22/08/2011
Preserving the Environment: It is in Our Hands, Not God.
The frequency of disasters which we confront has increased in the past century. Many of us blame nature or God for these, but is he really responsible for all this? If you find it hard to face the many natural and man-made disasters on the news, look to yourself for the ability to preserve our environment and change the world.
Every day when we hear or see the news, it is all full of disasters, natural and man-made, prophecies of an impending doom, degradation of the environment, famine, floods, hurricanes etc. Most of us give in to despair and wonder when all of it will come to an end. Some of us turn to religion and religious scripts and think of what we can do to preserve the environment and save ourselves from disaster. It is not as if the doomsday predicted by many will happen tomorrow. Many would argue that this happened time and again in the earlier centuries and man has been able to overcome them.
The Bible is more of a blue print. It is not a historical account. It is a description of the way patterns unfold. Noah’s ark is one example which indicates this. Noah himself was chosen from the humans because his qualities of head and heart denote the beginning of a new and better world. This was one way of our scriptures telling us that man must invent and reinvent himself so as to preserve himself and other primates that inhibit the earth, namely man himself, the trees, the animals, the shrubs, and indeed all the organisms that are part of nature. It is up to us to preserve the environment that has been given to us.
And yes, man is currently doing his very best to preserve the species. Man is researching and putting to good use the various methodologies for doing all this. Indeed, if anything, man is also succeeding. The very fact that man recognizes the dangers of deforestation, overuse of land, chemical and other omissions, environmental degradation, etc., shows that man is conscious of the likely disasters that could happen. Thus man is attempting ecological preservation.
But humans are finding it difficult to meet the challenges outlined above. Many people are not able to accept some concepts like recycling, reducing usage of carbon depleting sources, fighting over carbon emissions, etc.
The Jews readily accept that restoring ecological balance is important for them, as with all humanists. But few are willing to make the drastic change to lifestyles demanded by the imperative of the times.
All of us can be Noah. It is imperative that we must restore our ecosystem, purify and alter our food systems, preserve the plants and animals, individually and jointly.
God is not going to select the Noah; we have to ourselves.
Restoring our ecosystems, purifying and altering our food supply, preserving plants and animals—for us, as it was for Noah—it is not a noble idea, a nice thing to do; it is absolutely imperative to the survival of the species. The Noah of today will not be selected by God; they will self-select and, hopefully, will be able to save even those who do not save themselves.
