Think first of all the question has to be phrased properly. "Environmentalist" as a label skews the question away from meaningful dialogue/discussion and into the realm of divided political camps. Those who attach a negative meaning to the term itself -- regardless of whether their reasons for doing so have objectivity and legitimacy or NOT -- may automatically turn the head and turn up the nose without examining the actual issues involved because the term happens to be evocative of political agendas they already possess fixed and unyielding notions about.
So let's skip the labels and look at what Moriah believes to be the one scripture which actually directly addresses the issue. Revelation 11:15-18 speaks of the sounding of the trumpet of the seventh angel (and there's more information about this particular trumpet in Rev. 10 by the way which needs to be grasped but that's another topic). Verse 18 would be the one addressing this question, as Moriah sees it, but let's look at the passage in context:
15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. 16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O LORD God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
The passage refers to this time as judgment time, judgment day, the day to hand out all the rewards and punishments, and there's no escaping it: the ones spoken of here as meriting destruction happen to be those
"which destroy the earth." That'd be what God has to say on the subject, like it or not.
Here would be what Moriah has to say. "Dominion over" this planet wasn't granted in the beginning for us to pillage its resources, befoul its air and waters, and trample other species into the dust or allow our carelessness daily production of toxic wastes and garbage to destroy their habitations. The scripture states in Genesis man's first job had been to TEND the garden and KEEP it, and when put out of the garden to till the soil for his own bread and given "dominion over" the earth, he gets told to REPLENISH it as well as "subdue" (tame, order) it. Not suck the marrow from its veins to his own harm and then guffaw at anyone daring to challenge his myopic selfishness and denounce them as "hippie tree huggers" or whatever idiotic mocking nonsense gets spewed these days. (The Bible has quite a bit to say about mockers and scoffers also. We will leave that sidetrack for a separate discussion, but suffice to say none of it would be flattering or approving.)
Proper respect for the environment we live in now, and the earth that God originally gave us, clearly ranks as important to Him in determining to whom He will entrust a new and freshly made one. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if a young man receives a gorgeous sports car for his 18th birthday from his parents, and instead of taking care with this precious and expensive present he runs it into the ground, refuses to perform routine maintenance to keep it clean and running in top shape, and drives recklessly endangering himself and others with it, even drinking while driving perhaps, so that eventually he wrecks the car and makes a scrap heap of it, would that be the signal to Mom and Dad to run out and buy him a new one? Hardly. Do we really imagine God will entrust a new, freshly created earth free of sin, disease and pollution to those who have demonstrated here, now, in this lifetime,
despite profession and protestation of faith in Him even, that they cannot be bothered to at least try to do their part in their daily choices to take proper care of the one they had the first time around? Or that they've been willing to prioritize selfish concerns above doing so where doing so would be a personal inconvenience or go against what they "want" to do?
Hardly. Guess again.
Moriah's 2 cents. Up to God to make the blind see, cuz that ain't a power available to this one.
