Today, humankind finds itself at a precipice caused by our own wrong thinking and actions.
It feels like we are approaching a waterfall as mighty as the Niagara, and we are powerless to fight the current that is dragging us onward to our doom. But how did we come to this point, and what can we do?
The first step is always to look at how we see ourselves and the world. Over centuries, our vision became clouded with selfishness and an indifference to the consequences of our actions. To understand how we arrived at this ecological tipping point, we have to look back at the historical narratives that justified our behavior.
The Misunderstood Mandate: Dominion vs. Stewardship
Sadly, in the Western world, biblical texts were often used to justify our exploitation of the planet. The most cited passages are from Genesis:
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (1:26)
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (1:28)
The traditional “Master View” interpreted this text as giving humans absolute authority to utilize nature and animals solely for human benefit. In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. famously argued in The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis that by teaching that humans are separate from nature and have dominion over it, Western Christianity gave a green light to industrial exploitation.
But what did this ancient language actually mean? In the original Hebrew, the word used for “dominion” is רָדָה (radah), and for “subdue” it is כָּבַשׁ (kabash). While these words imply authority, modern scholars and theologians advocate for the “Stewardship View.”
In the ancient Near East, a king’s “dominion” was judged by how well he protected the weak and vulnerable. Because God’s rule is creative and sustaining, human radah must be protective, not destructive. Furthermore, Genesis 1 must be interpreted alongside Genesis 2:15, where God places humans in the Garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it.” The Hebrew word for “dress” is abad (עָבַד), meaning “to serve,” and “keep” is shamar (שָׁמַר), meaning “to guard or protect.” True dominion, therefore, is a mandate to serve and guard the earth.
As Pope Francis explicitly stated in his 2015 encyclical on ecology, we must forcefully reject the notion that being created in God’s image justifies absolute domination over other creatures. Our role implies a relationship of mutual responsibility.
The Rise of the Machine and the Erasure of Wisdom
This theological misunderstanding was compounded by philosophical shifts during the Scientific Revolution. The French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) fundamentally altered human self-perception by splitting reality into two separate realms: Res Cogitans (the realm of the human mind and soul) and Res Extensa (the physical world, which he argued possessed no consciousness or inherent life force).
By defining nature as “dead matter” and animals as literal automata—soulless biological machines—Descartes removed any ethical barrier to treating the earth as a laboratory. Humans were completely liberated from any sense of reciprocity with the natural world.
Later, in the 17th century, philosopher John Locke secularized this worldview into the foundational philosophy of modern capitalism. He argued that land in its natural state is essentially wasted, and property rights are only created when a human “mixes his labor” with the earth by tilling it, fencing it, and extracting its resources.
The Tragic Cost: Subjugation of Indigenous Peoples
The shift from a worldview of interconnected stewardship to one of absolute domination directly fueled the colonization and subjugation of Indigenous peoples worldwide.
When Western colonial powers adopted this mechanistic reading of “dominion,” it became an ideological weapon. Through the legal framework of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” land inhabited by non-Christians not exploiting the earth in an industrial manner was declared terra nullius (nobody’s land).
Native societies—who had lived sustainably for millennia utilizing highly sophisticated land management like controlled burns, polyculture, and seasonal migration—were viewed as obstacles. Because they lived with nature rather than dominating it, they were seen as failing the biblical mandate. Modern colonizers viewed Indigenous stewardship, which left a light footprint and lacked European-style property lines, as “primitive.”
When modern societies took control of native populations, they systematically disrupted the ecological loops that kept those societies healthy:
- The Destruction of the Buffalo: The US government deliberately sanctioned the near-extinction of the bison to destroy the ecological foundation of the Plains Indians’ independence.
- Forced Sedentarization: Banning nomadic practices and forcing Native peoples into fixed geographic boundaries disrupted natural crop rotations and hunting cycles, leading to environmental degradation.
The historical narrative framed this as “progress.” Today, there is a bittersweet realization among ecologists: the “primitive” worldviews that were systematically suppressed were actually highly advanced systems of ecological balance. The suppression of Native cultures was the systematic elimination of the world’s most proven models for long-term survival.
The Great Irony: Our Ecological Tipping Point
This centuries-long project of absolute domination has reached its inevitable tipping point. The assumption that the Earth is an inexhaustible machine has collapsed. We are experiencing a profound awakening, realizing that in subduing the planet, we have poisoned our own life-support systems.
The consequences are unfolding across every layer of the biosphere:
- The Plague of Plastic: Under the dominion worldview, we treated the Earth as both an endless resource and an endless landfill, believing we could simply throw things “away.” But in a closed, interconnected system, there is no “away.” Millions of tons of plastic waste are dumped into our oceans and across our land each year, choking marine life and suffocating the soil. Because these synthetic materials do not naturally decompose, they merely break down into microplastics. These invisible fragments have now infiltrated the global food chain and our very bodies—found in human blood, lungs, and placentas. We are quite literally absorbing the toxic byproducts of our own disposable culture.
- The Contamination of the Basics: Industrial, chemistry-reliant agriculture has depleted the soil, leaving our food less nutrient-dense and laced with synthetic toxins. Meanwhile, industrial emissions and wildfire smoke carry a heavy load of pollutants, turning the very air we breathe into a health hazard.
- The Sixth Mass Extinction: By converting diverse ecosystems into monoculture farmland and urban concrete, we are losing dozens of species every day, unraveling the foundational canopy of life.
- The Suffocation of Ocean Life: Absorbing excess carbon has caused rapid acidification and coral bleaching. Industrial overfishing, massive plastic gyres, and agricultural runoff have created vast “dead zones” where marine life suffocates en masse.
The irony of “dominion” is clear: Modern society attempted to stand above nature, treating it as an external object to conquer. But as the oceans warm, the soil erodes, and we find microplastics in our own veins, we are discovering a truth Indigenous philosophies always understood—we are not outside the web of life; we are entirely embedded within it. The pollution of the earth is the pollution of ourselves.
The Path Forward: From Consumer to Caretaker
To heal these fractures, we must transition from extractive exploitation to ecological reciprocity and ethical stewardship. This requires restructuring our most fundamental systems.
- Transforming Our Relationship with Animals
The factory farming system is the ultimate expression of treating sentient beings as biological machines. We must transition away from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) toward pasture-raised and silvopasture systems that allow animals to fulfill their ecological roles. We must implement truly humane slaughter methods designed by animal behaviorists to eliminate fear and pain, echoing Indigenous traditions that acknowledge the gravity of taking a life with gratitude and dignity.
- Agricultural Shifts
We must move away from treating soil as an empty vessel pumped with synthetic chemicals. By adopting regenerative agriculture, polycultures, cover cropping, and no-till farming, we can mimic natural ecosystems. Prioritizing heirloom varieties and native seeds over corporate-owned, genetically modified monocultures ensures biodiversity and resilience.
- Landscape Management
Modern development has flattened ecosystems to build infrastructure. We must integrate our communities into the natural framework by restoring wildlife corridors—bridges and pathways that allow species to migrate safely. We must also adopt the Indigenous principle of the “Honorable Harvest”: never taking the first thing you see, never taking more than half, and always leaving enough for the ecosystem to regenerate.
- Rethinking Consumption: The End of “Waste”
In the natural world, there is no such thing as waste; the end of one cycle is the necessary fuel for the next. The very concept of “garbage” is an invention of the mechanistic worldview—a linear process of extracting, consuming, and discarding. True stewardship requires embracing a circular economy. This means rejecting the convenience of single-use plastics and planned obsolescence. It means repairing what is broken, composting organic matter to feed the soil, and redesigning our manufacturing systems so that every byproduct can be safely reintegrated into the earth. We must shift from being mindless consumers to mindful caretakers of resources, recognizing that every object we use carries the energy and material of the living Earth.
| Current Practice (Domination) | Future Practice (Stewardship) |
| Animals treated as biological machines to be processed as cheaply as possible. | Animals treated as sentient partners deserving of dignity, natural lives, and a fear-free end. |
| Soil viewed as dirt to be chemically forced into high yields, causing runoff. | Soil treated as a living ecosystem through regenerative care and service. |
| Ecosystems fractured by property lines, fences, and concrete to exclude the wild. | Communities built with integrated spaces, acknowledging humans as part of nature. |
| Resources are extracted, consumed, and discarded into landfills and oceans as “waste.” | Resources are valued in a circular loop, prioritizing repair, reuse, composting, and regeneration. |
The Transparent Boundary
By implementing these concrete changes, modern society can move away from a history of violent extraction. But at its core, this is a spiritual shift.
We are woven so deeply into the fabric of this living planet that the boundary between the human soul and the soul of the Earth is entirely transparent. The same consciousness that directs the deep roots to water and guides the wing through the dark is the awareness looking out through human eyes.
To recognize this is to move away from the cold arrogance of domination and step back into the warmth of kinship. We share a singular, sacred heartbeat with the oceans, the soil, and the creatures. To harm them is to mutilate ourselves; to honor them is to remember who we truly are.
