“Environmental Accountability to the Creator” is the final article in an 8-part series focused on explaining a document called “A Manifesto for Local Stewardship.” The manifesto, which made its rounds in summer of 2022, was published in The Byway’s most recent September paper.
Environmental accountability extends to everyone, ranchers and conservationists alike. But these two groups interpret accountability differently when it comes to its source.
When you were a child and you took a toy from your brother or sister, who was it that held you accountable for your actions? It was one of your parents, right?
If your childhood was anything like mine, I imagine your mom or dad probably took you aside, asked you for the full story, helped you understand what you did wrong, and took you back to apologize and take accountability for your actions. You probably did not want to take a toy again knowing you would answer to them again if you did.
Accountability for the environment is really the same concept, just with a very big and complicated thing: the Earth.
In the context of the environment, accountability means humans take responsibility for their effect on the Earth and show a willingness to be judged for their actions. Ranchers and conservationists have a similar view on this part of it, but like two fighting siblings, they quickly diverge. And this time it’s all about the source.
Accountability for many conservationists comes from their inner moral code, meaning ultimately they answer to themselves, while for many religious members of rural communities in the West, accountability comes directly from their Divine Parent. Neither kind of accountability can be forced on the other, but they both play a huge role in guiding the actions of each party.
The purpose of this article is to explain the perspective that our accountability is to God.
Religious Positions on Environmental Accountability
Numerous religious positions, at least of most Christian religions, agree on some degree of environmental accountability to a divine parent as taught in scripture. Not all Christians accept this same doctrine, including most prominently the Cornwall Alliance, but many do, including Orthodox, Presbyterian, and restored-church Christians.
Some Christian leaders have even been very vocal about denouncing environmentally ignorant actions of large companies. One such leader, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, went as far as to call mistreatment of the environment “a sin against humanity.”
Other leaders have not been quite as quick to openly censure, but many have released statements acknowledging God’s call to care for the Earth. Locally, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Gérald Caussé taught that “the divine gift of the Creation does not come without duties and responsibilities,” which Elaine outlined in her article.
Additionally, the National Association of Evangelicals wrote, “As followers of Jesus, we embrace and act responsibly to care for God’s earth while we reaffirm the important truth that we worship only the Creator and not the creation. Christians acknowledge creation care as an act of discipleship; we are stewards of the earth, summoned by God to ‘work it and take care of it’,” they wrote, referencing God’s call to Adam in the book of Genesis.
Under a lot of Christian belief, those who do not take care of the Earth on which they live will be held accountable to God. Moreover, they believe in respecting the work of that Creator. Many ranchers, including the authors of the Manifesto published in this paper, really believe that.
The Problem of Empty Accountability
Unfortunately, conservationists have a hard time understanding that kind of accountability. They have worked hard to try to make businesses, religious groups, and individuals accountable to different sources for what they do to the environment, with not much luck. In fact, they preach it, but they struggle with accountability even among themselves.
Jason Mark, editor for Sierra, wrote to his fellow conservationists, “I worry that the knee-jerk reaction against discussing our individual responsibility for climate change risks becoming an obstacle to the sweeping changes required to achieve a carbon drawdown economy.”
He later continued, “It’s important for the environmental movement, then, to keep insisting that individual behavior changes are not only righteous but required.”
But Mark gave no source for this accountability, and therein lies the problem. Organizations like Sierra try to preach the gospel of environmentalism and leave out completely the ideals of true religion, of a Divine Creator. The result is an empty accountability for a religious-like view on the environment that most ranchers do not even believe in. Accountability to the next righteous environmental fad or celebrity.
Yes, accountability is good, the ranchers say, but to whom? Who gets to choose what is righteous or required? Christians may appeal to God as the authority on what is righteous, but the conservationist invokes no authority at all.
To Whom We Will Answer
The Manifesto for Local Stewardship states, “We support our ranchers, our foresters, and our miners—and with them as local stewards, we will all answer to that great Creator who allotted us this stewardship. Through best practices, we can enjoy the bounty of the Earth, and turn it over improved, for generations to come.”
In other words the authors of the Manifesto are driven to do right by the environment because they understand to whom they are accountable.
So let’s agree on this: that like the children at war over toys, we cannot impose accountability upon each other. To be accountable for the treatment of the Earth is to examine our own moral code — whether that is to God, to posterity, to self, or to the Earth — and to act accordingly. What accountability is will change from person to person because it’s just that: personal.
Conservationists need to figure out their own accountability, but as for many ranchers, they know to whom they will answer.
– by Abbie Call
Feature image caption: Construction workers installing wind turbines for Boston based First Wind through 2009. The project was the first entry into the Milford Wind Corridor in Beaver County, and also the first wind project to be permitted by the BLM. Courtesy of North American Clean Energy.
Abbie Call – Cannonville/Kirksville, Missouri
Abbie Call is a journalist and editor at The Byway. She graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in editing and publishing from Brigham Young University. Her favorite topics to write about include anything local, Utah’s megadrought, and mental health and meaning in life. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hanging out with family, quilting and hiking.
Find Abbie on Threads @abbieb.call or contact her at [email protected].