Keeping It Green - How are we stewards of God's earth?

I recently completed a sermon series entitled, “Keeping It Green”. It was a short series – 3 weeks long. The overarching scripture verse supporting the series came from Genesis 2

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over
every living thing that moves upon the earth.

I have given you every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. Every beast of the earth, every bird of the air, everything that creeps on earth, and everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”

I recieved about three to four times the number of people supporting and substantiating the need to talk about how we are stewards of God's earth as compared to negative comments for this series.

Following the second part of this series, where I talked about the foods we eat, how they are processed and how that impacts our health and the health of our planet, I was invited by one of my regular church attenders to tour his corporate pheasant farm. He wanted to show me around since he is a corporate food producer. I appreciated his positive approach and his wanting me to be informed. He wasn't criticizing - he wanted to enlighten. So, I took him up on his offer.

I truly enjoyed the tour and appreciated the time he took to do so. He runs a wonderful pheasant farm raising over 1.5 million birds a year and selling them worldwide. His facilities are clean, sanitary and many of his employees have been there for years – the longest 25. They focus on being ecologically, environmentally, healthy and bird conscience.

I had a good time listening to him talk about the industry and how they do things. One regret I have is that I did not talk to him before I ran the series. I would have appreciated the balance he would have brought to my message. I know not all food providers or industries are as conscientious as he is, but there are those who are. And we need to know about them, recognize them, and applaud them.

And on a side note one of the most surprising statistics I came across was the rapid declination of our rain forests. 1.5 acres are cut down every second. By the year 2025 over one half of the world’s rain forests will be gone. By 2060 all of our rain forests will be gone. What will happen to our world’s climates, the air we breathe, and our atmosphere when this happens?

As I prepared for this series I learned a lot about people and businesses that are doing much toward perserving our world and world resources. At the same time I learned there is still much work to be done. If we believe what scriptures have to say, and we work to follow God's commandments and commission, I know that we can better stewards of what God has blessed us with.

So my question for you all – what do you think of being environmentally green? Do you think it is biblical – that God calls us to be stewards? Are we treating God’s green earth the way you think he would have us? What are your thoughts?