From a secular point of view, there really is no question that we ought to be good stewards of the planet.
When we conduct deforestation, we destroy habitats of wildlife. We destroy resources that people also use for building homes or making products like paper.
And so, we must replenish natural resources at a sustainable rate, that is comparable to what we destroy. If we destroy or use natural resources at a greater rate than we replenish them, we will first destroy all wild life, and then we will destroy ourselves.
In today's world, we have been destroying wild life. Much wild life as we know it, is going extinct. And this isn't about being an alarmist or a bleeding heart tree hugger, it's just the truth.
And when wild life is gone, these issues will turn on us.
Many countries are running out of fresh water. Mexico, Syria and Iraq, Iran, Russia, even the US (California Arizona), we are depleting our aquifers due to our overconsumption and lack of incentive to replenish the world of it's natural resource.
And we will feel these pains of our lack of stewardship for the earth. We may already be. Some suggest that the Syrian civil war was related in part to shortages of water. The same with the civil war in Sudan. People naturally fight over resources moreso than we act as stewards of them. And so our lack of stewardship is really a crime toward not just the planet, but to ourselves.
Overconsumption is like eating 10x your portion at dinner and leaving your brother with the scraps. It is far from loving your neighbor.
And that's why being good stewards of the planet is very important. Can we use deforestation to make our houses? Sure. But we have to replenish what we have consumed or we will overstep our boundaries and will destroy everything around us and ourselves.
Another example, look at the construction of the EPA. The industrial revolutiom and after world war two, society had no environmental regulation. We never replenished wetlands, we never replenished streams and rivers. We never replenished clean air. We simply mined and polluted and consumed and drilled and deposited our waste into the world without a care.
Eventually our destructive methods impeded on the well being of our neighbors and ourselves, forcing us to adopt protective regulations, lest we destroy ourselves. Thereby leading to Rachel Carson's Silent spring and the formation of the EPA.
Scripture might not explicitly discuss these concepts, but God has been explicit in how we treat one another. And being good stewards of the planet is necessary for us to love one another and even further, for survival.
