At spring time, our celebrations are of renewal. Easter for many religious calendars and Earth Day as the northern hemisphere welcomes longer days and new birth for most plants. Many of our pagan traditions included features we continue today such as egg painting, egg eating and egg hunts.

Earth Day is a relatively recent addition to our spring traditions with the first one being held in 1970. It was a reaction to the growing concerns with how we humans were treating the earth which we all rely on for our continued existence. About that time Congress was passing clean air and clean water legislation. It was also the time of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Most of these actions revolved around fairly easily recognized problems like dead fish in our waters, the brown cloud around our larger cities, and dwindling wildlife populations.

While the Bible has many references to the idea of dominion, probably the best known is in Genesis where it says, “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth.” Recently even many of those who believe the Bible literally have come to read the passage as saying that we humans are responsible for the protection of the planet. With seven and a half billion people, the impact upon nature has become more than the restorative powers of nature can absorb. Our best intentions exceed the ability of nature to process our pollution. And far too many people refuse to see their lack of concern as having negative consequences. As David Maguire is quoted as saying, “For the first time, our power to destroy outstrips earth’s power to restore.”

In nature over the eons, the waste product of one living thing becomes the food product for others or is consumed by others. Humans however have used their ability to invent things never before known to nature and combined with the growing numbers of us it overwhelms nature. We invent products like plastics which have almost unlimited uses by humans, but which do not have a way for nature to recycle. And when they do finally breakdown to smaller particles, they become microscopic particles which are consumed by us all and cause yet unknown problems.

There are many people who refuse to believe that humans and human activities can have the ability to overpower nature. Such beliefs absolve them of responsibility for their actions. Recent scientific studies have shown that many of the negative consequences are occurring at a much faster rate than had been previously believed. The oceans have been found to be absorbing carbon dioxide at far higher rates than previously thought, the polar ice caps melting at faster rates and the tundra becoming thawed and releasing methane gas faster than expected. This knowledge would hopefully cause people to become even more concerned, and spur them to even greater actions. As Unitarian Universalist we have a responsibility to show, “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

Don Thompson, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Alamosa