Human Trustees

This past week we humans crossed an ominous threshold. The concentration of the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere reached a level considered dangerous only twenty years ago – 400 parts per million. Caleb Sharf, Director of Columbia University’s Astrobiology Center, represents the scientific consensus when stating that this increase in CO2 emissions is man-made:   “This is seen…

[A shorter version is posted on The Middle East Experience website, entitled "Muslims Going Green in a Big Way," under "The Modern Middle East"] The next UN Climate Change Conference meets in November 2012 in a new Convention Center reputed to be one of the greenest in the world. In Sweden? Not even close. Okay, so the architect is the…

The core insight of this website is the notion taught by both Bible and Qur’an that God created humans with the capacity to reason – thus creating art and furthering science—and to make moral choices for which they will have to answer. So from the beginning he mandated his human creatures to rule over the earth, manage its resources and…

[This is the 4th and last installment of the series, “Earth Warming, Faith Rising?”] If you go back to the trailer of the “Renewal” documentary mentioned at the end of the last blog, you will hear the voice of a doctor saying that strip-mining is the equivalent of raping the land – “it’s obscene, it’s a sin.” Then he adds,…

[This is the 3rd installment of the series, “Earth Warming, Faith Rising?”] “Investing” is a business term. People invest in start-up ventures that seem promising; in company stocks that are slated to rise; in a property whose market value is climbing. In each case, the investor expects to reap financial dividends. People invest in charities too. They invest their time…

[This is blog 2 out of 4 on "Earth Warming, Faith Rising?"] We now know that the earth’s atmosphere contains at least 40% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it did at the time of the Industrial Revolution. There are other greenhouse gases too – that is, gases that trap heat within the atmosphere like a shield – such as methane…