Man has been given the dominion mandate for rule and
stewardly preservation of ecosystems, consistent with a conservation
ethic for wise use of natural resources. The major environmental issues
confronting society today involve the tension between long-term
environmental degradation requiring constraints on human behavior, and
the legitimate extent of intrusion by civil government in private
actions involving true liberty with respect to the inalienable right of
private property. The concern of significance is that looming global
environmental problems are generating political pressure for
abandonment of the American heritage of a federal, republican form of
sovereign national government which protects the property right and
acts in cooperative international relationships, in favor of
centralized global autocracy which would threaten society with tyranny.
Analysis of environmental issues should involve examination
of four topics: limits of the environment to absorb human impact
without deleterious change; need for change in human behavior to reduce
or avoid adverse environmental impact; limits on the authority and
jurisdiction of civil government; and need for civil governmental
action toward environmental preservation.
Both
our environmental heritage and our political heritage (rightly
understood) must be preserved. The political heritage is Biblical and
built on protection of inalienable rights accorded to individual man by
his Creator; man's duties include earth dominion and good stewardship.
Some stewardship components of necessity involve collective actions by
society. Our environmental heritage is of a land blessed with natural
resource abundance, a fruited landscape conveyed to our generation from
forebears who dedicated the land to Christ.
Principles
for action are as follows: The civil government is to protect
inalienable rights against human destruction of a life-sustaining
environment, and protection of property-impairments from actions of
others. When actions of individuals in the aggregate threaten
ecosystems and property use in general, then the threshold has been
crossed where "private" actions are no longer private. Not only that,
but the inalienable rights include commons rights, particularly a right
of access to unimpaired commons, in conjunction with responsibilities
toward the comons, as well as private property rights. In the Christian
context, even the latter -- the right to private property as carefully
unentangled from the commons rights -- includes unavoidable
responsibilities toward society.
In strict
terms, the civil government is not authorized to restrain misuse of the
environment, absent inalienable rights infringement. However, this
statement should not be construed to afford blanket freedom for
individuals to do what they want with natural property within their
jurisdiction. The fact is that with increasing environmental pressures
owing to environmental degradations, increasing resource use, and
population pressures, the individual exercising the historic free use
of private property is increasingly liable to take actions which do
affect other property owners, and do affect the commons, and do cause
significant impairments of ecosystems. As relevant situations progress
over time, it becomes clearer and clearer that the inalienable right to
private property always had limitations, even if private actions in the
past did not rise in the aggregate to a level that triggered the need
for society-wide protective measures. The general point is that
inalienable rights, while inalienable, are not absolute, and involve
qualifications.
Society has been finding out
in the past century what are those qualifications. In scientific terms,
they involve discovery of the thresholds that signal a change from
impacts that the environment can absorb and from which it can recover
in short time, to impacts which involve accelerating degradation and
which require long-term recoveries. Civil government is authorized to
take protective action in the latter case. Furthermore, a nation may by
public consent protect its natural commonwealth for present and future
generations.
The way ahead is generally
clear -- environmental protection is an ongoing enterprise of both
scientific and political/governmental activity. Civil libertarians will
see and complain of infringement of the private property right. Their
voice should always remind us of the issues involved, and provoke
careful justification of any political actions that restrict individual
uses of natural property. However, it is clear that restrictions may be
justified even on a foundation of inalienable rights.
The
evangelical positions on environmental protection range from strong
endorsement for broad governmental action, to strong advocacy of
private property rights and near-libertarian limits on governmental
action. The view presented here finds the center by focusing on
inalienable rights protection, where the rights have both commons and
private property components, along with obligations toward God and
toward society.
© 2005 John C. Munday Jr.