In the Old Testament, Jehovah told man to “replenish the earth and subdue it” and to “have dominion over fish, fowl” and “over every living thing”.

In 1855, the Suquamish Chief Seattle sent a letter to the President of the United States that can be described as a prose poem to the earth: “The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us...

“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people...

“We are part of the earth and it is part of us... The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bears, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers...

“The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors... The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh...

“Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. Men did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

The letter accords with today’s ecological consciousness. It is this consciousness, rather than the anthropocentric mindset in the Old Testament, that will help us save our beautiful planet.

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