What Is Man Doing To The Earth Religion Essay

What Is Man Doing To The Earth Religion Essay THREE HUNDRED years ago, man lived much closer to nature. For the most part, he was not threatened by man-made changes to the global environment in the way he is today. The industrial revolution had not begun. There were no power stations, factories, automobiles, or other sources of widespread pollution. The thought of mans ruining the whole earth may have been hard for him to imagine. Yet, even back then, a warning about global ruination was in wide circulation. That warning was found in the last book of the Bible, and it foretold a time when God would intervene in mans affairs to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.-Revelation 11:17,  18. How comforting for all who are concerned about modern mans mismanagement of the earth to know that the Creator of our magnificent planet will save it from ruin! But, you may wonder, have we really reached such a critical situation that Gods intervention is needed? Well, consider some of the facts and judge for yourself. Forests beautify the earth and provide food and shelter for several million different species. As trees grow and manufacture food, they perform other vital services, such as absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing precious oxygen. Thereby, National Geographic says, they offer one antidote to the global warming that threatens life on earth as we know it. But man is ruining his forest heritage. North American and European forests are dying from pollution. And the demands of industrial nations are decimating tropical forests. An African newspaper explained that in 1989, 66 million cubic metres [of tropical wood were] expected to be exported-48  percent to Japan, 40  percent to Europe. Also, in some lands, farmers burn forests to create farmland. Soon the fragile forest soil becomes exhausted, and the farmers have to burn more forest. It is estimated that in this century alone, nearly half the worlds forests have vanished. Oceans Earths oceans also play a vital role in cleaning the atmosphere, and mans activities are ruining them. Vast quantities of carbon dioxide are absorbed by the oceans. In turn, phytoplankton absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Dr.  George Small explains the importance of this life cycle: 70  percent of the oxygen added to the atmosphere each year comes from plankton in the sea. Yet, some scientists warn that phytoplankton could be seriously depleted because of ozone reduction in the atmosphere, which is believed to be caused by man. Also, man dumps garbage, oil, and even toxic wastes into the ocean. While some countries agree to limit the wastes they allow to be dumped at sea, others refuse. One Western nation even reserves the right to dump nuclear wastes at sea. Famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau warns: We must save the oceans if we want to save mankind. Drinking Water Man is ruining even his drinking water! In poor lands, millions of people die each year because of contaminated water. In richer nations, water sources are contaminated by, among other things, fertilizers and pesticides that wash into rivers and seep into groundwater. In 1986 the world production of pesticides was 2.3 million tons, and the rate of increase is reported to be 12  percent per year. Another source of pollution is chemical dumps. The metal drums containing the chemicals, explains Scientific American, are nothing less than time bombs that will go off when they rust through. This type of pollution, the journal adds, is happening worldwide in thousands of chemical waste dumps. The result? All over the earth, once pure rivers are being turned into industrial sewers. It is estimated that 20 million Europeans drink water from the Rhine, yet this river is so polluted that sludge dredged from its bed is too dangerous to use for landfill! Farming Practices Alarmingly, man is even ruining his farmland. In the United States alone, 20  percent of the land set aside for irrigation has been damaged, according to Scientific American. Why? Because overirrigation adds too much salt to the soil. Many countries have ruined much valuable land in this way. As much land is now being taken out of production due to salinization as is being brought into production through new irrigation projects, states The Earth Report. Another widespread problem is overgrazing,  which may be contributing to the spread of deserts. Too Many Motor Vehicles So much for our planets land and water. But what about its air? This too is being ruined, and the culprits are many. To mention just one, consider the automobile. Following are warnings from three influential scientific journals: Motor vehicles generate more air pollution than any other single human activity. (New Scientist) There are currently 500 million registered automobiles on the planet .  .  . Filling their tanks consumes about one third of the worlds production of oil. .  .  . The number of automobiles is increasing more quickly than the population. (Scientific American) Petrol [gasoline] in all phases of production, use and disposal is a major source of environmental degradation and disease.-The Ecologist. Yes, our planet is being abused, ruined. Its seas, drinking water, farmlands, and even its atmosphere are being polluted to an enormous extent. Surely, this alone would suggest that the time is near for God to intervene and bring to ruin those ruining the earth. (Revelation 11:18) However, there are other, even worse, ways in which the earth is being ruined. Let us see just what they are. A World Government The only way to combat the  greenhouse effect and other emerging  environmental  disasters is a world government, says Dr.  Kenneth Hare, renowned geographer and  climate-change expert. Humanity is mounting a deadly assault on nature, Hare warned. The planet is threatened not just by a nuclear holocaust but by ecological misuse, reports the Calgary Herald, a Canadian newspaper. Hare claims that three billion tons of carbon are spewed into the atmosphere annually by automobile exhausts and industrial smokestacks. Computer studies show that even with moderate economic growth, carbon-dioxide levels would double by the year 2075. Weve created a global problem, and without regulation of the environment on a global scale, well be in trouble, said Hare. What Dr.  Hare recommends is indeed logical. Still, can man ever hope to establish a global government that would be able to do such things as regulate economic growth, develop nonpolluting energy sources, and convince humankind to embark on a program of worldwide environmental care? Hardly! Gods Word clearly says: To earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step. (Jeremiah 10:23) However, this does belong in the hands of God. As the Prince of Peace, his Son, Jesus Christ, will administer a world government that will rule in justice and righteousness. Under his heavenly rulership, mankind will not imperil the environment.-Isaiah 9:6,  7; 11:9; Daniel 2:44. Oh, for Some Fresh Air! BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN BRITAIN WHEN you breathe, do you inhale fresh air? Present-day air pollution is a bigger enemy than smoking, claims a doctor quoted in The Times of London. In England and in Wales, contaminated air kills an estimated 10,000 people every year. Worldwide, especially in large cities, the situation is serious. Many blame the automobile industry for polluting the atmosphere. To reduce dangerous exhaust, new vehicles in many countries now come fitted with catalytic converters, which reduce pollution. The hydrocarbons in exhaust gases have dropped to 12 percent of the 1970 levels, with similar reductions of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Babies in strollers are particularly vulnerable because they ride at the level that cars spew out fumes. But air pollution threatens car occupants as well. Reportedly, the contamination is three times higher inside cars than outside. Further hazards come from inhaling benzene fumes from fuel as you fill your cars fuel tank. Now the most prevalent form of air pollution worldwide is Suspended Particulate Matter, says a 1993-94 United Nations environmental data report. Apparently, tiny bits of soot, or particulate matter, have the ability to penetrate deep into the lungs and there deposit damaging chemicals. The depletion of the ozone layer high above the globe attracts much press comment. At ground level, however, sunlight acts on the nitrogen oxides and other volatile elements of air pollution to produce high levels of ozone. These levels have doubled in Britain during this century. These gases damage paint and other building materials, cause disease in trees, plants, and crops, and appear to trigger respiratory problems in some people. Although most of the ozone pollution occurs in towns, surprisingly it is the rural areas that suffer the worst effects. In the urban areas, nitrogen oxides mop up the excess ozone, but where these oxides are sparse, the ozone has free rein to wreak damage. Additionally, air pollution is up to 70 times higher inside homes than outdoors, reports The Times. Here the fumes from air fresheners, mothballs, and even dry-cleaned clothes pollute the air. Cigarette smoke likewise adds to health risks indoors. What, then, can you do to protect your family? The Times of London offered the following suggestions. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Reduce your use of the car. If possible, share transportation with others. Drive smoothly. If stuck in a traffic jam or otherwise stationary for more than a couple of minutes, switch off the engine. If possible, on hot days park your car in the shade to reduce pollution produced by fuel evaporation. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Choose to exercise in the early mornings when ozone levels outdoors are generally low. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Outlaw smoking in the home. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Keep bedroom windows slightly open at night to lower humidity and move allergens outside. No doubt you agree: Oh, for some fresh air! Warning! This Water May Be Hazardous to Your Health CAN you imagine turning on the water tap at your kitchen sink, holding a lighted match to the faucet, and witnessing a horrifying eruption of flames? Can you imagine a freshwater river that bursts into flames at the drop of a lighted cigarette? Would you be appalled if your bathwater was too thick to drink but too thin to plow and piling up in one end? Does it boggle the mind to think of river water that can develop a picture from a negative before your eyes? What would be your reaction if your tap water came out with a head on it, looking like bock beer? Do you have to open the window at your sink so as not to stink up the house when water is drawn from the faucet? Does your marriage mate leave the morning pot of coffee untouched because of its unusual strength, only to discover later that no coffee had been added yet? Or is your water crystal clear, pure in taste, but your family repeatedly suffers from headaches, dizziness, dysentery, or skin rashes after drinking it? Or would the suffering of tremors, blindness, and impairment of the central nervous system best describe the symptoms? Did you know that not long ago one third of humanity was in a perpetual state of illness because of impure water and that ten million people were dying each year, not for the lack of it, but because of it? Can all of this be the figment of a wild imagination-the stuff of science-fiction movies? Unfortunately, the scenarios are true. It has become obvious that man today has the awesome genius to poison completely every living thing on the face of the earth and in the waters below. Most of this has come about through his efforts to make life easier-mitigating pain and disease, bringing the world closer to his living room through communication, pursuing his quest into outer space, and making  destructive  implements of war. Most of this is caused by mans creation of new but deadly chemical compounds. Six years ago, over 60,000 such chemical concoctions were on the market-35,000 of which were classified as either deadly or extremely hazardous to our health, with thousands more being formulated each year. From these chemical cocktails have come equally dangerous and highly toxic wastes that are disposed of by dumping them into the earth, rivers, and streams, with little thought of the consequences it would have on people or environment. A Boon to Farmers, a Bomb to Earths Waters Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers have been a boon to the worlds farmers, but they have been a bomb to earths waters. For years farmers in Californias San Joaquin Valley sprayed their grapes, fruit, and tomatoes with the pesticide DBCP, only to discover in recent years that it can cause cancer and sterility in humans. Although the spraying has stopped, the poison hasnt stopped percolating through the layers of the earth and into the underground water system. Thirty-five percent of the wells in the valley have DBCP, said a spokesman for the health department. In one county in California, 250,000 people run the risk of DBCP contamination, reported Newsweek magazine. Other pesticides affect the nervous system. Still others are suspected of causing various other illnesses. Some herbicides have been discovered to have serious effects on the brain, rendering the victim immobile. In many agricultural areas, fertilizers have raised nitrate concentrations above health standards set out in some countries. These chemicals, too, have infiltrated aquifers. Detergents, solvents, dry-cleaning fluids, septic-tank cleaners, to mention a few, have been highly developed through chemistrys progression. The result has been marvelous benefits to mankind. However, as these products percolate through the earth, the result has been a contamination of earths pure waters for generations to come. We are poisoning ourselves and our posterity, said one environmentalist. Many of the millions of underground gasoline storage tanks at the service stations dotting the highways and city streets leak, as reports show, and their highly explosive contents seep into the ground and percolate through the well-water systems. They can cause houses and barns to burst into flames when the fumes reach a lighted match. Flames from a water faucet are all too common as a result of this underground witches brew of death-dealing chemicals oozing into the water system. It was thought that the earth itself would purify these chemicals as they trickled through the layers of the earth, rendering them harmless. In the past decade, however, it has been discovered that many of these dangerous chemicals have not been filtered out but go right through to the aquifers, contaminating them for generations to come. Ground-water contamination is the result of sins committed a long time ago, said James Groff of the American Water Works Association. Nobody had the foresight to predict it. The sins, however, continue to be committed to this date. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in the United States alone 1.5 trillion gallons of hazardous waste leak into the underground water system each year. Much of it is deliberately dumped by unscrupulous and greedy men without regard to the terrible, terrible damage to mans water and health. Just 1 gallon of solvent will contaminate 20 million gallons of ground water to exceed safe levels set by most states, said one scientist. When one thinks in terms of a trillion gallons of waste, then the expression, water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink, looms up as being a potentially frightful reality. A Time Bomb, Slowly Ticking Away Ground water and its contaminants, said the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, represent a potential time bomb, slowly ticking away. Theres a growing belief that this problem will be the next great crisis of the 1980s. The New York Times reported: There is wide agreement, however, that the contamination of ground water is by far the most serious and difficult problem affecting the quality of drinking water and now constitutes a subterranean time bomb. Theres no doubt we have a time bomb on our hands, warned a University of Arizona scientist. The question is how big the bang will be. A person does not have to put his ear to the ground to know how big the bang will be. Already the world shudders in fear of the coming explosion. For example, it has been estimated that by the year 2000 a fourth of the worlds water supply could be unsafe for drinking. A third of the water in Chinas major rivers is polluted beyond safe limits for human consumption, said Worldwatch Institute. According to Thane Gustafson, a specialist on Soviet Union affairs, that country will face a greater demand for water by the year 2000 than its waters can supply because of water pollution today. South America faces a similar crisis-a water supply too contaminated for its people to drink. Either we manage to limit the waste of water or by the year 2000 we shall be dying of thirst, proclaimed the United Nations World Conference on water. Without being guilty of exaggeration it is easy to foresee that in the very near future the world will be literally dying of thirst, either as a result of pollution or present wasteful usage, the conference said. People in all parts of the earth experience the devastating effects of the time bomb that appears to have exploded on the world scene already. When one considers, for example, that 70 percent of Indias drinking water is polluted and is the cause of much of the countrys illness, it becomes no exaggeration to say that its waters and all life dependent on them cry out for a cure. And what can be said of the Third World countries and the dying people looking for clean water? Truly, the world faces a dilemma of unprecedented proportions. Water-borne diseases kill 30,000 people every day, said Swiss water-treatment expert Dr.  Maarten Schalekamp. Only a third of mankind possesses what he called irreproachable drinking-water facilities, while another third of earths inhabitants is drinking contaminated water. The remaining third has very little water of any kind. And so it goes. Poisoned waters percolating through the earth, rushing through its rivers, meandering down its streams, cascading over its falls, while a great portion of mankind inevitably drinks to its death. Truly, a time bomb of mans own making! Jehovah God, the Creator of earth, man, and all life-giving waters, has set ticking his own time bomb by which he will bring to ruin those ruining the earth. (Revelation 11:18) It is set to go off at his appointed time, and those who have ruined the earth, the air, and the water will not be able to defuse it or to escape its destructive forces. The year 2000 continues to be pointed to by man as being a critical time. Whether the guilty live to see that feared year remains to be seen. Only Jehovah knows. Following the destruction of those whom God now holds accountable, the earth will be restored to a paradise, and rivers of waters of life, clean and pure, will be abundant for every living thing. Our Beautiful Earth-How Much of It Will We Leave Our Children? ACCORDING to published reports, 1.7  billion children have been born into the world since the year 1970. If they constituted a nation, it would be the worlds largest. Is it not fair to ask, What kind of world are we leaving them? Over 25 years ago a prominent doctor of the U.S. Public Health Service observed: We all live under the haunting fear that something may corrupt the environment to the point where man joins the dinosaurs as an obsolete form of life. In the intervening years, that fear has intensified. Last year a national forum, addressed by nearly a hundred biologists, warned that coming was a wave of mass extinctions such as wiped out the dinosaurs, only this time it would not be by a natural development but by human activities. This year Worldwatch Institute released its report State of the World 1987. It said: A sustainable society satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of the next generation. By many measures, contemporary society fails to meet this criterion. Questions of ecological sustainability are arising on every continent. The scale of human activities has begun to threaten the habitability of the earth itself. The Institutes report said that the demands of over 5  billion people-and their numbers are increasing by 83  million a year-are overwhelming the regenerative capacities of earths biological systems. Chemical pollution is thinning the atmospheric ozone and may lead to causing more skin cancers, impairing human immune systems, and retarding crop growth. If acid rain continues, not only will more lakes and forests die but soils will acidify further and may take decades, if not centuries, to recover. Intensified farming practices have pushed the rate of topsoil loss beyond that of new soil formation. Deforestation reduces the amount of carbon dioxide used from the atmosphere, and the burning of fossil fuels releases more carbon dioxide than the remaining plants and the oceans can take in. The result is an increase in the warming greenhouse effect that may ultimately melt glaciers and flood coastal cities. The loss of tropical forests means less recycling of water for rainfall and may lead to the creation of deserts. Toxic chemicals, raw sewage, crude oil, nuclear accidents, radon, microwaves, asbestos-on and on could go the listing of mans sins against the environment. State of the World 1987 warns: Never have so many systems vital to the earths habitability been out of equilibrium simultaneously. New environmental problems also span time periods and geographic areas that stretch beyond the authority of existing political and social institutions. No single nation can stabilize the earths climate, protect the ozone layer, preserve the planets mantle of forests and soils, or reverse the acidification of lakes and streams. Only a sustained international commitment will suffice. This commitment is dragging its feet, and time is running out. Hundreds of billions are spent in the arms race; a mere pittance is spent on preserving the environment that sustains us and the neglect of which can kill us. Since 1983 the United States alone has committed $9  billion to the Strategic Defense Initiative research and wants $33  billion more for it from 1986 to 1991-but turns stingy on the environment. The other industrialized nations do likewise. The State of the World 1987 puts the crisis in a nutshell: The time has come to make peace with each other so that we can make peace with the earth. A sustainable future, this report states, calls upon us simultaneously to arrest the carbon dioxide buildup, protect the ozone layer, restore forests and soils, stop population growth, boost energy efficiency, and develop renewable energy sources. No generation has ever faced such a complex set of issues requiring immediate attention. Preceding generations have always been concerned about the future, but we are the first to be faced with decisions that will determine whether the earth our children inherit will be habitable. The following article shows the crisis developing over toxic chemicals. The Ugly Side of Industrial Chemicals IT WAS just after midnight on a cool December evening in 1984 that the worst industrial accident in history happened. A world away from the Republic of India, few people were familiar with the name Bhopal, an industrial city with a population of more than 800,000, located almost at the center of the country. Its sleeping residents were unaware of the death-dealing events developing a stones throw away. At the U.S. Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, a storage tank holding 45  tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a deadly chemical used in making pesticides, began building up dangerously high pressure. Suddenly, from a malfunctioning valve, a cloud of poisonous gas began spreading death and agony over the quiet city. It snuffed out the lives of more than 2,500 men, women, and children. It maimed more than a hundred thousand others. The death of thousands of animals-water buffalo, cattle, and dogs-caused the countryside to be littered with dead bodies that clogged the roads and city streets. Bhopal became a giant makeshift crematory, burning the dead around the clock. Seventy funeral pyres, with bodies stacked 25 high, consumed the dead in their flames. Others were buried in hurriedly dug mass graves-scores of bodies at a time. Later another catastrophe hit Europe and was called Bhopal on the Rhine. A chemical spill from an industrial plant above Basel, Switzerland, dumped 40  tons of poisonous waste into the Rhine. It killed hundreds of thousands of fish and eels as it drifted downstream along the German-French border, into the Rhineland and then through the Netherlands to the North Sea. One newspaper editorialized: The Swiss used to be considered clean, their industry safe, and that included the chemical industry. That is all past now. The residents of Bhopal and communities along the Rhine River had become the victims of a technological age that boasts the compounding of more than 66,000 chemical concoctions. Many are formulated to make life easier for man, yet, ironically, a vast number are highly toxic and can cause fatal and devastating side effects, both to humans and to the entire biological system. One expert classified these chemicals as biocides. Many are the chemicals with long names that few people can pronounce and that for convenience bear letters such as PCB, DDT, PCDD, PCDF, TCDD. This alphabet soup of toxic chemicals is a deadly hazard both to humans and to earths resources on which man must rely to live. Thousands upon thousands of releases of toxic substances into the environment occur each year, said a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Such releases pose a threat to the quality of air, surface water, and underground drinking supplies, and poison the soil for decades to come. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in the United States alone, 1.5  trillion gallons of hazardous chemical wastes find their way into the underground water systems each year. Knowing that just one gallon of solvent will contaminate 20  million gallons of groundwater to exceed safe levels, it is staggering to compute what catastrophic damage 1.5  trillion gallons of poisonous chemicals are doing. Because of hazardous chemicals and wastes and the careless dumping of them, rivers and streams are being polluted. Fish are dying. As the rivers and streams enter the oceans, the death-dealing chemicals pour with them, and in some places where ocean life was once plentiful, today, according to famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, fish can no longer be found. Bird and animal life is also threatened by the contamination. Even wildlife sanctuaries prove to be no haven. Ten national wildlife refuges are contaminated by toxic chemicals and another 74 may be in danger. .  .  . Agricultural runoff containing selenium and other chemicals has killed large numbers of waterfowl in the refuge, reported The New York Times of February  4, 1986. World experts do not paint a promising picture for the future. The rapid diminishment of earths resources does not end with the loss of soil and the pollution of air and water. What about earths great tropical rain forests that for millenniums have raised their leafy arms hundreds of feet into the air? Are these too in danger of going the way of other resources that are diminishing before our eyes? Whether we realize it or not, our lives are affected by these luxuriant handiworks of Jehovah, as the next article will show. What Future for Us and Our Children? A FAMILY cannot spend more than it makes and remain solvent. A nation cannot pay out more than it takes in and still prosper; nor can we continue our deficit spending of the environment. We cannot squander more soil than is formed, create more carbon dioxide than plants can use, cut down more trees than we replace, pollute more air and water than earth can recycle. Environmental deficits, like national deficits, will demand an accounting. They will be paid, either in money and international cooperation or in lives-ours and our childrens. Modern technology has made the ruining of the earth possible. It could be used to prevent it. Why isnt it? Love of money. It would cost billions. This world cannot see-or in its selfishness will not see-beyond its own shortsighted materialistic desires. Since it refuses to pay in money, it will pay in loss of topsoil, loss of forests, loss of aquifers, hothouse atmosphere, poisoned water, mounting sickness, human lives. And to hold onto its money, this world is selling off its childrens future. Will it wake up in time? Historys answer is not reassuring, but Gods answer is. Jehovah God himself says that he will step in and bring to ruin those ruining the earth. (Revelation 11:18) He will remove from earth those ruining its environment and destroying its beauty, for he created it to be life-sustaining and beautiful. The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool, he says, and: I shall glorify the very place of my feet.-Isaiah 66:1; 60:13. He created it to be inhabited by people who love righteousness-and it will be, by millions who once lived in the past, by millions who are living now, and by millions of children yet to be born. This he has recorded in his Word, the Bible, and you can read it for yourself at Isaiah 45:18 and John 5:28,  29. Then, cared for by those who love it, the earth will regenerate itself into the beauty with which our Creator originally endowed it. Then righteously disposed persons and their children will have a future, a glorious one: Just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more; and you will certainly give attention to his place, and he will not be. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.-Psalm 37:10,  11,  29. And never die? And never die! God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:3,  4) Too good to be true? No, this present wicked world is too bad to remain.-Daniel 2:44. But you and your children can remain. Jehovah God makes it possible through the sacrifice of his Son. To learn of Jehovah and of his Son will mean everlasting life for you and your children-life in a new world wherein righteousness is to dwell. (John 3:16; 17:3; 2  Peter 3:13) This can be the happy future for you and your children. Whether it is or not is up to you. Pollution-Who Causes It? THIS island is government property under experiment. The ground is contaminated with anthrax and dangerous. Landing is prohibited. This sign posted on the Scottish mainland opposite Gruinard Island warns off would-be visitors. For the past 47 years, since an experimental explosion of biological weapons during the second world war, this beautiful island has been contaminated by the disease agents of anthrax. Gruinard Island is an extreme example of pollution. But milder forms of ground pollution are a problem that is widespread and growing. Ground Pollution on the Increase One cause of this ground pollution i