Environment and Climate change: November 2008

The Hindu

Opinion page/ Editorial

The most comprehensive study yet of the status of mammals on land and in marine environments, published recently in Science, has revealed that 1,141 species, representing one in four, are threatened with extinction worldwide. Data for many others are deficient, but they are also at considerable risk. The Western Ghats in India with their high species endemism constitute a hotspot; in Southeast Asia, primates are extremely threatened; globally, animals ra nging from shrews to elephants and whales are distressed. This is unambiguous evidence emerging from the five-year study led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, better known as the IUCN. The organisation has the monumental task of helping governments take the right steps to avert more extinction (76 mammal species have gone extinct since 1500). The IUCN resolved at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona recently that it would work with governments, civil society, and the private sector towards a sustainable future. The major tool it has crafted for biodiversity protection is the Red List, which flags individual species as vulnerable, critically endangered and so on. Yet, the effects of key factors — habitat fragmentation and loss, hunting, and climate change — on listed species are growing more serious. more

Dominion is based on Genesis 1:28, where two Hebrew words lie at the heart
of the problem: radah and kabas. Kabas (subdue) is a very strong word, even
translated in one place as ‘rape’ (Est. 7:8) radah (rule over) is also a strong
word. Westermann translates it as ‘to tread the wine press’ and von Rad as
‘trample’.
Yet, despite the strength of these words they do not provide humanity with a
mandate to dominate or conquer nature. The meaning of these two words is
best seen, not in their derivations, but in their context. This of course has
several different aspects: the cultural mandate; the creation story; and the
cultural milieu.
(i) The cultural mandate. The immediate context is that of the ‘cultural
mandate’ (Gn. 1:26-28): the call for humanity to develop and unfold the
creation as the image-bearers of God.

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If we compare the mandate given to humanity with that given to the rest of
the animals (Gn. 1:22), it is clear that subduing and ruling are one facet of
being the image of God, and thus an essential part of what it means to be
human. Subduing and ruling the creation, then, are to be done as God’s
representatives: he is our role model.
Barr suggests that humanity’s role is ‘less exploitation and more leadership’

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;
this, however, is only satisfactory if we see (with Houston

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) leadership as
servanthood, as exemplified by Jesus the Shepherd-King (cf. Phil. 2)
This twofold commission echoes the
cultural mandate of 1:26-28: they are to work (abad implies work as a slave)
and take care (shamar) of the garden. There is no sense of dominion being
exploitative. McHarg and Collard’s interpretation owes more to their own
cultural perspectives than it does to the biblical acThe earth is not humanity’s to do with as it sees fit. It is God’s creation, and as
God’s delegates we are to take care of it on his behalf; humanity is
accountable to God for its treatment of the earth (cf. P99. 115:6; 8:4-6).
It is not rulership without limits. God follows on from the cultural mandate to
place immediate constraints on dominion: men are not to kill for food (vv.
29-30). F.W. Welbourn identifies the other limitations that God placed on
Israel’s use of nature:
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•
No blood of any animal may be eaten (Lv. 17:10-14).
•
Fields are not to be reaped to the border (Lv. 19:9).
•
The grower may only harvest from trees five years old (Lv. 19:23).
•
Fruit trees may not be used for siege works (Dt. 20:19).
•
A kid is not to be boiled in its mother’s milk (Dt. 14:21).
•
An ox is not to be muzzled when treading corn (Dt. 25:4).
•
A mother bird is not to be taken with her young (Dt. 22:6).
•
The land is to lie fallow regularly (Lv. 25:1-12).
•
All the tithe of the land is the Lord’s (Lv. 27:30-33).
It is evident, then, that it is not, as White contends, ‘God’s will that man
exploit nature for his proper ends’This struggle with nature is taken up in the following chapters of Genesis.

Cain’s murder of his brother means that the ground will no longer yield its

crop, and he will be homeless, driven from the land (Gn. 4:10-14). The prophet

Hosea takes up the same theme (cf. Ho. 4:1-3): sin results in the land

mourning and even in a reversal of creation.

Throughout the OT we can see examples of God’s concern for the whole of

the non-human creation. The story of Noah is a case in point: Noah was

perhaps the first conservationist.

The flood was a direct consequence of

human rebellion which caused the earth to be corrupt in God’s sight (Gn.

6.11). The ark, and the subsequent covenant that God made with Noah, his

descendants and with every living creature on earth (Gn 9:10), is testimony to

God’s concern for non-human life;

his promise that ’never again will there

be a flood to destroy the earth’ illustrates his concern for the earth.

Beginning (IVP, 1984), who thinks not. See also D. Keith Innes, Resources for a Green

Theology, Science and Technology Papers No. 2 (Framlington Institute, 1987).

See my ‘Towards a biblical view of environmental care’, Evangel 7(2) (1989), p. 8.

Michael Deroche, ‘The reversal of creation in Hosea’, VT 31 (1981), comparing Gn.

1 with Ho. 4:3: ‘Thus, Hosea is not merely employing the image of a drought to

illustrate Israel’s punishment; he is announcing the reversal of creation’ (p. 403). Cf.

also his, ’Zephaniah 1:2-3: the “sweeping” of creation’, VT 30 (1980), pp. 104-109.

Richard Bauckham, The Bible and Politics (SPCK, 1989) ‘I am surprised that Noah

has not become, as he deserves to be, a model for Christian conservationists’ (p. 16).

Bernard W. Anderson, ‘Creation and the Noahic covenant’, in Cry of the

Environment, pp. 45-61; see also his ’Creation and Ecology’ in Creation in the Old

Testament, ed. B.W. Anderson (SPCK, 1984): ‘This Noahic covenant opens up the

horizon of the future by predicating the hope of the human and nonhuman creation

on the unconditional commitment of the creator to humankind, to nonhuman

creatures and , and to the order land regularity of “nature”‘ (p. 169).

Bauckham, The Bible and Politics, p. 132: ‘the message of the story [of the flood] is

not so much that God once brought a universal deluge on the earth, but rather that

he will never do so again’.

This struggle with nature is taken up in the following chapters of Genesis.