This is my land! (not)

[coberst]

This is my land! (not)

 

Stewardship-- the conducting, supervising, or managing of something... the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care...

 

Stewardship is a word used often in the Bible and was at one time used often in England. It was used in England because the youth of the landed aristocracy was taught that they were responsible for the care of the family properties in such a way that they passed on to the next generation an inheritance equal to but more appropriately larger than that received. Each generation was not the owner but was the steward for the family estates. Any individual who squandered the inheritance was a traitor to the family.

 

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

 

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

 

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

 

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny? I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

 

Would it be possible to cause the American people to reject completely the use of air-conditioning so that generations five times removed could survive? Is it possible to create in a person a rational response strong enough to overcome the evolved nature of greed and selfishness? I cannot imagine any rational motivation of sufficient strength to divert the natural instincts of a whole people for an extended time. Therefore, the motivation force must be emotionally based.

 

A compelling sense of stewardship must come through religion. Rationality is insufficient to creating a compulsion to sacrifice immediate gratification for such remote ends.

 

If religion were capable of creating this sense of stewardship the next problem would be how to create a credit/debit technique which would allow a nation to develop a balance between what is subtracted from the legacy to that which is added to the legacy; how to place a value upon the creation of additional highways which might balance the effect of destroying so many acres of a forest; how to value the development of a new vaccine and how to value the increase in atmospheric CO2. The people must have an easily understood valuation scheme so that they could make the necessary judgments to maintain the balance sheet.

 

Is it possible to create in people a true sense of stewardship?

 

I think it is but only through a religious means. Do you think reason could be a means for instilling a true sense of stewardship?

[Cedars]

A compelling sense of stewardship must come through religion. Rationality is insufficient to creating a compulsion to sacrifice immediate gratification for such remote ends.

Is it possible to create in people a true sense of stewardship?

 

I think it is but only through a religious means. Do you think reason could be a means for instilling a true sense of stewardship?

 

Religion has had thousands of years to instill this value. It is not geared towards seeing 5 generations into the future of the planet other than going forth and multiplying. Taking your harvest from the land and tossing back 'unclean' foods. The goal of religion (for the most part in the USA) is not about the earth at all being as the final destination is removal from the earth and all its sufferings. So your going to have to come up with some 'revelation' that the religious masses will buy into, to toss aside the old way of religion for some new idea. Good luck.

 

Reading some of your past posts you are old enough to be well aware of the sense of stewardship that the environmental movement began. Clean Air/Water act. Endangered species act. Expantion of National Parks designations, Wilderness areas, Wildlife refuges. Soil and Water conservation districts. Banning DDT. Unleaded gas. Which one of these real stewardship ideas was religiously motivated? Oh wait I remember, none. How did they come about? Well science and rationality in general.

 

Kinda sucked for corporate greed when they got film of the Ohio River burning and Love Canal bubbling up from the ground. The reaction to these incidents was inspired by that sense of stewardship rather than religion. It was also the greed inherant in people that helped stop these things. If I have green muck bubbling up in my basement I am not going to be able to sell my house...

 

Too bad Earth Day is not a National Holiday. We need another holiday to bust up the dry stretch between Jan 1 and Memorial Day (or Presidents Day if you work for the government).

[coberst]

Cedars says—“Religion has had thousands of years to instill this value. It is not geared towards seeing 5 generations into the future of the planet other than going forth and multiplying.”

 

You may be correct about religion but it is obvious to me that reason will not be sufficient to lead people to look forward 5 generations.

 

It is correct that our environmental movement has accomplished some very worth while improvements but I do not think it has been dealing with a long range effort that stewardship calls for.

[Cedars]

 

You may be correct about religion but it is obvious to me that reason will not be sufficient to lead people to look forward 5 generations.

 

OK so what is so obvious to you that makes you state this?

 

It is correct that our environmental movement has accomplished some very worth while improvements but I do not think it has been dealing with a long range effort that stewardship calls for.

 

Could you describe this long range effort? I saw the piece you wrote about air conditioning, but found no reason as to why A/C is such a concern in regards to this stewardship idea.

[coberst]

Cedars

 

Observation and good judgment are the tools for comprehending the world we live in. One can, I think, comprehend the limits of reason’s reach by reading and observing all that is going on about us.

 

A/C uses a great deal of energy and that energy often comes from sources that are limited and cause great damage to our environment. As we deplete these resources and damage our environment we will pass on to future generations an ever decreasing legacy. Eventually that legacy will become so diminished that standards of living will become so reduced as to trigger calamity. Each generation must, it seems to me, become good stewards of our legacy.