We are all stewards of the Earth

By this I refer to the meaning of stewardship as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care". When we think of land ownership, I believe the main responsibility is the careful management of the resources of that land. Ideally, to do everything possible to make the land richer and more productive than when you acquired it.

Sadly, this is often not how land owners, especially corporate ones, view their roles as owners. The concentrated effort is usually more on exploiting those resources for the benefit of the stockholders through increased short-term profits than in any way being good stewards. If my land becomes unprofitable over time (usually due to mismanagement) then I will simply sell it and buy another parcel that is more productive.

Not only does this view of land as an exploitable resource cause a destructive cycle of resource consumption (and unnecessary waste), but it encourages the exploitation of wilderness lands that are quickly disappearing as a consequence.

Beyond the question of private land owners being good stewards, I am continually appalled at how the rest of us treat the lands which we do not own. People still throw fast food wrappers or whole bags of half eaten food out their car windows (didn't we address this back in the 60's & 70's?). I've seen creeks and rivers around the Chicago area despoiled with all manner of discarded items from tires to cinder blocks, from mattresses and lawn chairs to old Weber grills, not to mention the ubiquitous beer bottles and cans.

Why is it so hard to realize that we are all poisoning ourselves through these careless actions? The chemicals in our garbage thrown into our water ways are leaching into our groundwater and the river ecosystems. Not only does this make our environment less beautiful (who wants to live in a garbage dump) but it ultimately affects our health and well being.

One of my favorite quotes, originally attributed to Chief Seattle but actually more recent, "The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth". As stewards of the earth, a role into which we have thrust ourselves, we have to start doing a better job. The quote continues, "All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself".

Regardless of the source of this wisdom, isn't it time we started seeing the web of life that we live in and stopped exploiting its resources, polluting it with our garbage and poisoning it with our chemicals?