When it comes to the environment, maybe you wonder: Should I care about it? Does it matter? Aren’t other things more important to think about? While the natural world is something near my heart today, it hasn’t always been, so I can appreciate how others may think similarly.

It is often easy in modern civilization to live removed from the natural world and not think much about it. I also think it is good the environment isn’t everyone’s main focus and that we need a mix of peoples’ various interests and passions for the world to be its best. Nonetheless, because the environment touches everyone’s life, having some consideration for it I suspect would benefit most people themselves and society as a whole. With that said, here are a few thoughts on why care about the environment:

1. How we treat the environment affects our health. The quality of our physical needs for air, water, and food are affected by the environment, which then affect us. For example, air pollution is a substantial cause of death in the U.S. and worldwide; in fact, there may be more deaths globally in 2020 from air pollution than from COVID19 (that’s not to say COVID19 doesn’t have the potential to get worse though). 

2. How we treat the environment affects our economy and material well-being. If human caused climate change is occurring, it has the potential to impact a variety of businesses and industries, such as ones dependent on agriculture or ones that could be disrupted by increasingly severe natural disasters. Things like coastal properties being submerged by rising sea levels could cause related impacts as well.

3. Do you believe in treating others as you would like to be treated, or perhaps in loving your neighbor as yourself? If so, the environment is an important consideration. How we treat the environment often affects others, such as if our actions contribute to peoples’ water or air being polluted or the climate being changed in ways that will harm them.

4. Do you enjoy experiencing the outdoors, perhaps through things like hiking, the beach, camping, skiing, fishing, hunting, or outdoor solitude? How we treat the environment affects that, from things like whether we have outdoor spaces, clean beaches and oceans, or a stable climate that allows for winter snow sports and rivers with healthy fish populations.

5. Compared to the inhospitableness of our solar system and beyond, the Earth can seem like a treasure or an oasis of life in the vast desert of space. There may or may not be life elsewhere in the universe, but where else near Earth can you find a hospitable place, let alone one teeming with life? From that perspective, I can even find some appreciation that our world can produce annoying insects!

6. Bonus reason: From my own metaphysical beliefs, I believe the natural world is something created by God that he declared was good and, therefore, that we lose something good when we don’t take care of it. Not only that, but as a work of art can provide a glimpse into its creator, I believe the goodness of God’s creation points to God’s own goodness (which is perhaps one reason the way of the world seems bent towards destroying the creation).

Now after going over a few thoughts on why care about the environment, next up I hope to share some thoughts on how to care for it. Until then!