Cool It

Bjørn Lomborg’s new book, “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming,” will, hopefully, add positively to the debate regarding global warming and it’s impact upon the earth over the next hundred years.

At this point I support almost anything that falls between global warming hysteria on the one hand and conspiracy theorists on the other. Open minded discussion devoid of strong arming on either side would be nice.

But what we really need is a wider-spread ethic of creation care. OK, I grant, not everyone can embrace my use of the word “creation.” Such implies a creator, and some folks can't go with that. If you’re one of those folks, translate my phrase as “ethic of earth care” if you’d like.

In the end it should not be fear that motivates us to care for this good earth upon which we have been set. Ultimately what should motivate us is virtue, love, stewardship, and moderation.

Love of God is a good motivator – it is His earth and we should not be poisoning it and ripping it apart to satisfy our lust and greed. We should not be wiping his wonderful creatures off the map either.

But love of neighbor should also be a good motivator. How we treat the earth, what we put into the air and water – all this impacts other people. Do we want to do good to our neighbor or harm to our neighbor?

Love of creation itself is a good motivator. Some have called this “biophilia,” and it speaks to that bond we have (or our better selves have) with the living creatures and systems around us.

The virtue of moderation is another good reason to care about the earth. How many of our environmental problems are caused by unbridled and conspicuous consumption – consumption which requires unsustainable use of limited resources. Contentment, moderation, gratitude – the exercise of these virtues alone would impact our world for the better in countless ways.

And this brings up the virtue of stewardship, the wise and sustainable use of that which has been given to us. Stewardship is a virtue. Good stewardship would cause us to look closely at our patterns of life. Good stewardship leads to moderation, conservation, recycling, and loving care of fragile ecosystems and their biodiversity. Those ecosystems have not only animals and plants that we do better to love than to abuse, but they also contain the future cures for many if not most human diseases. We have barely begun to understand the relationship between rare bio-chemicals in this plant or that fungus, and our own diseases.

Good stewardship protects and defends the good and beautiful things which are given to us, as it were, as a gift. Beauty is a central part of the human experience. The absence of it harms our souls and strangles our spirits. We are less without it. As a species, to a great extent, according to our stewardship of a beauty we received but did not create, we play a role in whether beauty remains. It is a gift to be cherished and protected, as good stewards do.

Good stewardship keeps in mind the generation to come after us. What do we want to bequeath to them? Would the virtue of good stewardship not want to give to our children and children’s children an even better and more beautiful world than we have received from our fathers and mothers? I think so.

This is, again, why putting global warming up front as the be all and end all environmental issue concerns me. Eliminate that from your mind and you still have hundreds of reasons to practice an ethic of creation care, or earth care, and hundreds of ways, big and small, to make this world a better place for all who inhabit it.