Most Recent

Science - Environment

Creation stewards in a logging town

My little blue Kia Soul didn’t quite fit in, as I drove through the industrial section of the small forestry town of Houston, BC. Not only are trucks the dominant mode of transport, the industrial lots were filled with massive machines used to cut down and transport trees, some with tires the size of my car.

I pulled into a property that also seemed out of place for this community, let alone the industrial neighborhood: a conservation center and fish hatchery. I stepped inside the Buck Creek Hatchery and Nature Centre, and, in a space about the size of a typical classroom, I was surrounded by God’s amazing creation on display. Animal hides and mounts, rocks, fossils, shells, bird nests, antlers, eggs, and aquariums had me looking in every direction.

Like many other Christians, I have often felt a tension in my heart and mind over our role in ruling over and subduing the earth (Gen. 1:28), while caring for it (Gen. 2:15). I ask my children to not deliberately stomp on an ant, but I also don’t struggle with removing an anthill that is becoming a problem for our home.

As I have grown older, I see many more examples of tension woven through life and the Scriptures. It means we need to take the time to listen, and to act with wisdom. So, I figured that agreeing to an invitation to meet with two Christian environmentalists in a resource-dependent town could be a good way to help me grow in navigating this tension over creation care.

Marjorie Lieuwen and Cindy Verbeek welcomed me to the center and took me into a “hands-on” classroom, meant for teaching students about creation. The two shared how at different times, and through different means, the LORD had guided their steps to serve as nature stewards in the middle of a logging town.

Cindy Verbeek standing in front of the Buck Creek Hatchery’s salmon mural.

A common denominator

As a young adult, Cindy spent a summer doing environmental studies at a field school in Michigan. It was during a time of prayer in the forest there that she was convicted to dedicate her life to this work. She then got involved with A Rocha, a Christian conservation organization that was started in Portugal in the 1980s. Her husband and she volunteered there in 1996, and she has served with the organization through various means since then. The couple moved to Houston in 2002, and Cindy began serving on staff with A Rocha from there.

Promoting environmental care in a town that owes its existence to the development of natural resources, particularly logging, comes with challenges. Cindy explained that she started with efforts like a community garden, recycling committee, and farmers’ market. “But none of the things really fit. It didn’t fit me. It didn’t fit the context.” For example, she noted that people in Houston already had gardens that were larger than the community garden, and they already shared.

Things changed when she got involved with the Pacific Streamkeepers Federation, introducing her to work with salmon. She floated the idea of a salmon hatchery in Houston “and all of a sudden people were coming out of the woodwork.” She explained that,

“…salmon are a common denominator in our valley, in Western BC. We are all connected to salmon somehow. We either fish for them, or we love seeing them. We love eating them…. Everyone just loved salmon, and it took me a long time to understand the language of this community.”

She and Regina Meints started a pilot hatchery in a shed in Regina’s backyard, raising 4,400 coho salmon. The experience made them decide they wanted to do this full-time and long-term, so they started making plans. “It started as a salmon hatchery,” said Cindy. “But I am an environmental educator. I love sharing and teaching people about creation, and so I wanted the nature center aspect added to it as well.”

In 2017 the hatchery was built and in 2021, amidst Covid, the nature center was added on. But that also meant the expectations grew. “I was very quickly realizing that this project was way bigger than myself,” explained Cindy. Providentially, that was also the year that Marjorie Lieuwen landed in northern BC.

From the prairies to the mountains

Marjorie Liewen with quite the coho salmon during a broodstock capture for the hatchery.
Picture credit: Marjorie Liewen

Marjorie grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Although the landscape is nothing like northwest BC, her dad is a birdwatcher, so their family got outside a lot. “Even when I was in Grade Four, I made this plan to start a burrowing owl sanctuary because I heard they were endangered in Manitoba.” That said, Marjorie didn’t expect her love of nature to translate so directly into a career. She completed a degree in biotechnology at the University of Manitoba, followed by a master’s degree at the Health Sciences Center at the same school, focused on finding cures and therapies for Rett Syndrome, a genetic disorder.

Part way through her master’s degree, she made a trip to Houston to attend a wedding. On that trip she met Jason Lieuwen, who grew up in Houston, was a friend of the groom and had recently moved back to Houston after studying forestry in Prince George. Marjorie and Jason started dating long-distance, and then Marjorie decided to move to Prince George in 2021 to do some more schooling. They got married that June. That summer, she saw a job posting for the nature centre in Houston. It was a perfect fit.

Marjorie’s education fits well with her role in overseeing the fish in the hatchery as well as stewarding the salmon in the Upper Bulkley River, which flows through the community. She works with local farmers, First Nations, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and others to monitor salmon numbers and promote a flourishing population, specifically for coho and chinook salmon.

In the 1970s, the salmon numbers plummeted in the Upper Bulkley and the river was closed to fishing. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans started a program that involved releasing coho and chinook hatchery fish, but the coho program was stopped in the early 2000s. “So, for about 10 years or so, there was no coho enhancement being done,” explained Marjorie. That changed when Cindy and other locals decided to start a hatchery.

The Buck Creek hatchery is considered a “stewardship hatchery” because it is small, raising only about 9,000 salmon, and includes a special focus on educating and involving the community. They grow coho specifically because they are more robust and can better tolerate being handled by volunteers. Most hatcheries in the province are much larger, focused less on education and more on getting large numbers of salmon into the rivers and oceans.

A not-so-unlikely pair

Some may find it ironic that Marjorie, a self-described environmentalist, married Jason, a professional forester who worked for Canfor, the local mill in Houston which also happened to be the largest sawmill in the world at one point.

This is a beaver dam after it has been notched to create an opening for salmon spawners to jump through. Picture credit: Marjorie Lieuwen

But those who live in resource-based communities like Houston will testify that many of those involved in trades like forestry and mining care a great deal for the environment, as they see it up close and personally every day, and their lives are dependent on it. In other words, they are very much in touch with God’s creation, unlike the many who claim to be “green” but whose environmental care doesn’t go much further than virtue-signalling with their vote or through social media.

“I think it's been really good for me to have that window into that world and to see how there are a lot of requirements that they have to fulfill,” explained Marjorie.

“I was looking at a map once in Jason's truck, and there were these marks in a logging block. I asked what they were. ‘For critter piles’ he said. So I asked him ‘what are critter piles?’”

Jason proceeded to explain how they make piles of sticks and debris for fishers, squirrels and other critters.

“They aren’t legally required to do this, but this is an example of how forestry professionals implement recommendations from biologists to reduce the impacts of logging to the local ecosystem.”

This also helps explain why the property where the hatchery and nature centre is built is owned by the Canfor sawmill. Canfor pays for the taxes, and charges $1 per year for the lease. Indeed, through its history, the community relied on the economic engine of the sawmills to keep their residents working. And although many in urban areas don’t witness it, the same applies to Canada as a whole. About 20 percent of our country’s GDP, and 1.7 million jobs, come from natural resources development. This development also opened up most of the country, creating the infrastructure (roads, railways, pipelines, hydro), that the rest of the population now depends on for daily living.

But tension can quickly become unhealthy when the two sides (in this case resource development and care for the earth) aren’t united in an underlying ethic of respect. That is being felt in Houston today, as Canfor recently had to shut down the sawmill, unable to remain feasible under a NDP provincial government. Businesses like Canfor see the ever-growing list of red tape in BC and decide that they are better off investing in provinces or states that appreciate them.

In contrast, a Christian ethic allows for civil discussion and listening. Cindy shared that:

“it actually took a long time in this community to convince people that I wasn't going to chain myself to their logging truck. I wasn't going to tell them that they needed to quit their jobs in logging or mining or whatever. I personally think that we can do more good by working within the industry than by alienating the industry.”

She shared that there were plenty of times in the past when she organized something like a bird walk, with nobody coming out. “I feel like I'm on the other side now. We're at a point in the community where I feel like people finally understand what it is that we're doing and embrace it.”

Christian environmental stewardship

Coho salmon are captured for hatchery broodstock using seine nets. Picture credit: Cindy Verbeek

There is no shortage of environmentalists in BC, but so many are radical and secular. These sort vehemently oppose resource development, and sometimes even prioritize nature over humanity. But as Marjorie and Cindy exemplify, creation stewardship can go hand-in-hand with resource development.

“We don't hide that we're Christian,” explained Cindy. “We're scientists. This is who God has called us to be. This is our outworking of our faith in doing conservation and creation care work.”

This aligns with the opening chapters of the Bible, where God gave clear instructions to our first parents about how He wanted us to live on this earth. He called them to:

“fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

He also said that this creation was made for humanity, including as a source for food. As Art Carden and Caleb S. Fuller explain in their book Mere Economics,

“that humanity is to ‘fill’ and ‘subdue’ suggests that creation is not a museum where only the daintiest white-glove treatment is permitted. From the beginning, God told people to develop and cultivate creation’s potential.”

In the next chapter of Scripture, we read how “the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Our dominion over creation is to exemplify cultivation and protection. As Cindy explained,

“There is definitely something different about humans as created in the image of God. We definitely have a different role in creation. But we are also made from the dust, and we also share that with the creatures…. You can't care for people without caring for the creation that supports the people.”

She saw this first-hand in Uganda and Kenya, where creation had been severely degraded, hurting some of the poorest people in the world.

“What they're doing to be able to feed their families is coming back in alignment with how God created that place to work rather than using European farming technology and techniques on a tropical ecosystem. They're going back to how God created that ecosystem to work in that location. Then, they're healing the soil, and they're healing the land, and they're feeding their families.”

Cindy also referenced 2 Chronicles 7:14:

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

The last words of that verse have had a big impact on her, as they convicted her that the healing is not just personal, but also extends to creation. “In Colossians it talks about how creation was created for, and in, and through Jesus, and that His death and resurrection were for the reconciliation of all things. It's all of creation.”

Reflecting on my visit to the hatchery and nature center, I can see how this reconciliation explains why two environmentalists, and a nature center, can fit so well amidst a town devoted to harvesting trees and minerals from the earth. The tension between care and dominion is a healthy tension that God called us to in His very first words to us in Genesis 1 and 2. We can both care and exercise dominion. These can work in harmony when we recognize that God has purposefully put us where we are – be it Houston, or Winnipeg, or Halifax – and calls us to steward our lives and this world for His glory.

Full Article

Economics, Science - Environment

Thinking on the margin, or why some pollution is better than none

Science - Environment

How should Christians view climate change?

Chatting with the Cornwall Alliance’s Dr. Calvin Beisner This is an overview of a recent episode of Lucas Holvlüwer and Tyler Vanderwoudes’ Rea...

Science - Environment

7 biblical principles of environmental stewardship

Science - Environment

Environmentalists: How to tell the bad ones from the good

Science - Environment, Theology

Catastrophic global warming? A brief biblical case for skepticism

The media tells us that the question is settled, there is a 97% consensus, and that anyone who has questions is a “denier,” likened to those who are either so foolish, or malicious, as to deny the reality of the Holocaust. But there are reasons to question. And while climate science might be beyond most of us, God has given us another means – a far more reliable means – of discerning truth, via His Word. Gender: the Bible shows the way Sometimes it doesn’t take much Bible study to be able to discern truth from error, and that’s certainly true in today’s gender debate. Young children are being surgically mutilated and hormonally sterilized and yet the government, doctors, psychologists, and media are applauding. While it might not be at 97% yet, the consensus is growing such that fines are being issued, teachers fired, students expelled, and Twitter mobs set loose on any who disagree. Despite the pressure, few Christians are being fooled, though that might be due as much to the newness of the debate as it is that Evangelicals are turning to their Bibles for guidance. But if they do open His Word it won’t take a believer long to figure out God’s position. In Genesis 1:27 we learn it is God, not Man, who determines our gender: “So God created Man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Population: following the Bible would have saved tens of millions The overpopulation crisis has a longer history to it and, consequently, many more Christians have bought into it. Since the 1950s we’ve been hearing that sometime soon the world’s population will outstrip the planet’s resources. In his 1969 book The Population Bomb Paul Ehrlich warned: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.” You would think that by now it would be easy to see that these overpopulation fears were mistaken. As economist Arthur Brooks has noted, what’s happened is the very opposite of Ehrlich’s dire prediction: “From the 1970s until today the percentage of people living at starvation’s door has decreased by 80%. Two billion people have been pulled out of starvation-level poverty.” Yet the overpopulation hysteria has never gone away. And the damage it has done has been on par with that of a Hitler or Stalin – tens of millions have been killed. Under threat of this crisis China implemented their infamous one-child policy, with its fines and forced abortions for couples who tried for two. And the deaths weren’t limited to China; overpopulation fears were used to justify the push for legalized abortion in countries around the world. Murdering your own children wasn’t cold and selfish anymore; now it was a woman doing her part to save the planet. Christians opposed abortion, of course, but some believers started questioning whether overpopulation concerns might be correct. Maybe God’s call to “be fruitful and multiply” and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28) was just a temporary directive that we’ve fulfilled and should now treat as being over and done with. But it takes only a little more digging to find out that’s not what God thinks. Overpopulation proponents saw children as more mouths to find – they saw them as a problem – but God speaks repeatedly of children as a blessing (Ps. 113:9, 127:3-5, Prov. 17:6, Matt. 18:10, John 16:21). And opportunities present themselves when we see children as God sees them. When we understand they are a blessing, then we realize that not only do children come with a mouth that needs filling, but they also have hands that can produce even more than their mouth consumes. And they have a brain to invent and problem solve. When we see children this way – as a blessing and not a curse – then we'll realize there’s a real practical benefit in having lots of them: as we’ve been told, many hands make light work, and two heads are also better than one! That’s why it shouldn’t have surprised Christians when in the 1950s and 60s a group of inventive sorts, led by American Norman Borlaug, helped develop much higher-yielding strains of cereal crops. This “Green Revolution” turned wheat-importing countries into wheat exporting countries by more than doubling yields. And while there are no prophecies in the Bible specifically mentioning Norman Borlaug, Christians could have seen him coming, and in a sense some did. Those who continued having large families, despite the dire predictions, could do so confident that any problems caused by the innumerable nature of their progeny would be solved by something like the Green Revolution happening. Today, decades later, we can look back and see that a country like China, that ignored what God says about children, is facing a different sort of demographic crisis. A young Chinese couple will have two sets of parents and four sets of grandparents to look after and support, but have no siblings or cousins to help them. As soon as 2030 China will see their population start to decline, with not nearly enough working age citizens to provide for their aging population. It’s not all that different in the Western world where, even without government coercion, our families have been shrinking and women are averaging far less than two children each. We aren’t as near the crisis point as China, but by aborting a quarter of the next generation, we’ve created our own coming demographic crisis. Catastrophic global warming: a biblical case for skepticism The population and gender debates remind us that the Bible is more reliable than any-sized consensus no matter how big. They also teach us that the world can get things not just completely wrong, but monstrously so, leading to the deaths of tens of millions. That’s why when it comes to global warming, where we’re being told once again that the fate of the planet is at stake, we want any and all guidance we can get from God’s Word. Cornelius Van Til once noted: “The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication.” The Bible does speak to global warming, but not directly. This isn’t like the gender debate, which runs smack up against Genesis 1:27 (“male and female He created them”) or the overpopulation crisis, which directly opposes the very next verse (“be fruitful and multiply”). When it comes to global warming the Bible isn’t as direct. But there are lots of implications. Time and space only allow me to present a half dozen texts. I’m not pretending that any one of them makes the definitive case for skepticism. But I do think that together they start pointing us decidedly in that direction. "You will know them by their fruits" – Matt. 7:15-20 In Matthew 7 Jesus tells us that we can tell a good tree from a bad one by the fruit on it. His concern wasn’t with trees though, but with telling false prophets from good ones. When it comes to global warming the science is beyond most of us, but we can evaluate the people. So let’s return to this 97% consensus we’ve heard so much about. This statistic is used to argue that there is no question but that the planet is headed to catastrophic climate change. But is this a reliable number, or is it like the greatly exaggerated 10% figure commonly given for the homosexual population? The figure has a few different origins, but one of the more commonly cited is a paper by John Cook and his colleagues reviewing 11,944 published peer-reviewed papers from climate scientists. Did 97% of those papers’ authors agree with the statement “humans are causing global warming”? That’s what we would expect. But instead of 10,000+ papers with that position, there were 3,894, or approximately 33%. So how did the 97% figure come out of that then? Well, it turns out only approximately 34% of the papers took a position one way or the other, with just 1% disagreeing or uncertain, and 33% agreeing. Thus, of the 34% who took a position, 97% agreed that humans are causing global warming. Is it honest to ignore the two thirds who didn’t state a position, and say there is a 97% consensus and no room for a debate? How this statistic has been used reminds me of a trick from another debate – equivocation about the definition of “evolution.” In his book, The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins notes that when poachers shoot elephants with long tusks, the next generation is liable to have shorter tusks. Okay, but creationists also believe species can undergo changes over time. We’re the folks arguing that the array of cats we see today are all modified versions of a single cat kind brought on the ark. Dawkins has presented “minor changes over time” – a definition of evolution so broad that it enfolds even creationists into the evolution camp – as if it were proof of the from-goo-to-you sort of evolution that is actually under dispute. Similarly, the 97% consensus is being presented as if all those counted hold that the warming is catastrophic, humans are the primary cause, and there is a need for immediate, drastic, global action. But the agreement was only that “humans are causing global warming.” And that’s a statement so broad as to enfold even many of the so-called “deniers.” So on a statement we can verify – whether there really is a 97% consensus on catastrophic global warming – we find “bad fruit.” There are many other facts and claims we can’t evaluate, but doesn’t this tell us something about the “tree”? “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” – Proverbs 18:17 God says that to find the truth good questions are helpful. That’s not going on here, where questioners are likened to Holocaust deniers. But here’s a few questions worth considering: Aren’t there bigger priorities than global warming, like the millions who will starve to death this year, or the billions who lack basic access to clean water and sanitation? If fossil fuels are harmful, and solar and wind problematic, why aren’t we turning to nuclear? How will the world’s poor be impacted by a move away from fossil fuels toward more expensive alternatives? Are we again (as we did in response to overpopulation fears) seeking to save the planet by harming those who live on it? Samuel’s warning against kings – 1 Samuel 8:10-22 President Obama’s chief of staff famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” and if you want to understand what he meant, looking no further than Justin Trudeau’s proposed ban on single-use plastics. This past year a video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck up deep inside his nose went viral, alerting the tens of millions of viewers to the growing problem of plastics in our oceans. The movement to ban plastic straws has taken off since then. But will Trudeau’s single-use plastics ban save turtles? No, because our straws don’t end up in the ocean. Of the mass of plastic in the ocean it’s been estimated the US is responsible for one percent, and it’d be reasonable to conclude that Canada is responsible for far less. So how, then, does all the plastic end up in the ocean? It turns out that the vast majority of it comes from poorer countries that don’t have proper trash disposal. They simply dump their waste into the ocean and into their rivers. Trudeau’s ban will do nothing to help the turtles…but it will expand the government’s reach. The proposed solutions for climate change all involve expanding the government too, giving it a larger role in directing all things energy-related. So, how is 1 Samuel 8 relevant? Here we find Samuel warning against an expansion of government – get a king and he’ll start intruding into all areas of your lives. If there is a biblical case to be made for limited, small government (and there is) then Christians have a reason to question crises that seem to necessitate an ever-expanding role for the State. “…and it was very good.” – Gen. 1:31 While we no longer live in the perfect world Adam and Eve started with, we have only to wriggle our toes, or watch a ladybug crawl across the back of our hand to recognize that God’s brilliant design is still evident and at work all around us. We are on a blue and white marble, spinning at just the right angle, and orbiting at just the right distance from the sun, for it to rain and snow in season. We have a moon just the right size, and circling at just the right distance for us to study our own sun, and to bring the tides that sweep our beaches each day. And our planet is graced with a molten iron core that generates the very magnetic field we need to protect us from the solar winds, which would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects us from ultraviolet radiation. It is wheels within wheels within wheels, and while we can do damage to it, when we appreciate how brilliantly our world is designed we aren’t surprised there is a robustness to it. Meanwhile, the unbeliever thinks our world is the result of one lucky circumstance after another – a tower of teacups, all balanced perfectly, but accidentally. If the world did come about by mere happenstance, then what an unbelievable run of happenstance we’ve had, and isn’t there every reason to fear change? Sure, the teacup tower is balanced now, but if we mess with it, how long can we count on our luck to hold? “He who oppresses the poor taunts his Maker” – Prov. 14:31 At first glance, this text might not seem to provide much direction in this debate. After all, couldn’t a Christian who holds to catastrophic man-caused global warming cite it in support of their position too? Yes they could. If climate change is real, then the oppression it would bring on the poor would be a reason to fight it. Yet this text does provide a very specific sort of direction. It lays out limits on what sort of global warming plans Christians should view as acceptable: any plan to save the planet that does so by hurting the poor is not biblical. That means increasing energy costs has to be out. Millions are starving already and raising energy prices will only increase those numbers. “Be fruitful and multiply” – Gen. 1:28 Children come with an inevitable “carbon footprint” which is why some global warming proponents echo the same sentiments as the overpopulationists before them. “Save the earth; don’t give birth” is catchy, but if that was the only possible way we could lower carbon emissions then Christians could, on that basis, conclude there was no need to worry about CO2. Because God tells us children are a blessing, not a curse. Of course there may be other ways to lower carbon emissions. But the more we hear people portraying children as a problem, the more we should recognize there is an element in the global warming movement intent on attacking God’s Truth, rather than taking on any real problem. Conclusion Other passages could be mentioned like Genesis 8:22, Romans 1:25 and Psalm 102:25-26 but this is good for a start. And that’s what this is: a start. My hope here is to encourage an exploration of what Scripture says that’s relevant to the issue of catastrophic global warming. The Bible isn’t silent on this topic; we need to look at global warming biblically. This article first appeared in the July/August 2019 issue under the title "Global warming crisis? A brief biblical case for skepticism."...

Economics, Science - Environment

Manure into mattresses – we can "create" resources

Economist Julian Simon's key insight is that man's creativity – his brainpower – is a resource that creates other resources. So while some view a rising population as a threat to limited resources ("We're going to run out of oil!") Simon viewed a growing population as a growing resource base. Our brains, when properly applied, could in a reflection of God's own creativity, turn nothing (or next to it) into quite something. For example, when copper – a key element in our phone lines – started getting very expensive, this motivated some smart chaps to develop a much cheaper alternative: sand! That's what our telephone lines are today: Sand (silicon) + Human Creativity = Fiber optic cables Making sand into something is amazing enough, but a much more impressive example of "resource creation" is the way some farmers have turned poop into bedding (or if you prefer alliteration, manure into mattresses). It is quite a story! Rising prices prompts creative thinking Down where I live, in the Northern Washington/Southern BC area, some dairy farmers used to use sawdust as a cheap bedding material for their cows. The cows could sleep in it, poop on it, and the farmer could then come along, clean it out, and put a new layer down. Sawdust clumped together, making it easy to scoop away, but perhaps its most attractive quality was its cheapness. Sawdust used to be viewed as a waste product from the lumber industry – they couldn't give it away and would even bury it. But then creative farmers created a market for this castoff. Or to put it in more mathematical terms: Sawdust + Human Creativity = Cow bedding Some time later, other creative folks started to see more ways that sawdust could be used, including as fuel. Because it originated as a lumber waste product it was cheaper than many other fuel options. So some greenhouses owners figured out a way to use it to heat their buildings, and started to outbid the farmers. This result was this waste product – nothing more than garbage before human brainpower got involved – had so increased in value that farmers could no longer afford it. They needed to find a cheaper option for their bedding! And then it happened. Some ingenious dairy farmer, probably sitting out on his tractor staring out across his manure lagoon, started thinking about the possibilities in all this poop. The result was a separation system that used the undigested fibers found in cow manure. This is fed into a rotating drying drum, where high heat kills the germs, and the output is fibrous bedding material for the farmer's cows. Poop + Human Creativity = Cow bedding Manure has been turned into mattresses! Conclusion Julian Simon was an atheist, so he didn't understand why we have this capacity – why we have a mysterious, awesome ability to use our brains to create something out of nothing. But Simon did recognize Man was more than his mouth; he understood that Man wasn't best understood as a consumer of scarce resources, but that instead Man has an ability (and Christians would add, a calling) to be a producer of plenty. So, in this limited way, Simon has a more accurate understanding of Man than any of his critics. So where does our creative capacity come from? It is a reflection of God's creative Genius. We can't create ex nihilo – out of nothing – like God does, but when we take what was once useless, and put it to productive use, we show ourselves to be His image-bearers....

Science - Environment

Environmental Extremism: a one-world view

Christians know there is another Earth coming **** No intelligent and dedicated Christian wants to dispute the idea that we ought to be judicious about how we conduct ourselves with the planet that God has given us to inhabit and enjoy. Reasonable conservation is, of course, nothing more than good stewardship of those bounties. We applaud efforts at reforestation, preservation of Natural Wonders, and the like. We shouldn't think like the secular environmentalists But our views of the earth ought to collide with those of the environmental extremists who are more concerned about snail darters than about the livelihood of hardworking farmers whose efforts to earn a living are impeded by them. As believers, therefore, it is important for us to consider what God, Himself, has said about the matter. I want to suggest that, in passing, Paul makes an all-important statement in Colossians 2:22a that has been overlooked by many of our people. His words rest upon a worldview that simply is not shared by non-Christians. This dissimilarity in views leads to many of the differences that we find between ourselves and the environmentalists. Here are his words: “These refer to things that are intended to be used up and perish.” In the passage Paul is referring to “ascetic” injunctions concerning fasting, various uses of food, and so on, that unbelievers and Judaizers alike sought to impose upon Christians. Paul would have us refuse to follow them. So, in passing – as I indicated above – he says that the things that the world holds sacred, to the Christian, are but items that God has provided for our use. This Earth isn’t meant to last His point is that when they are “used up” that’s OK (assuming they were used in a responsible manner). It is no great tragedy to deplete the supply of fossil fuels, for a species of unusual fish to become extinct, or for the wolves to be banned from lands where they attack and destroy herds of cattle and sheep. “But that is a tragedy,” says someone. “After all, once they are gone – “used up” as your apostle put it – they are gone forever. To lose an animal species or a rainforest is to have suffered an irreparable loss!” Yes, in that objection, you detect quite a different philosophy of existence. Christians should expect outcries from environmentalists about oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the West, the use of SUVs on our highways, and similar human activities that they believe will noticeably affect the environment. Such objections to these activities are perfectly in accord with the one-world view of the non-Christian. He would be inconsistent to his basic philosophy of existence if he didn’t raise an outcry. “What, then, are you saying,” asks a Christian? No need to cling Simply this. The unbeliever has but one world. He knows nothing of another world to come. He clings to every aspect of the present world‘s assets because, as he believes, once they “perish” they are gone forever. No wonder he is goes to lengths to preserve all that he can. But the Christian looks forward to a new heavens and a new earth that will be so far superior to the present one that he cannot stake everything on what now exists. He looks on the present world as a marvelous creation, in which God had provided all things for us to use and enjoy now – insofar as we can since it is under the curse of sin. Because of that curse, however, nothing will remain forever. Indeed, the book of Ecclesiastes was written to point out that nothing is permanent. And, in that book, like Paul, Solomon tells us to enjoy what we can so long as we are here and the deteriorating world in which we live continues as it is. The clash in opinions that occurs over various environmental issues is, in reality, a clash of a one-world and a two-world view of existence. Dr. Adams has written more than 100 books, on a variety of subjects. This article was originally posted on the Institute for Nouthetic Studies’ blog (www.nouthetic.org/blog) and is reprinted here with permission. Sidebar: Prioritizing the living over the hypothetical by Jon Dykstra Atheists have no future hope – no eternity to look forward to – so they are desperate to hold onto what they have now. That’s true for the unbelieving environmentalist, and equally so for the unbelieving health food fanatic: one is worried about the planet, the other his own well-being, but in both cases they are willing to go to extremes to preserve what they have because it is all that they have. A Christian knows better. We know that while life is precious and death is an enemy to be fought, we have another life coming. So we take good care of the body God has given us – we eat healthy and exercise when we can – but we don’t obsess about eliminating every last kettle chip from our diet, or worry about whether we’re getting enough of the latest superfood. We need to be good stewards of what God has given us, and that includes our life, but we don’t need to cling desperately to it. When it comes to our planet, Christians know that not only is another Earth coming, there is a chance it might come very soon. The unbeliever thinks this is it and there ain’t no more, so he’s willing to impose huge burdens on this world’s present population in the faint hope it will extend the Earth’s best before date. But what about the good that money could do right now? Consider this: if we knew the world was going to end in a decade – let’s say scientists saw a gigantic planet-killing comet on the way – would we spend trillions in the hope of making the planet a cooler place in 100 years? No, of course not. Then the choice would be obvious and even the unbeliever would want to spend those trillions on helping people right now. Well, we don’t know when the Christ is going to return, but we know it could happen any time. When we are weighing the needs of people today vs. the needs of people in the future, Christians need to place a very important and clarifying modifier before those future folk: we need to understand they are “hypothetical.” Jesus could come back tomorrow; we don’t know if there will still be children being born in one hundred years. Now, regardless of whether Christ returns this century or not, prioritizing the needs of real people over potential people is the right idea. That doesn't mean have no thought for tomorrow. It does mean the future is uncertain, and we don’t know what it brings. What we do know for certain is that there are millions of children today who are living in poverty, and dying from hunger and preventable sickness. If we seek to "save the future" by, for example, adopting carbon taxes to combat global warming, then we will make oil and gas more expensive, and that will increase the cost of food, shelter, medicine and more for the world's poor. We will hypothetically help the hypothetical populations of the future by actually hurting the actual poor of today. The point I'm arguing for here is a limited one. It could be caricatured as, rape and pillage the earth today, and who cares about the consequences for future generations, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm trying to counter a future-minded approach that wants to preserve the planet and does so by hurting the poorest today. But if that's the tradeoff – if it has to come down to hurting people today, or risking doing so to hypothetical populations of the future, then we should be standing up for the living, breathing, suffering, actual people of today even at an uncertain cost for the future....

Science - Environment

The making of the Cornwall Alliance

How did we get our biblical stewardship group going? Editor’s Note: Dr. E Calvin Beisner will be featured in Reformed Perspective’s Spring Speaking Tour “The Grass is Greener” so we wanted to share a little bit about him, and the organization, the Cornwall Alliance, that he heads. **** Where did the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation come from? It is the ongoing result of decades of study by scores of scholars – theologians, scientists, economists, and others – and myself. My own personal background played a major role in shaping it, so let me share that with you. When I was an infant, my father, working for the U.S. State Department, was posted to Calcutta, India. We returned to the States around my second birthday, so I don’t have many direct, personal memories of life there. But two picture memories stand out starkly. The first is of the beautiful tropical garden in the courtyard of the apartment complex where we lived. The second is of the scores of bodies of those who had died of starvation and related diseases, over and around which, early each morning for several months, before trucks came around and picked them up, I walked, hand in hand with my “Aia,” the Indian lady who led me by the hand from my parents’ home several blocks to the home of an Indian family where I spent the day because my mother was paralyzed by a tropical virus that attacked her spine (from which, thank God, she eventually recovered). Over the years, those two memories came to bespeak for me two things: the glories of God’s creation, and the horrors of abject poverty. The Bible speaks about the poor too When I became a Christian, and when in high school I began dedicating my life to the service of Christ, I at first failed to recognize the connection between the Christian faith and either of those two matters. I thought the Christian faith was about nothing but the salvation of sinners – which is indeed the heart of the Christian faith and the most glorious part of it! I witnessed the gospel constantly to fellow students, then to teachers, and to many others, all through high school and college. I studied apologetics so I could answer arguments against the Christian faith. I rejoiced to see the Lord bring many people to saving faith in Christ. Evangelism and apologetics were my almost sole interests. Three years after I finished college with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Religion and Philosophy with double minors in Classical History and Classical Languages (in 1978), a pastor friend urged me to read a book about Christian responsibility to care for the poor. I did, and I realized for the first time how much the Bible has to say about the poor. However, I suspected that much of what the author said was mistaken – that he misinterpreted Bible passages, used faulty theological reasoning, and often argued invalidly (as a philosophy student I had studied logic). I didn’t know much about economics, but I suspected that he misunderstood that, too. Yet his book was tremendously influential, so I decided to learn economics to better evaluate the book. I read a lot of textbooks and other studies of economics. Then I earned my M.A. in Society with Specialization in Economic Ethics (International College, 1983) with a thesis focusing on economic ethics. The beginnings of a group Meanwhile, a theologian friend who knew of my prior work in evangelism and apologetics had started the “Coalition on Revival” to help what eventually became several hundred Christian theologians, philosophers, historians, lawyers, educators, psychologists, economists, and other scholars to work together producing “white papers” setting forth the Christian worldview as it applied to each of the major spheres of life. Knowing of my studies in economics, he asked me to chair the economics committee, and I consented. Dr. Marvin Olasky and Dr. Herb Schlossberg, along with about 20 others, were on that committee, and after the third year of our meetings, they asked me to write a book on economics for a series they were editing, and Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity (1988) was the result. One chapter was supposed to discuss how population, resources, and the economy interrelate, but as I worked on it, I found that it was far too much to treat in a single chapter. Marvin told me, “Okay, then do a whole book on that.” After two more years, I finished Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future (1990). Becoming a professor When people in the administration and board of trustees of Covenant College read those books (and others I’d written), they invited me to teach. I did, from 1992–2000, as Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, focusing on the application of Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics to economics, government, and public policy, with special attention to economic development for the poor and environmental stewardship. In late 1999 the trustees and administration of Knox Theological Seminary invited me to teach. As Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Social Ethics (the latter including the ethics of economic development and environmental stewardship) I taught there from 2000–2008. (While teaching at Covenant and Knox, I also earned a Ph.D. in Scottish History (University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2005–2003), focusing on the history of political philosophy.) Starting in the early 1990s, a variety of religious scholars – Jewish, Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical Protestant – were studying how Biblical ethics should inform environmental stewardship. I was one among many who participated in small colloquia hosted by various groups – the Evangelical Environmental Network, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and colleges and churches – to deliver papers and discuss ideas. From West Cornwall… One such meeting, involving about 30 scholars, took place in the autumn of 1999 in West Cornwall, Connecticut. Following it, several of us thought it would be helpful to create a statement of fundamental principles, and I agreed to draft it. That became, after editing by several scholars, The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, which was released publicly in March of 2000, after it had been endorsed by several hundred prominent religious leaders, and which eventually was endorsed by over 1,500 religious leaders and thousands of lay people. In the summer of 2005, a handful of those who had been instrumental in organizing the gathering that led to issuing the Cornwall Declaration asked me if I would write some articles, speak in various places, and coordinate the building of a network of scholars to promote the basic ideas of the Declaration. I agreed to do it on the side. …to the ISA From that grew the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA), a loose-knit network of theologians, pastors, other ministry leaders, scientists, economists, other scholars, and policy experts, all donating their time, dedicated to applying Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics together with excellent science and economics to the interrelated challenges of economic development for the very poor and environmental stewardship. Our first major product was An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy (November 2005). Over the next two years, ISA functioned as a loose-knit network of people with mutual interests. It had no budget, almost no funding (just small amounts donated by a few individuals), no office, and no staff except myself on a small part-time stipend. But the quality of that first paper, and then of our second, A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming (July 2006), resulted in our scholars’ being asked to speak for a variety of organizations and in my being asked to give testimony as an expert witness before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (October 2006). New name In 2007 we changed our name to The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation to make our connection to the Cornwall Declaration clear. To respond to rising demand for our teaching and writing, we incorporated The James Partnership, a 501(c)3 non-profit religious, educational, and charitable organization. (Two other organizations also operate under The James Partnership. We were able to hire a part-time assistant, and then in 2008 I left Knox Theological Seminary to divide my time between the Cornwall Alliance and serving on the pastoral staff of a church I had helped plant. We are supported by donations from private individuals and non-profit foundations, not by corporate gifts, and by donations of time and expertise by over 60 scholars in our network, such as the authors of hundreds of articles we’ve published in scores of venues; the speakers for our Resisting the Green Dragon video lecture series and documentary; the author of our book Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion, Not Death; the scholars interviewed for our Where the Grass Is Greener: Biblical Stewardship vs. Climate Alarmism and other video documentaries; and the authors and reviewers of our major papers, including: An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy (2005) A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming(2006) The Cornwall Stewardship Agenda(2008) A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming(2010) The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ethics and Economics of the War on Conventional Energy(2011) What Is the Most Important Environmental Task Facing American Christians Today?(rev. ed., 2014) A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor 2014: The Case against Harmful Climate Policies Gets Stronger(2014), and An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change(2015). As of this writing (early 2017), with two full-time staff (our Director of Communications and me), one paid part-time staff member (our Director of Donor Relations), and two part-time volunteer staff members, the Cornwall Alliance remains largely a loose-knit network of theologians, pastors, other ministry leaders, scientists, economists, other scholars, and policy experts dedicated to applying Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics together with excellent science and economics to the twin tasks of environmental stewardship and economic development for the poor through writing, speaking, social media, and our websites www.CornwallAlliance.org and www.EarthRisingBlog.com. ***** E. Calvin Beisner will be touring Canada, as part of RP's "The Grass is Greener: biblical stewardship and an age of climate alarmism" speaking tour. Dates and location are below. Can you help us spread the word? Please like and share this post! May 1 – Hamilton Cornerstone CanRC May 2 – Smithville CanRC May 3 – Fergus Maranatha CanRC May 4 – Burgessville Heritage NRC May 5 – Strathroy Providence URC May 8 – Winnipeg Redeemer CanRC May 9 – Lethbridge Trinity URC May 10 – Edmonton Parkland Immanuel Christian School May 11 – Ponoka Parkland URC May 12 – Barrhead CanRC ...

Science - Environment

Environmentalism and marriage?

When I first wrote about a marriage/environmentalism connection ten years ago, there was no need to clarify what I wasn't trying to say. But today it...

Science - Environment

The Poor: why we can't let the Global Warming debate be over

Science - Environment

Free movie: Blue

Documentary 2014 / 58 minutes Rating: 7/10 Blue is about an alternative – a Christian alternative – to the Green movement. Whereas the secula...

Life's busy, read it when you're ready!

Create a free account to save articles for later, keep track of past articles you’ve read, and receive exclusive access to all RP resources.

Search thousands of RP articles

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth.

Get Articles Delivered!

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth. delivered direct to your Inbox!

Magazine

Past Articles

Book Reviews

Movie Reviews

Daily devotional

More of Reformed Perspective!

Newsletter

Real Talk

Manna

VOTC

About Us

Advertise

Advertising, Job Postings

Trivan and ITB: Now Hiring!

Search CATEGORY: Science – Environment

Science - Environment

Creation stewards in a logging town

A common denominator

From the prairies to the mountains

A not-so-unlikely pair

Christian environmental stewardship

Economics, Science - Environment

Thinking on the margin, or why some pollution is better than none

Science - Environment

How should Christians view climate change?

Science - Environment

7 biblical principles of environmental stewardship

Science - Environment

Environmentalists: How to tell the bad ones from the good

Science - Environment, Theology

Catastrophic global warming? A brief biblical case for skepticism

Economics, Science - Environment

Manure into mattresses – we can "create" resources

Science - Environment

Environmental Extremism: a one-world view

Science - Environment

The making of the Cornwall Alliance

Science - Environment

Environmentalism and marriage?

Science - Environment

The Poor: why we can't let the Global Warming debate be over

Science - Environment

Free movie: Blue