Diversity and Dominion

Dialogues in Ecology, Ethics, and Theology

Kyle S. Van Houtan, Michael S. Northcott, Van Houtan, Northcott

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781498212045
• eBook ISBN: 9781621890898
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book records a set of dialogues between scientists, theologians, and philosophers on what can be done to prevent a global slide into ecological collapse. It is a uniquely multidisciplinary book that exemplifies the kinds of cultural and scholarly dialogue urgently needed to address the threat to the earth represented by our super-industrial civilization. The authors debate the conventional account of nature conservation as protection from human activity. In contrast to standard accounts, they argue what is needed is a new relationship between human beings and the earth that recovers a primal respect for all things. This approach seeks to recover forgotten resources in ancient cultures and in the foundational narratives of Western civilization contained in the Bible and in the culture of classical Greece.

One

Eyes Wide Shut1

William H. Schlesinger

Americans began to take environmental issues seriously in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River in my hometown of Cleveland caught on fire. The water pollution of the Cuyahoga typified the problem of “point-source” pollution that was rampant throughout the nation. Corporations, municipalities, even individuals, regarded our air and water as a logical dumping ground for myriad wastes of a modern industrial society—“the solution to pollution was dilution.”

With point-source pollution, blame was easily cast, appropriate remedial actions were obvious, and the regimen for cure, perhaps painful to initiate, was effective. Today, we have much reason to rejoice from the early success of the environmental movement. Few pollutants now spill unregulated into the natural environment, urban children have lower levels of lead in their blood, and whitefish have returned to Lake Erie.

Yet, even amidst this environmental awakening in the late 1960s, we had a foreshadowing of the larger, global environmental problems that now face us. Rachel Carson hinted at them in her seminal book, Silent Spring, predicting that the persistent nature of chlorinated hydrocarbons would lead to their global distribution and accumulation in animals living quite distant from the original application of DDT. Indeed, she foresaw the new era of global change—what some have called the anthropocene or the era of humans—in which a single species, Homo sapiens, would come to exert a dominant control on the characteristics of our planet—particularly its chemistry—and to usurp the natural habitat for other species that share the Earth with us. We have conquered and subdued nature, and increasingly, we are leaving our mark upon the Earth. Climate change is but one manifestation of global problems wrought by humans, and we must not approach our global environmental impacts with “Eyes Wide Shut.”

There is widespread denial about many environmental issues, which is easy to explain—the news is always bad, the cure is often unpleasant, and the consequences seemingly distant. The voting public is much happier putting jobs and personal well-being above the life-support system that sustains us on planet Earth. We pounce with fervor on Michael Crichton’s The State of Fear or Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. If they are right, let the good times roll.

Humans have a pretty good track record of subduing nature and living better for it. The first explorers of North America struggled with subsistence and survival. Just a few decades later, painters of the Hudson River School captured an idyllic pastoral landscape under human management and control. The Bible tells Jews and Christians that they have God’s blessing and orders to dominate the planet, which is so wonderfully endowed to support our fruitful multiplication and well being. Why should we believe those who say that the old rules no longer apply?

Today’s environmental problems stem from a rising global population of humans, now close to 6.8 billion, each with a desire for a higher standard of living. Our population continues to grow exponentially, whereas our planet, save for the receipt of a few meteors, doesn’t grow at all. Our rising numbers leave less of nature in its natural state, fewer species to share the planet with us, and changes in the basic chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans that form the evolutionary environment for all life now on Earth. Here I will focus on climate change, but I could just as easily address the current human impact on the ocean’s fisheries, the global spread of mercury, the dispersal of exotic species, pests, and pathogens, or the loss of natural habitat from the overpopulation of the human species. The collective impact of 6.8 billion people on Earth certainly exceeds that of our forefathers—the old rules don’t apply to a full planet.

The dominance of Homo sapiens on planet Earth leads to huge ethical questions that we must address seriously and very soon. We must ask fundamental questions about our role on Earth—in the past, now, and in the future. Beyond leaving a heritage for our children, do we have a basic responsibility to leave behind a functional environment for the future? Are we to use the Earth’s non-renewable resources at will, or is there an ethical responsibility to leave some for coming generations? If global climate change wrought by burning fossil fuels in the developed, industrial nations of the North impacts food production in the South, what is our moral obligation to feed those beyond our borders? Are we sure that our own agricultural production is secure? We need to consider our responsibility as stewards of the Earth. What is our responsibility to preserve other species? Do they even matter?

Certainly, we have faced some of these ethical questions before. If I go outside and shoot a wood thrush, I am in violation of the Migratory Bird Act and subject to severe prosecution. Someone, at some time in the past, thought that such behavior was unacceptable. But, if, as a developer, I cut down a tree containing a wood thrush nest filled with its begging young, I am regarded as important to “housing starts” and the growth of the economy. If, as a citizen of the United States, I am responsible for adding five or six tons of carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere (about the amount each of us now emits each year), contributing to global warming and the inability for wood thrushes to find proper habitat in all of eastern North America, is that acceptable or unacceptable behavior?

Climate change is a good example of a global environmental problem, for which more heat than light has emanated from the debate about what to do about it. Indeed, there are those who still argue that global warming is a myth, or merely a natural, short upward excursion of temperature in a long history of temperature variations on Earth. There are those who argue that somehow the human species will muddle through this type of global environmental problem, because we have such a good track record of muddling through lesser problems that have faced us in the past. Overlooking the plight of several billion of our number at the edge of poverty and starvation, we may focus complacently on the belief that more people are now living better than ever before. We may advocate the philosophy of Adam Smith—that the good of the whole will rise when each individual pursues life for his/her best personal advantage.

Americans may feel distant from other cultures—half a world removed from their problems—but we must realize that we occupy the same planetary ecosystem, which will respond to the global changes we make in it, especially its climate. I cherish an anecdote told to me by my good friend Ted Purcell of Duke University’s Baptist campus ministry, which captures how I feel our government is behaving badly in the face of global climate change. Two men are rowing a boat. Suddenly one begins to bore a hole in the bottom of the boat. When the other man challenges him, he retorts: “This is none of your business. I’m drilling this hole under my own seat.”

Our ability to dominate nature has led us to believe that we are not part of nature, but above it. How often do we see the human listed as a species in any local field guide to the mammals? But with the appearance of Homo sapiens a mere 150,000 years ago, we are relative newcomers to the Earth’s biosphere. As Sallie McFague proposes, we are actually housemates with the rest of God’s creations on Earth. And, as housemates, we “must abide by three main rules: take only your share, clean up after yourselves, and keep the house in good repair for future occupants. We do not own the house, we do not even rent it. It is loaned to us for our lifetime, with the proviso that we obey the above rules, so that the house can feed, shelter, nurture, and delight those who move in after us” (2001: 125–40).

Global climate change may appear slow and the threats may appear distant, but global warming is an example of how the human species is affecting the life-support system of planet Earth—the evolutionary environment for all of us. In Genesis (1:26–28) God said to humanity, “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the Earth. Perhaps we have done too well in following God’s word, when as Michael Northcott shows (1996), the correct Hebrew translation of “dominion” is steward, not ruler. We should see that dominion was an order for us to take care of Eden—for stewardship of our planet.

Let’s focus on climate change. Carbon dioxide, CO2—the main culprit in global warming and the main emission from fossil fuel combustion—has been rising in Earth’s atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. For about 10,000 years, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere remained between 270 and 290 parts per million (ppm), rising rapidly to today’s value of about 382 ppm during the past 150 years (Fluckinger et al. 2002). It is easy to overlook CO2; it is odorless, colorless, and non-toxic. No one gets out of bed in the morning and says: “Gee the CO2 levels are awfully high today!” Its rise in the atmosphere is slow, about 1.5 ppm per year. In the atmosphere, CO2 acts as a “greenhouse” gas—analogous to the glass that causes a greenhouse to get very hot inside during the summer. CO2 is transparent to much of the incoming radiation from the Sun, but it absorbs heat radiation trying the leave the Earth, so that the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere rises. Other gases, including water vapor (H2O), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), have the same effect and are collectively said to add to the radiative forcing of Earth’s atmosphere. It is fortunate that these gases are found in the atmosphere; without its natural greenhouse effect, the Earth’s temperature would be below freezing, and the Earth would be a frozen ball of ice.

However, with the recent rise in CO2, the Earth is getting warmer, as seen directly in the records of weather stations and ocean temperature, and indirectly in the earlier springtime appearance of birds, insects, and flowering plants (Parmesan and Yohe 2003). During the past century and a half, the overall history of rising temperatures largely parallels rising CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere, just as fluctuations in Earth’s temperature have correlated well with fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 during the past 500,000 years, spanning the last several glacial intervals.

Over the long run, major human impacts on climate may affect us indirectly, through shifts in forest cover, in the occurrence of drought and crop failure, and in the epidemiology of diseases, especially those which are spread by mosquitoes. The temperature in the U.S. is anticipated to rise about 5 to 9° F during the next hundred years, but the rise globally will not be uniform. A larger change is being seen at polar latitudes, where a lot of ice is now found. Satellite measurements of Earth’s temperature—while not providing a long record—show a rise in temperature concentrated in the northern polar regions, where we also see a recent decline in Arctic sea ice. To the south, we see increasing fragmentation of Antarctic ice sheets. Penguins may feel it first, but humans will see the effects of warming, in rising sea level, very soon.

In 2004, the movie The Day After Tomorrow entertained us with a catastrophic scenario of future climate change. The scene was a Hollywood extravaganza, but the movie did capture some grains of truth. Studies of Earth’s past show that global climate can change quite rapidly. Scientists have noted a recent freshening of the surface seawater in the North Atlantic, presumably derived from melting ice packs. This low-density water could slow or stop the global ocean circulation that carries tropical heat northward to warm Europe and North America. Global warming could paradoxically plunge these regions into deep regional cooling. Warmer or colder, it should give us great pause that humans have the potential to cause large, rapid changes in the Earth’s climate, with inevitable effects on the world’s agricultural production.

Rapid changes in climate are seen in the Earth’s past, but not when we were trying to feed 6.8 billion people. We may think that we can adapt to or manage global climate change, embark on planetary engineering to do so, and even bring back DDT to combat a greater onslaught of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, but will planetary management be as easy as prevention? Many argue that the economic costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions are too high—too much of a cost to GNP. But, as captured in the title of his recent book, Eric Davidson reminds us, You Can’t Eat GNP.

It is not at all surprising that we are so reluctant to give up the fossil fuels that have brought so much benefit to modern society and wealth that has been amassed by using them so effectively. The emission of CO2 from fossil fuels is directly linked to economic activity: when times are good, we emit a lot of it. When times are slow, we emit less. A rise in per capita use of fossil fuels has paralleled the rise of human population during recent decades—a multiplicative cause of rising CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. Some nations emit a lot less CO2 than we do per unit of economic activity—that is, they use fossil fuels more efficiently—but overall, an increasing level of economic activity worldwide is leading to greater emissions of CO2 each year.

Beyond recognizing the aesthetics of a pristine environment and the wondrous diversity of life that so fascinates us, ecologists are increasingly documenting the economic value of nature. Nature and natural lands provide “ecosystem services.” The traditional cost-benefit analysis of economists often fails to include the benefits that the life support system of nature provides to the human species. The economic benefits of a forest extend far beyond the daily fee that an average citizen might pay to visit it on holiday. Forests store carbon that might otherwise accumulate in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and cause global warming. Forests cleanse the air and water that sustain human society. Sure, we can do these things too, but only at a substantial, direct cost to our economy.

In many risk assessments of environmental pollution, the risk to humans is quantified but the risk to nature is not (Parker 2003). The costs of regulation need to be compared to the benefits of a healthy environment. Recently, Robert Costanza and his colleagues (1997) provided one of the few full-benefit accountings of the value of natural ecosystems—finding that each year the work that nature does for us far exceeds the GNP of the world’s economy. The Bible tells us that on the evening of the sixth day of creation, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold it, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Today, it seems crass for us to value nature at $33 trillion per year; rather, we should be stewards of nature so as to be stewards of the services that nature provides. We depend on nature to sustain the global lifeboat.

William Rees developed the concept of the “ecological footprint” to describe the amount of natural land that would be needed to supply resources and mitigate the effects of resource use by people on Earth. He originally calculated this for his hometown of Vancouver, showing that an area vastly larger than Vancouver’s city limits would be needed to supply the needs of its citizens. Recently, a group of scientists led by Mathis Wackernagel (2002) calculated the global footprint of the human species. In 1980, it passed the size of planet Earth. More than 6.8 billion people now use more of the natural resources of our planet than the Earth can supply. This is clearly not sustainable, and we must stop drawing down nature’s capital to support our lifestyle.

Why have we made so little progress on these and other global environmental issues? I believe that one impediment is our tendency, within the short lifespan of a human, to reset or shift the baseline of what is natural and acceptable. When I was growing up in Cleveland, my father used to take me to an area, fully suburb, where as a boy he caught toads. When I caught toads with him in the 1950s, we had to drive further to re...

Table of contents

• Diversity and Dominion
• Illustrations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Eyes Wide Shut
• Chapter 2: Censuring Nature and Critiquing God
• Chapter 3: A Walk on the Wild Side
• Chapter 4: Thanks for the Dirt
• Chapter 5: The Dominion Lie
• Chapter 6: Anti-Imperial Themes and Care for Living Nature in Early Christian Art
• Chapter 7: Nature and the Nation-state
• Chapter 8: Biodiversity and the Kingdom of God
• Contributors