Care for God’s creation (II)

In the beginning, the earth was natural and beautiful. In the course of our pursuit of civilisation and development, we have a duty to make the earth better and more beautiful. That is the assignment that God gave us:

Genesis 2:15  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

It is disheartening to note that mankind has done great damage to the beautiful natural ecosystem that God asked us to dress and to keep. In the course of building cities and the infrastructure thereof, we have displaced or destroyed flora and fauna and tilted the balance of the ecosystem. While prospecting for mineral resources, we have dealt devastating blows to nature. While pursuing rapid industrialisation, we produced toxic effluents and pollutants that contaminate the environment, to the extent that in some places, the gifts of nature can no longer be used freely by humanity (e.g. undrinkable lead-poisoned water). The skylines in some cities today are both hazy and hazardous due to large-scale emission of toxic gas and dispersal of aerosols. 

READ ALSO: Care for God’s creation (I)

While it is easy to blame industrialised nations and large/international corporations for their giant infractions, the fact remains that the sum of small infractions by individuals and families across the world also adds up to a great portion of the damage that is being done to the earth. It is hypocrisy to blame others and deny the involvement of self in the degradation of the earth. Our Lord said to the Pharisees,

Matthew 7:3-5  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Hence, it is valuable to look at what you and I are doing wrong and how we are contributing to environmental problems on earth today. For example, in this part of the world, our people throw refuse in the wrong places. Our people urinate in the wrong places. Our people defecate in the wrong places. In fact, some time ago, it was said that our nation had the highest number of open toilets in the world. That was a polite way of saying that Nigerians are just defecating openly everywhere. We block river paths with refuse. Once rain falls, we bring out our refuse and throw them in the gutter. The drains get blocked; rain water cannot pass easily and spills onto the road – eventually spoiling the road. The cumulative effect of this vice often leads to flooding when river paths also become blocked. With flooding comes other forms of disaster and destruction that are too numerous to mention. We need to change.

TO BE CONTINUED.