1. More than a fifth of the earth, home of over 5 billion people, is directly threatened by desertification. Some one hundred countries are affected.
2. Badly managed irrigation systems in many countries are making salty, waterlogged wastelands.
3. The Sahel drought in Africa is largely a man-made disaster, killing a quarter of a million people and three and a half million animals. Grants to prevent further drought in Africa is being spent on inadequate types of projects, making matters worse.
4. Tree planting for fuel, for timber, and to prevent desertification, is proceeding fifty times too slowly.
5. Environmental management is low priority for politicians, especially in poor countries, because the people affected have little political power. Governments and Aid donors want aid spent in cities, where the results benefit the nation's elite, and on projects easy to identify and implement.

One of the few exceptions to the desertification of the world is the country of Israel. According to Dr. Amos Richmond of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Bible times "flourishing agriculture and a thriving civilisation" existed in the desert regions of Israel.

With the twentieth century revival of Israel, in fulfilment of Bible prophecies, this "flourishing agriculture" has been partially restored. This is a matter of envy, especially from other Middle East countries. Sadly, at international conferences, Israelis who try to share their success and describe their country's efforts to make the desert bloom, find themselves isolated, are sometimes shouted down and resolutions are made, condemning them.



Man's Original Appointment: Caretaker of God's Creation

Contrast this with the attitude of a divinely inspired poet who was deeply moved by the contemplation of the very abundance of living things around him, as to express:

O LORD, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Here is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with creatures innumerable,
living things both small and great.
(Psalm 104:24-25 ESV)

Impressed by the ever-recurring cycle of life, by what we call today the equilibrium or balance of nature, he continued:

When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
(Psalm 104:29-30 ESV)

The angelic spirit-beings (Hebrew: Elohim), are entrusted with all God's creative works; hence the use of phrases such as "let us make," in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible. The aim of the Elohim with man is stated in Psalm 8: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (verses 5-9 ESV)

Significantly man's first employment was in keeping with this overall aim of stewardship for God's creation: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it" (Genesis 2:15). From the very beginning man has exercised a passion for naming the forms of life with which our earth, seas and skies are so richly endowed. There was a simple ceremony in the Garden of Eden: "The Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and beasts of the field" (vv. 19-20).

The responsibilities given by God to man over His creation at that time were awesome. Over the centuries since, as man has explored the realms of nature, from the barren shores of Antarctica to the green and humid jungles of the tropics, he has continued to name the various species found — a list which now runs into the millions. The invention of the microscope opened a new world and revealed millions more. So complex is the field of taxonomy (the naming of life forms) today that biologists or naturalists can only hope to comprehend a tiny fraction of this highly specialised field.

Curiosity about the world of nature, for which God made man responsible, is characteristic of all thinking people. Long ago, Solomon, king of Israel, "described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom" (1 Kings 4:33-34). Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and teacher, who lived six hundred years after Solomon, was one of the first to systematically describe and classify various living creatures. Some scientists today spend a lifetime investigating a single species, the range in size, shape and design of living organisms affecting man, and which affect him in turn, is so vast as to boggle the mind!

For example: the mighty whale, Orca, a species, man has almost destroyed in his greed, has an enormous heart which is such a pump, that it alone weighs half a ton. In contrast, the Demodex folliculorum, a tiny eight-legged mite, is born, mates, reproduces and dies inside the eyelashes of almost every person on earth. Or the tardigrade, which, in countless millions, inhabits every drop of water we drink, is a creature so tiny that it looks like some prehistoric monster, under the electron microscope.

As God's first choice for the post of manager and steward of the earth, Adam was a failure. Despite the encouraging beginning referred to earlier (Genesis 2:19-20), he and his wife Eve craved to be "like the Elohim, knowing good and evil" (vv. 3-4). As though the privileges of their God-given responsibilities were not enough, the first couple sought to grasp at equality with the Elohim (angels). God had only forbidden them to eat the fruit of one particular tree in the Garden of Eden. They were warned "if you eat of it you will surely die," a law for the moral discipline God required of man. It set forth literally and symbolically, the divinely-imposed limits of man's freedom ("you are free to eat from any tree," except this one). There was only one thing limiting their wide-ranging freedom — but that was the very thing they chose to have! Such foolish desire, craving and grasping what is forbidden to us by God, became a hereditary pattern set by mankind's first parents to all generations following — it is what the Bible calls sin.



Sin: The Basic Cause Of The Present Crisis

Wildlife management is an important aspect of this stewardship of the earth. Man is not accustomed to seeing the destruction of wildlife as sin. In fact, hunting and shooting of various wild creatures, many of them useful to man, and quite defenceless, is still looked upon as something heroic.

But we should take careful note of what God says: "Every animal of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are Mine. For the world is Mine, and all that is in it" (Psalm 50:10-12).

One consequence of sin is stated in Genesis 3:17-18: "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Man's God-given responsibility for the earth and its living creatures was not diminished by the entry of sin and death into the world, nor by the ejection of Adam and Eve from the Edenic paradise. Having to fend for themselves in the harsh world outside, their task was now much harder. Nature took on a rougher, tougher aspect. Instead of being a "curator" of a combined botanic garden and zoo in a delightful environment of nature — for that is implied in Genesis chapter 2 — Homo sapiens had to fight for survival. The apostle Paul explained: "the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Romans 8:20-21).

Moreover, the New Testament informs us in several places that when God spoke of "man" having rule or dominion over creation after the fall of Adam, it was not any man or woman He had in mind. Psalm 8 is a prophecy of one truly representative Man, Jesus the Son of God, who will faithfully fulfil all that God intended for this earth at his return, now imminent. Paul further points out what every environmentalist knows to be true: that at present we do not see everything "subject to him [Christ, the Son of Man; the Second Adam] (Hebrews 2:8). Far from being a paradise, wisely managed on God's behalf by responsible human stewardship, this beautiful earth and its multitude of life-forms is battered, exploited by greedy men, despoiled, and polluted.

But the apostle Paul does offer hope: "we see Jesus," he says. Elsewhere he identifies Jesus, the Son of God, as the focus of all God's works, the firstborn over all creation. "All things were created through and for him" (Colossians 1:16).


Wise Laws Given Through Moses

The national laws given by God to Israel through Moses contained many provisions which were environmentally sound. Indeed, in this respect as in all others, the Mosaic law was superior to any other ancient law, and in advance of its time (delivered about the year 1440BC). There were laws for the protection of birds (Deuteronomy 22:6-7), for the conservation of forests (20:19), and the care of animals (22:4, 10; 25:4). The land was to rest periodically in a cycle of 'sabbaths' (seventh) years, which guaranteed continuance of its fertility (Leviticus 24:34). God said specifically: "Do not pollute the land where you are" (Numbers 35:33). The Hebrew word for "pollute" is derived from chaneph, which means filth. The land was to be kept clean, holy, fit as man's home, and as a sanctuary for the Almighty.

The most significant of the principles enshrined in God's Law is the concept that man is a trustee or manager for the land, responsible for its care to the Owner, God Himself: "The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land — a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills... a land where you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe His commands" (Deuteronomy 8:7-10).

This principle has been progressively ignored, the chief cause of the present-day abuse of the earth. People — whether individuals, or private companies or government agencies — treat with land, sea, air, and the whole of nature, in a selfish way, assuming they can do what they like with any resource they find.

As Moses warned, they forgot the Lord, the Creator of all.

This selfish attitude to the earth is deliberate when people refuse to acknowledge God as the supreme Creator and Owner of the universe. In other cases it may be due to ignorance, or a carefree approach, which fails to implement that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."

Such carelessness is often responsible for devastations by fires which yearly continue to destroy thousands of hectares of forests and bush land.



The Environmental Crisis Today

A team of scientists under the direction of the Worldwatch Institute, produces an annual report entitled State of the World. This publication is eagerly sought by governments and decision-makers worldwide. It is a sober, careful, abundantly-documented study — not propaganda by idealistic "greenies." For those with no solid faith in the purpose of God revealed in the Bible, who do not believe God's promise to send His Son Jesus Christ to "regenerate" the earth and its peoples when he reigns supreme from Jerusalem (Matthew 19:28), each year's issue of this book is bound to create feelings of increasing depression, helplessness and despair.

A sad theme recurs through all the Worldwatch reports: Man's obvious incapacity to correct the world's ills, so as to avert onrushing environmental and social disasters. He has technological expertise, but does not possess the courage, moral will, or political co-operation, to use this expertise.

Various world reports indicate:

• Climate: That man is slowly changing the world's climate for the worse, and towards greater threat of extremes. The World Meteorological Organisation confirmed in 1993 that "the lowest ever recorded amounts of ozone between 45°N and 65°N (a region covering parts of North America, Europe and Siberia) had been been measured. In fact, since 1969 there has been a 14% decline in ozone levels overall."
   
• Water: The world's water supplies are getting scarcer and increasingly poisoned and polluted. A "new water economy" for the world is desperately needed. The Sydney (Australia) Water Board commissioned a research in 1992, which reported: "It is estimated that overall about 60,000 tonnes of fifty different chemicals are deliberately added to Australian water supplies, including substances like sulphuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and hydroflurosilic acid. In recent years new studies have revealed even more disturbing information about the threat to health posed by three of the most controversial additives, aluminium, fluoride and chlorine." There are additional effects of reduced water quality, for despite considerable efforts to improve the supply of clean water, it is generally established that water quality is deteriorating in the low-income countries, especially in cities. More than 95% of urban sewage in low-income nations is discharged into surface waters without treatment: many cities lack a network of sewer pipes let alone treatment facilities.
  
  It is estimated that 50% of the irrigated land in Iraq and Syria, 30% in Egypt, 25% in India, 23% in Pakistan and 15% in Iran is saline or waterlogged.
  
  The ten years from 1981 to 1990 were designated by the UN as the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade... US$80 million a day was spent to achieve the aims of the program.
   
• Soil: No country in the world is so seriously affected by soil destruction as is Australia. The Australian Conservation Foundation describes it this way: "For over a hundred years the European settlers of Australia used the land without thought of the future. Vast clearing and overstocking took its toil on the land. Today, as a result of past abuse, fifty-two percent of the land in use in Australia needs some form of treatment for land degradation. A third of the continent is affected by soil erosion. The cost of repairing this damage is over one billion dollars. As if that were not enough, it is also a fact that as a result of inappropriate land use and inadequate effort to prevent or repair soil damage, the problem is getting worse."

A Horrifying Prospect

Earth scientists all over the world speak with one voice that there is a global environmental crisis of horrifying dimensions; all experts today are unanimous in concurring that humanity's very existence on earth is threatened! Bible believers recognise that without divine intervention to restore paradise on earth, mankind is doomed.

Every year over 40 million people die from hunger, and about 500 million people are seriously undernourished. These figures have increased steadily since 1950, and 600 million people (10% of the global population) are expected to be malnourished in the year 2000... despite the fact that, during the 1980s, we produced sufficient basic foods to feed the entire human population, plus 1,500 million more people!

The effects of overpopulation are disastrous: more deforestation for farmland, fuelwood, and other products; more air pollution from automobiles and factory emissions; more water pollution from untreated sewage and poisonous industrial effluents; more garbage and toxic waste; more pesticides; more overgrazing, etc. Then there is air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, home heating and industry. Other factors are fires, the spraying of crops with insecticides, radiation from mobile phone towers, computers, microwaves, nuclear power and weapons plants. Perhaps the most serious long term air pollution problem is the gradual depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer, caused by chlorofluorocarbons. When they escape into the atmosphere, reach the stratosphere, they are broken down by the sun's ultraviolet radiation, and the chlorine in them destroys ozone. This produces the increasingly larger holes in the ozone layer, detected mostly over the Antarctica. CFCs also trap heat, contributing to global warming.

Global ozone depletion over the decade 1983-93 has led to a 10% increase in the UV radiation reaching the earth's surface. It has been estimated that every 1% decrease in ozone concentration will produce a 2% increase in the UV radiation reaching the earth's surface and an 8% increase in the frequency of skin cancer in Caucasians.

The greenhouse effect is a real, natural, physical phenomenon. It warms the earth by 33°C and enables life to exist on the planet. However, the enhanced greenhouse effect, brought about by the release of additional greenhouse gases, is dangerously increasing that natural warming. The consensus in the early 1990s was that this enhanced effect had already warmed the earth by about 0.5°C, and would warm the earth by a further 2°C by 2030.

More than 65,000 synthetic chemicals are in common use in the USA with another 1,000 introduced each year. Government studies and the National Toxics Campaign revealed that an average American's body tissue contains traces of more than 200 industrial chemicals and pesticides capable of causing cancer or birth defects. More than 700 contaminants have been found in the nation's water supply that can damage the reproductive system, the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the brain, liver and kidneys.

Pesticides, though banned in many Western countries, continue to be exported to the underdeveloped countries. The US Department of Defense produces more toxic waste than the top five chemical companies combined. Up to 30,000 toxic waste sites directly threaten public health and the environment. Spending on military-related toxic and radioactive waste cleanup has been estimated at 400 billion dollars, and remains ineffective.

How did the environmental situation become as life-threatening as today? Man's greed has outstripped any existing sense of responsibility for the earth and its wellbeing!

The sources for acid rain are found in the heavy industrial regions of the USA and Europe, while the greatest impacts of acid rain have been experienced in the lakes, forests and tundra of Scandinavia, Western Europe and Northern Canada... The loss of forest products in Europe resulting directly from air pollution was estimated at 82.3 million m3 per year in 1990. These losses represent around US$23 million in lost earnings.


The Great Forests of the Past

We have already referred to Psalm 104, one of many marvellous poems in the Bible extolling creation and the Creator. The psalmist was evidently greatly impressed by his visit to Lebanon:

The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.  (vv 16-18 ESV)

Lebanon seemed a veritable paradise on earth to the psalmist. The gushing streams reminded him of the delightful rivers of Eden; its majestic trees were like those in the well-watered garden of Adam's time.

Today Lebanon is a virtual desert. The Assyrians, then the Babylonians, carried off immense quantities of lumber for huge building projects. The Greeks followed suit. In the Roman period, there was a brief respite, but at the fall of that empire, the situation was critical. The "desolating" Turks actually taxed trees, and thereby caused their destruction by the poor inhabitants of the land.



The Crisis Will Get Worse

The environmental crisis, already severe and taxing the ingenuity of international organizations such as FAO and UNEP, will get worse! The prophets of God make this abundantly plain in the Bible. Zechariah refers to the deforestation of the Middle East which we mentioned earlier:

"Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars! Wail, Opine tree, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down" (11:1-2).

With clear insight, the prophet Isaiah has described our present plight, and its real cause: "The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes; and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt" (24:5-6).

He indicated that drought will remain a problem: "The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish" (v. 4).

In this same chapter 24, however, the prophet also indicates the cure: divine intervention when God's Son assumes the reins of government: "From the west they acclaim the Lord's majesty, therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, In the islands of the sea, from the ends of the earth, we hear singing: 'Glory to the Righteous One.' For the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem; and before its elders, gloriously" (vv. 14-16, 23). In that day the polluters will be removed from the earth they have defiled; in fact, they will be destroyed (Revelation 11:18).



A Regenerated Earth Filled With God's Glory

When Jesus Christ returns to set up God's kingdom on earth, the earth shall be in a sorry state. But thousands of years of gross and selfish misuse of the planet will then be reversed, and its scars healed. So drastic will be the measures needed, that the Bible describes the kingdom of God as "a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13). This does not mean that this present globe will be literally replaced by a different one, as some churches mistakenly teach. It means that so drastic will be the work of repair required, that the earth will be totally renewed and restored to its former beauty.

There are many detailed realistic and glowing pictures in the Bible, of this restored environment under the wise rule of Jesus Christ and his immortalised saints. The prophet Amos describes a situation where the agricultural seasons run together: "The days are coming, declares the Lord, when the reaper will be overtaken by the ploughman and the planter by the one treading the grapes" (9:13).

Psalm 72 emphasizes that in the reign of God's royal Son: "The mountains will bring prosperity to the people, The hills the fruit of righteousness. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, Like showers watering the earth" (vv. 3, 6).

Then the bountiful world described in Psalm 65 will really flourish everywhere: "You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it... The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy. " (vv. 9, 12-13).

However, although Christ shall be responsible for the regeneration of our devastated planet, this transformation will not be effected merely by waving a magic wand. The whole work of restoration, moral and physical, will take a thousand years (Revelation 20:4) before the royal Son can present this earth, cured and redeemed of all its ills, and filled with the glory of God, to his heavenly Father (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28).

There is another important reason why the restoration of the world shall take a considerable period of time: God's true people of all ages, raised from the dead, and made immortal (along with those who will be alive when Christ returns — 1 Corinthians 15:23, 51-52) shall assist Jesus Christ in his work of renewal.

But there shall be also many mortal survivors of the terrible war of Armageddon in the midst of which the Lord shall intervene, appearing on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4; Acts 1:11-120. Zechariah refers to those who will be left from all the nations involved in the Armageddon holocaust: "Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles" (14:16).

The task of these mortals in the kingdom is to as last manage the planet for God properly. Their first task shall be to dispose of the vast quantities of armaments and the casualties of that conflagration: "Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and use the weapons for fuel... for seven years they will use them for fuel. Men will be regularly employed to cleanse the land. Some will go throughout the land, and in addition to them, others will bury those that remain on the ground... and so they will cleanse the land' (Ezekiel 39:9, 14-16). "They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).

So the enormous sums now devoted to the arms race will then be diverted to a productive use: making the earth more fruitful.
Because this great task shall be entrusted to these mortal survivors, supervised by immortal rulers, it must obviously take some time to complete. But eventually the environmental crisis will be cured. This earth shall be in the state designed for it by God — a planet filled with His glory. The Bible positively declares that soon: "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14).



Our Present Responsibility

Men and women who "long for the appearing" of Jesus Christ (2Timothy 4:8) will prepare themselves for the task of supervising the restoration of the earth, so that it can become the paradise of God. The first paradise experienced by Man was a "garden" (that is what the word 'paradise' originally means) in Eden. The future paradise, which was promised by the Lord Jesus to the repentant thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), will be restored upon earth (Isaiah 51:3; Ezekiel 36:35). The dying man himself recognised this, and pleaded of the Lord Jesus: "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. " He certainly did not expect to go to heaven at death: he was looking for the return of the Lord Jesus to the earth, when it shall be a paradise, and he might find a place in God's new kingdom therein. According to the response of the Master, he will be there!

If we would be there also, to see this earth regenerated, we need to make the appropriate preparations now. The Lord Jesus told his disciples: "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:28-29).

To "follow" the Lord means to obey the divine truths which he taught, to put on his Name in baptism, and thereafter live a life of faithful and willing service to him as Master and Lord, and patiently await his return in glory.

That is our primary responsibility. We know that God, through His beloved Son, will cure the environmental crisis, and we have faith that in His time He will do so — very effectively. However, this fact does not exonerate us from a present responsibility to care for the earth He has entrusted to us. Although the specific national laws given through Moses have been done away in Christ, their spiritual principles remain. We are answerable to our Maker for how we use His earth. This does not mean that we join protest marches and lie down in front of logging trucks, as some earnest lovers of the earth have been known to do. But it does mean that we take a lively interest in today's environmental crisis and play our part by becoming ourselves responsible to God, accepting His way of salvation, the first step to our own moral and future physical regeneration as part of God's glorious plan for a renewed earth.

 

G. E. MANSFIELD

Reproduced by courtesy of the Logos Publications, South Australia
 by whom all rights are reserved.