Christian teachings on stewardship and creation.

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Religion and the Environment: Coursework

Write an assignment on religion and the environment. In the assignment you should:

a) Describe, analyse, and explain:

(i) The problems associated with the use of scarce/non-renewable resources.

(ii) Christian teachings on stewardship and creation.

(iii) How these teachings might apply to the use of scarce and non-renewable resources.

There are many problems with the fuel sources that we use at the moment. Recently we have acknowledged the amount of destruction upon the environment due to the use of these fuel sources, but still even with this knowledge we carry on using these polluting fuels. Both the non-religious and the religious communities have started to speak up against this. They believe that these non-renewable resources should be cautiously and limitedly used. Non-renewable resources are sources of energy that occur naturally in the world but because we use them all the time as energy (for heating, electricity, fuel for transport etc.) they become depleted and they can not be replenished naturally because they are being used up so quickly. Therefore they become scarce and non-renewable. Examples of these are: oil, coal, natural gas, and fuel wood.

Oil is the most common non-renewable fossil fuel. It is used because it holds large amounts of energy and it can be moved easily from place to place. However, already more than a quarter of the earth's supply of oil has been used up over a period of 120 years. There are many problems with using oil as an energy source because it gives out many toxic gases that harm the atmosphere and can cause premature death and illness in humans. Extraction of oil causes considerable environmental pollution, and burning oil contributes to problems of acid rain and the greenhouse effect. Acid rain is linked with damage to and the death of forests and lake organisms in Scandinavia, Europe, and eastern North America. The main effect of acid rain is to damage the chemical balance of soil, causing leaching of important minerals including magnesium and aluminium. Plants living in such soils, particularly conifers suffer from mineral loss and become more prone to infection. The minerals from the soil pass into lakes and rivers, disturbing aquatic life, for instance, by damaging the gills of young fish. Lakes and rivers suffer more direct damage because they become acidified by rainfall draining directly from the surrounding area.

The greenhouse effect is when solar radiation is trapped by the earth's atmosphere and the radiation is re-emitted into the earth causing the earth's temperature to rise. The reason why the radiation stays within the atmosphere is because of poisonous gases such as carbon dioxide, which come from the burning of oil, methane and CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons). In the near future the greenhouse effect will increase the average temperature yearly, it could cause flooding in low areas, and crops would be affected by the change of climate. However, another view is that the world will go into another ice age within the next couple of hundred years. The problems of the carbon dioxide emissions could be dealt with by removing the gas from the rest of the emissions and store it under great pressure, though the energy needed to do this would amount to a fifth of the planet's electricity. In addition, the waste is bulky and must be disposed of safely.

Another non-renewable source of energy is nuclear energy; this is an energy that is produced by nuclear fission. Known resources of uranium are such that nuclear power can provide energy for many hundreds of years. Unlike fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, only a small amount of energy is needed to produce large amounts of energy. However, problems that come from using nuclear power are health problems that could lead to premature death, various cancers and birth defects. There are also problems that would affect the environment, such as nuclear waste. There is no known way of disposing nuclear waste safely, some have half-lives that can last for thousands of years. Some dumping of nuclear waste has already happened in the arctic sea and the deep Marinas Trench off the Philippines, but an international treaty now forbids this. Now high-level waste has to be kept in specifically designated sites, but already leaks of radioactive material have been reported. Nuclear waste affects the environment by killing animals in the surrounding area; this usually tends to be aquatic life, birth defects of new born animals, as well as, causing similar cancers that plague humans when around nuclear waste.

There are many renewable sources of energy that do not harm the surrounding environment such as solar power, hydroelectricity, wind power, and geothermal power. The amount of solar energy reaching the earth in just forty minutes is equal to the amount of energy used in a year by the whole world. However, even though this energy is 'free', the energy densities change rapidly and the amount of energy produced from using the solar panels is very small compared to fossil fuels and nuclear power. This makes it harder to produce the same amounts of energy, so large structures are needed to make the relative power produced. Also, efficient capture of sunlight is needed to make these structures cost-effective. This is why only 7% of the global energy demand is met by renewable sources of energy. Despite their low running costs, their high installation cost and low power output have meant that solar heating is used for domestic purposes in many parts of the world, and is an important renewable source of energy. Wind energy has been used for thousands of years for pumping water and milling grain. Today electricity is generated from using wind generators to capture the energy from wind in many countries including Europe, India and the USA. Even though the beneficial effects outweigh the detrimental effects, some people believe that the wind generators are an eyesore on the countryside (if there is a 'farm' of the generators) and also they may be quite noisy and take up a lot of space.
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There are many advantages of using renewable sources and many disadvantages from the effects of using non-renewable sources. The effects have been and do cause problems to the environment. Many people already try to help the environment but who does the responsibility of the environment fall upon? Christians believe that they should take care of the environment and steward the world. This means that they believe God gave them the responsibility of caring for the earth.

The Assisi declaration, made at the Assisi Conference in 1986, is an ecumenical statement that describes what the overall religious ...

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