Not only must we be faithful stewards of our own possessions, but we must also be faithful stewards of our common possession, the earth.
God gave Adam a charge: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. (Gen 1:28) It was the will of God that the earth be inhabited by thousands of millions. They blessed Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, saying: be thou the mother of thousands of millions. (Gen 24:60) This enables God to finish His plan of predestinating many sons to glory in a short time. And so we pray: Thy kingdom come.
However, it is irresponsible to bring more people into the world than the crop lands of the world can support. Until we see a way to feed more multitudes, we should endeavour to encourage smaller families of two, three or four children, rather than seven or eight as are many families in Africa.
Access to education in Africa, as to the economic difficulties of large families when resources are finite, plus access to contraception, but not abortion, should bring about a lower population growth. I do not believe there is any need for compulsion when encouraging smaller families, as without any compulsion, the average number of children per mother in North America and Europe is now slightly less than two.
But if a mother wants to have seven or eight children, she is not sinning. Those women who have no children will probably balance the statistics of the nation. I do not think that having only one child is a good idea, because the child has no brothers or sisters to play with.
These are my thoughts on the matter of population growth. But they are just that, not commandments from God.
If non-sustainable agriculture is practised, the world, in the future, will not be able to support with food as large a population as it otherwise would. A decreased population carrying earth, is not the will of God for His eternal purposes. And it is even worse if the reduction in population is effected by mass starvation. (I am not saying that the world population should be increased. It may already be too great and increasing too quickly for present farming practices. I am only saying that the land should be farmed sustainably, that the earth might be able to support with food as many as possible in the future.)
Current farming practices in much of the world are not sustainable and must be modified. Soil is being lost though erosion, and land is being ruined by salination. I read in a book, 'The Sacred Earth', by David Suzuki, that according to Henry Kendall, a Nobel prize winner, and David Pimental, a population biologist, topsoil is being depleted 16 to 300 times faster than it can be replaced. By 1935 American agriculture had lost one-fifth of its cropland to erosion. And although America has learned some lessons from the dust bowl years when the soil blew away, the situation is still not sustainable. American agriculture has now lost one-third of its topsoil and in much of the corn growing regions of the American midwest it has lost over half of its topsoil. Eventually it will all be gone and in perhaps a hundred years, no crops will be able to be grown, if farming practices are not modified.
The problem is that the use of artificial fertilisers, weedicides and pesticides damages the soil. The soil is no longer held together by organic matter and blows or washes away. The answer is to rotate the crops, and to leave the land fallow for cattle some years, so that the soil is nourished by manure. This also is a permanent solution to the problem of soil fertility, whereas artificial fertilisers gradually lose their effect.
But this means that not every field is earning maximum dividends for the farmer every year. And the farmer is often under financial pressure to pay back his loans. I believe that governments should intervene to correct this situation.
The other major problem facing world agriculture is salination. At some depth below the surface of the land is the water table, where the earth is saturated with salty water. If too much water descends to the water table, and not enough water removed, the water table rises, eventually reaching the surface in perhaps a hundred years. This brings salt to the surface, making the land unsuitable for any agricultural use, even for growing grasses to feed cattle.
Modern agriculture raises the water table in several ways. Firstly, clearing the land of its natural vegetation that used to absorb the water and transpire it, allows more water to sink to the water table. Secondly irrigation adds to the water sinking to the water table.
Governments should give priority to scientific, agricultural research to find optimal solutions to these problems, and then implement them quickly, before much more land is ruined. Advanced countries should also give scientific help to poor countries, that they might understand how to preserve their land.
Oceans also must be fished sustainably, at a rate no greater than the fish can multiply, or eventually there will be no fish to catch. Reefs must be fished carefully rather than with dynamiting which destroys the reef and the future potential for fishing.
God says: the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. (Psalm 50:12) And the seraphim say: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3) To create the world and man requires infinitely more wisdom than man possesses. All the atoms and molecules in our minds must react and be stable. And probably all sorts of complex processes which we do not understand must be in balance. Nature shows the glory of God’s wisdom and care, to man. People behold the beauty of nature in parkland, and adequate land should be set aside for this purpose. But pollution spoils that message.
In another sense God says: the earth hath he given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16) When we destroy excessively the beauty of this world for short-term profit, we are, in a sense, stealing from future generations the beauty of nature that they should be able to behold.
It is much cheaper to dispose of waste in an environmentally friendly way in the first place, than to pollute the earth and let others clean up the mess later. Chemical waste has been dumped underground near the Mississippi River. Unless cleaned up it will leak into underground water, and eventually find its way into the Mississippy, causing an unacceptable level of pollution. I heard that the cost of cleaning up the pollution before it reaches the Mississippi, is as great as the cost of putting man upon the moon.
There is one type of pollution that I am not concerned about in the short term, and that is carbon dioxide which warms the earth. Carbon dioxide is not an unnatural man-made pollutant like the CFCs that damage the ozone layer. The atmosphere in the past had more carbon dioxide, but the plants converted it to oxygen. I think therefore that carbon dioxide should not be called a pollutant.
More carbon dioxide allows plants to close their pores more when intaking carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. This means that they transpire less water vapour and can thus tolerate drier conditions. Increased carbon dioxide also increases the grain yields of many plants. Increased carbon dioxide might be part of the answer to the problem of how to feed the increasing population.
I also think that a warmer earth will be nicer for most of the earth, especially as the colder latitudes will warm more than the warmer latitudes. People fear the greenhouse because they are afraid of change when they cannot predict all the consequences. If carbon dioxide were some unknown man-made pollutant I would agree with them. But it is a naturally occurring gas that was converted to coal and oil by plants, and merely reverts to its original state when these are burned. I think therefore, that Christians can trust in God that global warming will not be a disaster. But burning too much coal locally, can give rise to unacceptably high levels of certain acids that kill trees. This I think is more of a problem. But eventually, we probably must limit carbon dioxide emmissions.
When the Lord returns from heaven, is it to be to a ruined earth that He must clean up when He reigns? The earth was created good. Let us keep it that way. But this creation is not perfect. When the Lord returns it will be perfected, when the nature of animals shall be transformed. Then: the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom 8:21) Then: the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (Isaiah 11:7) If God is going to transform creation, rather than replace it, it has value and should to some degree be preserved.