In Genesis 1:26-27, God gave humankind dominion over all life on the earth. This particular Biblical passage has been the center of a long-running controversy as to whether God meant for us humans to use the earth and life on it as we see fit for our own purposes. Or whether God meant for us to be stewards of the earth, including all life within it, maintaining and protecting what our Creator created.
In deciding which of these two interpretations may reflect the original intent, we must first recognize that the Bible was written by men of faith and not directly by a Divine entity (i.e. God). Accordingly, we should first consider what the world was like when Genesis was penned, which is thought to be between 900 to 700 BCE. During that period of history, the human population on earth has been estimated to be between four and five million.
At that time our use of the earth, including its life forms, consisted of hunter-gathering, farming, animal husbandry, construction of buildings from materials obtained from the earth and craftmanship which also used materials directly obtained from the earth or from products obtained from plant and animal life. All of these activities used primitive tools none of which were likely to elicit significant damage to the earth, while the earth itself seemed to hold an infinite source of materials and food sources for human use and consumption.
On the basis of these considerations, I think that it is most likely that whoever wrote Genesis (thought to be Moses, but that's controversial) saw God's gift of dominion over the earth to mean that mankind was free to use the earth in whatever manner deemed necessary for living a prosperous and healthy life.
Now fast forward to the 20^th^ and 21^st^ centuries where the earth's human population has grown to around six billion, well over 1,000 times the total earth population when Genesis was written. This means that a much larger swath of the earth must be used for our survival than was necessary in the period when Genesis was penned.
To help us in our use of the earth, we have a considerable number of energy consuming apparatuses powered directly or indirectly by carbon-based fuels (oil, gas, coal). The processes of extracting and combusting these fuels has caused, and continues to cause, considerable damage to the earth as well as the emission of toxic gasses into the air that we breathe. However, most potentially damaging is the now undisputed fact that these gases admitted into the atmosphere are causing a global climate change which if left unabated will, in the not too distant future, precipitate a massive extinction of many life forms possibly including us.
With these considerations in mind, it really doesn't matter what the original intent of the author of Genesis was, we must now adopt the stewardship interpretation and act accordingly if we, and many other life forms, are to survive into the next century. From the standpoint of Biblical interpretation, this means taking the view that the words of the Bible are not carved in stone, as supposedly the Ten Commandments were, but rather are meant to evolve in keeping with the changing times. On that note, present times dictate that we must be much better stewards of the earth than we have been for the past couple of centuries.
But what to do? Given that the main driver of global climate change is that we're pumping way too much carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the simple answer is that we must cut back on the amount of these gases that we produce. But that's much easier said than done. At present carbon-based fuels are an integral part of our economy as well as our daily lives. While we presently have the technology to replace these fuels with clean energy, such as wind and solar, as of now these represent only a few percent of our energy sources.
While waiting for clean energy production to catch up with demand, there is a lot we can do on the flip side of the carbon coin. Namely, increase CO2 capture and either utilize this atmospheric pollutant for some non-toxic process, or put it back in the ground, where most of it was in the first place locked into coal, oil and natural gas. There are three basic ways in which CO2 capturing can be achieved: post-combustion capture, as is done in coal fired power plants; pre-combustion capture, as is done in fertilizer and chemical plants; and pulling CO2 directly from the air. The first two can only be done through technology. While the latter can, and does, use technology to capture and sequester ambient CO2, it can also be achieved naturally by fostering a robust biodiversity which will result in CO2 being locked into the ground.
So, how does biodiversity result in the sequestering of CO2 into soil? The details of this are briefly described in Sir David Atteborough's book "A Life on Our Planet". Additionally, several articles on this topic can be found on the internet within the web site: "The Nature Education Knowledge Project". For the purpose of this essay, a brief overview on the role of soil in the capture of CO2 will suffice.
The sequestering of CO2 by soil is achieved by microbes (bacteria and fungi) that live within the soil. These are collectively termed "soil organic matter" (SOM). The CO2 reaches the microbes by way of plant turnover and decomposition of its roots into humas which provides CO2 rich nutrients for the microbes. The sequence of events is basically that green plant shoots capture and chemically fix CO2 via the process of photosynthesis. The CO2 makes its way into plant roots which decompose into humas when the plants are eaten by animals or turnover by other means, such as seasonal changes. The SOM feeding on the humas locks in the CO2.
The key to a continuous sequestering of CO2 by soil microbes is turnover of plant life which is achieved by grazing animals such as deer, elk, bison, cattle, sheep and so on. Additionally, animals that root through the soil, such as wild hogs, assist in the turnover. Fecal droppings from these critters benefit the plant turnover process by providing fertilizer, additional microbes and by assisting in microbe reproduction.
Maintaining a favorable balance of plant and animal life for optimal soil sequestering of CO2 requires an extensive biodiverse ecosystem consisting of everything from predators to small mammals and birds each serving an important nitch in the balance of nature necessary for adequate soil turnover. To do this on a large enough scale to make a significant dent in atmospheric CO2 will require what Ateenborough has termed "rewilding the world". Basically, this means bringing the earth back to what it was before large scale modern day farming by doing such things as eliminating feed lots and instead grazing cattle on open ranges, large pastures, or even in the forest, where they can feed on grasses in a manner that turns over soil and sequesters CO2. Farmers who have done this report healthier, fatter animals raised at a fraction of the costs of feed lots. Additionally, hog lots should also be eliminated and instead fatten hogs, as folks in the Appalachian Mountains of America have been doing for hundreds of years, by turning them loose in the forest where they can feed on acorns and other plant material, and/or by turning them out into a harvested corn field where they can feed on remaining corn and stalks as well as root through the ground in doing so. Furthermore, the raising of grains can, and should, be done in a manner that promotes organic matter in the soil. This is achieved by such things as the use of manure rather than artificial fertilizer, by frequent crop rotation and the planting of winter grasses which can be turned over in the spring. In other words, farming can, and should, be done in a sustainable manner in harmony with nature.
In a like manner, urban areas can be made much greener than they presently are by such things as turning vacant lots into green spaces including parks, the planting of trees where possible and encouraging gardening in a variety of ways from small back yard and roof gardens to urban farms. The ultimate goal here is to make the environment of cities not all that different from the country side.
I could go on with more examples of how we can rewild the world, but the basic idea is to live our lives as an integral part of nature as opposed to living apart from it as we have been doing for the past 100 or so years. It is as if our Creator is telling us that to be better stewards of the earth we must first, and foremost, put it back the way we found it in Adam and Eves' day.