...A Planet Called Earth

This is a planet. His name is Earth. I think it’d be safe to say that we all kind of really like Earth and kind of depend on him for everything.  Everything? Yes.  Everything. 

Today in my Living with Plants class we talked about Conservation Biology. Now, I had previously decided that I was going to study horticulture and botany and minor in landscape design. While that is still probably what I’m going to do, this strange thought popped in my head today. It happened when I was talking with my brother-in-law Steven, who is going into architecture, and is really quite fond of the ‘green’ houses. As am I.  We were talking about how we could work together some day when he has his own firm and what not, and it was just super cool.  Then I got this thought: What if I emphasized in Conservation biology and then went on to law school…?  Now, having worked in a law office over the summer and being around law for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, I thought for sure I would never want to go into law. But if it’s related to something that I love, then why not?  It probably won’t happen because that’s a lot of extra schooling, but it might actually be a more convenient job or being a mom too.  So that had been going through my head all day, and then I walked into my plants class and low and behold, we’re talking about Conservation Biology! 

Now, growing up, I had been taught over and over that these tree-hugging, ‘save the planet’ people are crazy, because it’s just something dad didn’t really see as necessary. But hey, now I’m one of them! While in the church we are taught to be stewards over the earth, there’s a lot more to it than just taking care of the land you have, or whatever. My professor probably spend a good 10-15 minutes talking about what we find in Doctrine and Covenants 104: 11-16.  In verses 13 and 14 it reads “For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures. I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.”

First of all, what is a steward? A dictionary definition says that a steward is “a person whose responsibility it is to take care of something.” Continuing on, the Lord says that the earthly blessings we are to be stewards over have been “made and prepared for [his] creatures” and that “all thing therein are” his.  From that, not only is the Lord saying that He created the earth and gave us everything on it (like what I talked about in “An Attitude of Gratitude”), but He’s also saying that He made the earth for His creatures. That’s plural. Meaning more than just humans.   Too often we take possession of things that aren’t really ours, but have only been given to us through blessings from God, whether that be opportunities, intelligence, a job, the means to provide, and everything else. 

We are taught to stay out of debt and to live within our means, but something my professor brought up today is that we also need to live within our needs.  Just because we have the materials available to us, does not mean that we have to use them. Just as we should not spend more than we have, we should not use what we do not need.  As stewards of this earth, we will be held accountable, and we cannot just exploit the earth, but we really must take care of it. 

Dr. St. Clair gave this equation:

                              

                               Human Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology 

Now, I’m not going to go on preaching about how we’re destroying the planet, because I do not believe that we are destroying it, per se, but we as humans, as a keystone species, do have an impact on the earth, whether you want to believe it or not. And there are ways that we can decrease the negative impact we have and increase the positive ones.  I’m not going to get into all the categories that humans impact and blah blah blah blah blah, but my professor showed us this website to show us what our ecological footprint is.  It’s actually quite interesting.  After filling this out honestly, my results were this:

                 http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/

It’s actually kind of like a game, kind of fun. Check it out if you’re interested. We all have areas we could improve on. While we don’t all need to ‘go green’ there are little things we can do to help Mr. Earth and all the species and organisms that live on him. If you are interested in knowing a little more about our impact, I’d be happy to share what I know with you if you wanna shoot me an email. We are all stewards. We all have the responsibility to take care of the earth, and do it well.  We will all be held accountable for whether or not we did our part. Are you doing yours?   

This post is not to offend anyone who believes otherwise. It is my personal beliefs and interests, so don't be a hater. If you don't agree, that's totally okay.