Tending to the earth has always been part of God’s good plan for humanity: man’s employment history begins with a gardener!

But although God instructed mankind to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28), this was not to be an exploitative rule where we could do whatever we liked. Man was given dominion, but it was never supposed to be domination. Ultimately, we are God’s stewards: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” (Psalm 24:1).

It is no surprise to see creation out of kilter. When mankind fell, creation fell with it, and the relationship between man and the world was broken. God cursed the ground, which brought forth thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:17-18). Man-made climate change is an example of the way that humans come into conflict with a fallen creation.

But the effects of this are far-reaching. Droughts in East Africa have led to 22 million people being at risk of severe hunger. More than 4 million acres of crops have been destroyed in Pakistan. Rising sea levels put large numbers of people across the world at risk from severe flooding. Some of those who will be hit hardest are the most disadvantaged, in developing nations; as Christians, we want to “love our neighbour”, even when they are on the other side of the world.

However, the extreme language used by activists is provoking real fear and anxiety. Just Stop Oil have said that “New oil and gas is an act of genocide”; others talk of ‘global extinction’. Such apocalyptic language is not part of the better story God gives us: Jesus says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Matthew 6:25).

As Christians, we do not believe that the world will end until the Lord Jesus himself comes back and puts everything right. That does not excuse us from our responsibility to steward the earth, but it does mean that we should not give in to despair. Jesus has already defeated the curse of the fall.

One day our world will come to an end, not as a result of carbon emissions, but as the true King returns to His world, when we will see a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ (Revelation 21:1). Then we will no longer worry about our natural resources, for ‘New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills’ (Amos 9:14). Looking after God’s creation does genuinely matter. But we do not do it without hope.