Stewardship
Today's modern lifestyle is intricately tied to energy. Energy runs the machines that refrigerate our food, those that wash our clothes, those that clean our homes and those that entertain our children. Without it we can not produce or store our food, or manufacture our clothes or build our houses. Without it we cannot mill our lumber or produce our steel. Energy enables a myriad of modes of transportation from the supersonic jet to the motorized scooter, and energy heats our homes in the winter and cools them in the summer. Without energy modern society stops.
And where does that energy come from? The vast majority comes from fossil fuels—oil, coal, natural gas. In a very real sense our modern life is dependent on the lives of ancient plants and animals
Just as modern technology depends on hydorcarbon fuel created from the life of other creatures, human society is dependent on those who went before. Our lifestyles, our cultures, our very thought have all been molded by past generations. All of society, its culture and its technology has developed step by step, generation by generation.
For example, the whole process of finding, mining and refining fossil fuels is the result of years of exploration, research and technological development by previous generations. In a very real sense we are what we are because of the sacrifice, toil and ingenuity of our ancestors. We have inherited from them all of the benefits—and the environmental problems—of modern society.
Now it is our turn to use the earth, and her resources, for better or for worse.
We are stewards or caretakers, of the earth, not its owners. Our decisions must begin to reflect this fact.
Will we continue to unthinkingly allow materialism and avarice to drive our decisions?
Will we wake up to the dangerous situation humanity has created, accept the responsibility for our actions and begin to heal the environment?
Humans tend to forget that our life span in this world, both as individuals and as communities, is very limited. The choices we make now not only affect our own lives, but also those of all generations to come. While this is self evident to most, few realize that there are also spiritual consequences for our decisions. We are spiritually responsible not only for the results of our decisions in our own life-times but those results in the long-term. Thus the consequences of our decisions may be everlasting both for the planet and our own souls:
We will certainly revive the dead, and we have recorded everything they have done in this life, as well as the consequences that continue after their death. Everything we have counted in a profound record. Quran 36:12