Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? (Ezekiel 34:18) 

A boy sorts through e-waste in China.
Photo courtesy www.greenmyapple.org

Leave the forest as you found it. That’s what my mom always said. Don’t litter on the sidewalk. Don’t throw your garbage in someone else’s yard. But that’s exactly what we do every day. We mine for coal and drill for oil in someone else’s yard, where we don’t have to see the mountains destroyed and the streams polluted. Our computers end up in landfills in China and India where children sorting through the rubble are exposed to toxic materials. We’ve become so accustomed to our lifestyle that we don’t even see the wastefulness, the destructiveness, the harm we’re causing to innocent people all over the world.

I didn’t see it. I didn’t think about how my driving habits or my energy usage or my garbage affected other people. I didn’t give a second thought to using plastic bags at the grocery store, to buying endless bottles of water. I used my dishwasher and my vacuum cleaner whenever I wanted to. Because I could. Because I didn’t have to worry about any negative effects on MY life. I didn’t think about how the fumes from the power plant at the other end of those power lines connected to my house might have caused some little boy’s asthma two towns over. And that little blue recycle bin in my garage, it made me feel even better about my rampant consumption. I was obviously a conscientious consumer because look how MUCH I recycled!

But what if I tried to stop wasting so many things in the first place? What if the paper and plastic I put in those pretty blue bins weren’t magically turned into park benches and newsprint – poof! What if it took more energy and more chemicals and more waste being produced to recycle all the things I casually wasted? What if, instead of looking at how much I recycled, I looked at how much I CONSUMED.

Change isn’t easy. And, yes, we will have to make some sacrifices in our comfortable lifestyle if we want to keep this beautiful planet that God made for us, well, beautiful. If we want to keep it at all.  But some of the changes I’ve made have been so simple and easy that I kick myself for not doing them sooner. I bring canvass bags with me when I go shopping. I stopped using Ziploc bags for everything and use reusable containers instead. I try to remember to carry my own water bottle. I walk or take public transportation when I can. I use a manual push mower on my lawn (free exercise and fresh air, assuming the place you live still has clean air).

These may be small changes, but the real change is in the way I look at my own consumption. I’m thrilled to have compact florescent lights throughout my house and to drive a sensible car, but that’s not enough. Buying a hybrid or carbon offsets or using biofuels are not easy answers either. Hybrids still use fossil fuels, biofuels require chemicals to grow and large amounts of fossil fuels to process, and carbon offsets have a questionable impact on the environment.  Like recycling, these things make us feel better, yet don’t solve the underlying problems. But we like them because they don’t require us to make significant changes in our lifestyle.

We are asked to be stewards of this planet and to love one another. Both require us to think about the effects of our consumption and wastefulness on others. Eventually, I want to put solar panels on my house and plug in an all-electric car that uses only solar energy. Those are the kinds of radical changes we need to be thinking about. We need to take BIG steps, not small ones, to reduce our carbon footprint and invest in renewable resources. 

And while protecting the environment and those who inhabit it requires individual change, it also requires systemic change. The Energy Bill (H.R. 6) is now in conference committee to work out differences between the Senate and House versions. Contact your legislators and encourage them to include the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) provisions passed by the Senate and the renewable energy standard (RES) passed by the House in the final bill. The CAFE standard provision requires auto makers to increase fuel efficiency for passenger cars, light trucks, and SUVs. The RES provision encourages the use and development of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Both are necessary steps to reduce pollution, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and decrease the destruction of natural habitats in our never-ending quest for more fossil fuels.