or leaked into the ground water, both for "disposal" and as a by-product from the operation of our vehicles, chemical agriculture, homes, and industry.
Some chemicals have joined global circulations. Substances such as DDT are showing up in Antarctic penguins, and biocides are appearing in a remote lake on Lake Superior's Isle Royale. Spills of chemicals and oil kill creation's life on a massive scale. In the intercourse between creation's economy and ours, we face a planetary challenge: The consequences of global toxification -- what some call the "rape of the Earth" -- are now experienced by all creatures, great and small, and all people, rich and poor.
"I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce," says the Lord. "But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable" (Jeremiah 2:7).
The Greenhouse Effect and Ozone Depletion
Fundamental to the processes that sustain life on Earth is the Earth's exchange of energy with the sun and outer space. The Earth's temperature depends on the balance of energy received from the sun and re-radiated to outer space. Carbon dioxide allows visible solar radiation to penetrate the atmosphere, as do some 25 to 30 artificial chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that have risen to the outer atmosphere of Earth. But these materials absorb energy re-radiated by the Earth and thus trap heat, operating like the glass of a greenhouse or the windshield of a closed automobile.
With the right concentration of these gases (called "greenhouse gases"), the Earth retains enough heat to maintain temperatures much as we have experienced them for centuries. But burning carbon-containing materials and exposing them to oxygen raises the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, allowing less heat to escape back to outer space and producing a global warming effect. This happens when we burn petroleum, coal, and wood; destroy forests; or drain wetlands. Adding to the effect are other greenhouse gases produced by our chemical industry, such as refrigerants in our air conditioners and refrigerators, and CFC aerosols used in styrofoam or discharged from cans of paint, hair spray, and some fire extinguishers.
The Earth's temperature has been rising very slowly over centuries -- as evidenced by melting snow caps and glaciers and a slowly rising sea level. But now this rise likely will accelerate, with consequences not only for the Earth's temperature but also for the distribution of temperature across the planet, leading to changes in patterns of rainfall and drought.
CFCs operate not only as greenhouse gases, but they also destroy the Earth's ozone layer. This layer, located in the outer atmosphere, absorbs much of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, thereby protecting life from potential damage to the genetic material of living creatures. Its destruction means that more ultraviolet light reaches creatures on Earth, leading to an increased incidence of skin cancer, among other things. The regulating and protective provisions of creation itself are being destroyed.
"Is this the way you repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people?" inquires Moses. "Is this not your Creator, who made you and formed you?" (Deuteronomy 32:6).
Human and Cultural Degradation
Among the most severe reductions of the richness of creation are the degradation and extinction of cultures that have lived peaceably and sustainably on the land for centuries. Many Amish and Mennonite farming communities operate under severe pressures of increased land taxes and encroaching urban development, compelling them to abandon their farms.
In the tropics, long-standing cultures living cooperatively with the forest are being wiped off the land by force, while legal procedures are devised to deprive them of traditional lands. As these cultures are extinguished, so are their rich heritages of unwritten knowledge. Successful ways of living in harmony with the land are forgotten, names of otherwise undescribed forest creatures are lost, and uses of the wide array of tropical species for human food, fiber, and medicine are extinguished.
So, too, is the diversity of our agricultural heritage being diminished. Seeds of a wide variety of plants suited to small farms and gardens are displaced by new strains suited to mechanized planting and harvesting. An aggressive economy, maximizing immediate return at the expense of sustainability, is sweeping the globe. Agriculture is being lost, displaced by agribusiness.
The meek of the Earth are displaced by labor-saving technology; they are pushed to the margins or to the cities. Disconnected from land that could sustain them, they are driven into joblessness and poverty. The powerful -- in the name of conducting "good" business -- use the land and resources of the meek, depriving them of the ability to take care of themselves and creation and depriving them of their cultural and agricultural inheritance.
"Do not take advantage of each other," warns the Law. "The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but sojourners ..." (Leviticus 25:23). "The land must be returned to the poor and the meek" (Leviticus 25:28).
In the midst of the garden of Creation -- so abundantly yielding blessed fruits, sustainably supporting us and all life in its divinely declared goodness -- we have made the choice to extract more and more, even at the expense of destroying creation's own protective provisions and blessed fruitfulness. Before us fall the creatures, some diminished, some wiped clean from the face of the Creator's canvas. We have chosen to trash the great gallery of Earth's Maker, replacing it with our own creations -- creations "for the greatest good" that attempt to surpass creation itself. Under this arrogant assault on the fabric of the biosphere, "the earth dries up and withers ... Earth is defiled by its people" (Isaiah 24:24-25).
We human beings have been making choices. Early on, we made the choice to know good and evil. In the last several centuries, we have chosen to redefine the long recognized vices of avarice and greed as virtues; self-interest, we now profess, is what brings the greatest good. Choices made for the creation, for the Creator, have been usurped by choices made for us.
"I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses," says Moses. "Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to God's voice, and holdfast to God" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).
Calvin B. DeWitt was professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of Au Sable Institute in Mancelona, Michigan when this article appeared.
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