Really? Overpopulation and town planning are now moral issues? I though we could maintain “militant agnosticism” with these issues.

Hmmm
I think they might well be. I am not convinced that they are necessarily common moral issues. ie; ones we all need to engage in. But policy makers do indeed have moral choices. Town planning has a lot of research behind it for example, that says that certain configurations, lighting and controlled zones, and service support systems will reduce crime, improve safety and make the place more pleasant to live in. If you have the choice between saving some money, or allowing things to happen will nilly and designing a safer, more engaging space in which to live in, then I think you have a moral choice.

It is wrong, for example, to design ghettos where crime breeds through bad design and clustered poverty. To assist in turning people into criminals is wrong, especially if you know ways to design things to make them and others safer!

‘using the basic raw materials of God’s creation and developing, tending, shaping, working with it to realise its potential, as a beautiful offering to our God.’
David (Palmer), are you saying here that our subduing of the earth is an offering to God?

Di

Di,

Yes.

David

So where would biodiversity fit in this interpretation David P? One could apparently argue that building wall to wall suburbia across every continent was…

‘using the basic raw materials of God’s creation and developing, tending, shaping, working with it to realise its potential, as a beautiful offering to our God.’

Dave,

I’m not sure what you are trying to say. If you have an objection to what I am saying why not come at it directly.

Isn’t everything we do to be with an eye for God’s glory?

I guess at lot of churches were built for God’s glory?

Sheldon,

Well, you raise the issue of the Fall, yet that doesn’t absolve the Christian/Christian community/Christian nation (should such a thing exist) in seeking God’s glory in their response to Genesis 1:28, 2:15.

Such a perspective by the grace of God and despite human sinfulness is then to affect our response to every issue, biodiversity, the layout of cities, the music we listen to, the homes (meaning relationships) we build, the type of work we are involved in, the car we drive, our view of the unborn child, the place of sex in our lives now and in the future, the design of our home and gardens, the furniture we buy, the use of our talents, time and money, and so on.

Cheers

David

Hi David P,

I guess what I was aiming at was making the point that we might not need to “utilize” all of nature, but fence some of it off so that some of it survives.

The natural world is in a bad way. As a conservationist I struggle with the Christian doctrine of “utilizing” nature to present it to God. Some of our utility of the natural world is not very wise.

We all know that there are individual species at risk of extinction. EG: More human beings are born each day than the entire great ape population — adult and child — that remains in the wild. That’s more human beings born each day than all the great apes added together. That’s a lot of competition for resources on a finite planet.

Then there’s the accelerating plight of the Orangutan (as the Indonesians plant masses of Palm oil crops and have wiped out 80% of their habitat.) The apes that eat the palms have limbs cut off, mothers shot while babies starve, and yet God seemed fit to make them very like us.

But not only individual species are threatened, but entire webs of life and interdependent ecosystems are threatened. Wall to wall suburbia, from LA to New York, from Melbourne to Cairns, has pretty much ploughed up the last wilderness areas. There is less habitat… simply less room for wild creatures to live. The oceans are overfished, and yet many of the larger fish are inedible because of toxic metals finding their way up the food chain. Toxic chemicals and hormone disruptor’s are finding their way throughout the ecosystems of the entire planet. Rivers are shrinking and dying as we use up the majority of freshwater on this small planet. Forests are shrinking. Arable land is washing and blowing away.

In other words, our current civilization plan has too many people using too much stuff too quickly, and there’s not going to be a lot left for our kids.

How are we going to explain to our kids and grandchildren that we burnt all the oil (when it is so important to the petro-chemical industry), ploughed up and paved over all the ecoystems (so that there’s no tigers or great apes left), poisoned the planet (so that many amphibians and specifically, frogs died out, robbing our kids of potential new medicines), and basically trashed the world?

Hi yourself Dave L,

I guess what I was aiming at was making the point that we might not need to “utilize” all of nature, but fence some of it off so that some of it survives.

The natural world is in a bad way.

I think Genesis 2:15 in respect of “guarding” addresses this point.

In other words, our current civilization plan has too many people using too much stuff too quickly, and there’s not going to be a lot left for our kids.

You have strayed into the domain of conjecture.

We can have many conjectures about the future.
1. There is the Samuel Huntington one about a clash of civilisation with the potential for a nuclear conflagration of horrendous proportions.
2. Parts of the world through a precipitous decline in birthrate (Europe, Russia) are looking at depopulation.
3. Right now people are starting to talk about a world depression to rival the 1930’s (peak oil, climate change adding their two pennies worth to this particular scenario).
4. The world manages to stumble through as we have done up to now, eg when I was a young man we worried about the starving millions of India, but along came the green revolution.
5. So what - the past history of the earth demonstrated vast amounts of species extinction (seen any non human dinosaurs recently?) and the creation of new ones as well.

I’m not arguing against appropriate environment measures, I’m just not sure you are entitled to make the above comment even though it may be a genuine fear..

BTW, talking of environmental issues, did you see from the University of Leeds that claims of tropical forests declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, according to new research.

How are we going to explain to our kids and grandchildren that we burnt all the oil (when it is so important to the petro-chemical industry), ploughed up and paved over all the ecoystems (so that there’s no tigers or great apes left), poisoned the planet (so that many amphibians and specifically, frogs died out, robbing our kids of potential new medicines), and basically trashed the world?

Dave this is way over the top - but hey, its just a rhetorical flourish, right?

Cheers for now

No, it’s not rhetorical at all. While I am hopeful of many technical and cultural and economic “solutions” (and I use that term fully aware that all social solutions are limited because ultimately we are dealing with problems of human sinfulness), we really are trashing this planet.

There is a science that attempts to monitor the total impact of human beings on the environment, and it’s called “Human ecology”. One of the key concepts is IPAT, Impact = Population * Affluence (consumption) * Technology (good like solar power, or bad like coal).

The one environmental factor that has been absolutely forbidden from the environmental discussion is P, population, one of the great multipliers of all negative environmental effects.

There are simply too many of us using too many of the Earth’s resources too quickly.

(From Professor Heinberg, Powerdown — Page 119).

You can actually see him saying it (thin guy with glasses and a goatee) in this Youtube preview to the movie “The 11th hour” which basically sums up just part of I’m saying.

I’m not predicting the future: I’m talking about what we’ve done today, now, and the resource “cupboard” is looking pretty bare. I’m just asking the people in charge of the “household” to tell us where they are going “shopping” next to top up the “cupboard"… given that the cupboard we are talking about is the entire planet and that it’s ecological services, biodiversity, and mineral wealth are all running down.

Dave L,

We are heading for one of those climate change ding dongs.

In response to all your alarmist prognostications, I will only say God has amazingly abundantly resourced this world in which we live. Humanity made in the image of the mighty creator God (just take a few minutes to think about that!) has proved and will continue to prove remarkably adaptive - a point I’ve tried to hammer home in countless posts.

Personally (and unlike you I’m happy to concede I may be wrong) I’m more concerned about things like world conflagration through nuclear bombs being set off, the moral and demographic decay of the West, to name a couple of issues.

I am also aware that Christ has promised to return in truly cataclysmic fashion when he will put all wrongs to rights, even satisfying Dave L’s wildest dreams (and if not his wildest dreams that only goes to show some dreams are not worth worrying about). In the meantime let’s be sensible and follow the injunctions of Gen 1:28, 2:15 as best we can.

With warmest greetings in our Lord Jesus

David

Yeah, I agree that us human beings are incredibly adaptable and creative, and generally the “free market” has some wild and interesting solutions to many supply problems.

However, the free market does not work properly where there is not enough correct information. We can adapt, but do we have time? I think the west will make it through peak oil, but the bidding war over the remaining oil if left unchecked is really going to hurt the poorer nations, and the reason I keep asking this list to consider these matters is that I think the church should have a position ready to go.

I currently believe the most equitable and just and compassionate response would be for the church to demand that the Australian government sign the Oil Depletion Protocol as soon as the oil situation starts to get serious.

Personally (and unlike you I’m happy to concede I may be wrong) I’m more concerned about things like world conflagration through nuclear bombs being set off, the moral and demographic decay of the West, to name a couple of issues.

I always admit I could be wrong about the future David P. “Things are hard to predict, especially the future”.

I’m just arguing that the information we have now, smacking us in the face, is that many resources are running down, not just oil. We live in one of the greatest ages of plenty and abundance that the world has ever seen. I just sometimes wonder if it will be the greatest abundance and consumption and pollution that the world will ever see.

PS: Global Warming is real — “I can feel it in my waters”.

Dave L

PS: Global Warming is real — “I can feel it in my waters”.

We are poles apart, but time is the great arbiter.

Cheers

David Palmer

G’day,

[Moderator hat on]The topic of this thread is what it means to subdue the earth. This thread has now moved into areas covered by other threads on issues like Peak Oil etc. Whilst I acknowledge that issues like Peak Oil and Climate Change are relevant to the topic at hand it would be good if we could make sure that this thread doesn’t go exclusively in the direction of these issues. There are other issues to explore in a thread like this one.[Moderator Hat off]

Yours in Christ,
Mark

Hi Mark,
understood — I was just making the point that oil is just one of many mineral resources that are slowly but inevitably running down, along with comments on biodiversity and ecosystems being “nuked” by the expansive town plan of suburbia and the ever growing demands of population.

For every hectare of first world suburbia, it seems to require about 100 hectares of farmland, forest, freshwater systems… etc. (From memory our first world lifestyle needs between 5 to 10 hectares per person, depending on what is being measured.)

So I was just making the point that our Impact on the garden = our Population multiplied by our Affluence and our Technology.

I definitely think we are working the garden. It just seems we forgot about the second bit of the verse Dave P mentioned.

Genesis 2:
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.