“It is time for climate-change agnostics to put aside their scepticism and acknowledge reality” says Alan Dupont, from the Lowly Institute, in an article for the Australian newspaper recently. He says, “The Earth is heating up at a rate never before experienced in human history and we are primarily responsible.”

Dupont is the Lowey Institute’s fellow for international security. He says our use of fossil fuels and our felling of forests over the centuries is altering our climate with detrimental affects for future generations. Climate change even affects international security. Unless these trends are halted, Dupont says, we’ll push our already fragile ecosystem to a point of no return.

Dupont’s figures are alarming:

For instance, climate scientists overwhelmingly accept that the world's glaciers and northern ice cap are rapidly melting. If present rates of melt continue, the arctic ice cap will disappear entirely by the year 2060. Rising seas will then inundate many coastal and low-lying areas. If Greenland's large ice mass melts too (which the latest data suggests is a possibility), the world's oceans could rise by 4-to-6metres this century. This may seem relatively small, but combined with large storms and mega-cyclones, it means serious flooding for Australian and Asian cities and coastal lands.

And this century will see a massive growth of carbon dioxide concentrations, regardless of what we do to reduce greenhouse-gases. The Earth's surface will warm by more than 2-degrees. Again, that sounds inconsequential. But, year to year and decade to decade, average global temperatures vary by only a few tenths of a degree. A jump of 2-degrees means more droughts, and more cyclones stronger than Hurricane Katrina.

Apart from the obvious problems of existence, Alan Dupont says such dramatic changes have security implications. Drought affects food production, natural disasters affect already impoverished nations, and extreme weather and temperature changes trigger short-term spikes of diseases like malaria and Ross River fever—and when all of these coincide with terrorism and ethnic or social tensions, the security impact becomes obvious.

So, amongst all that, how are Christians to respond? Some of us, awaiting Christ’s return, have felt that any involvement in environmental maters is just a waste of time. ‘Jesus will fix it all up when he comes, so let’s get on with spreading the word about him,’ goes the reasoning. But is this the final word? Does God care about the Earth? Is God an environmentalist?

Surprisingly (to me at least), I’ve discovered that the Bible has a lot to say about the environment:

In the book of Leviticus, the Israelites are told that when they enter the Promised Land, the edible plants and trees are to be left alone for four years. Only in the fifth year can they be eaten, so that, I quote, “they may yield more richly for you." (Lev. 19:23-25) This verse talks about nurturing nature and practicing consumer restraint for good benefits in the future.

An intriguing verse in Deuteronomy says, "If you come upon a bird's nest … with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on [them], you shall not take the mother with the young; you shall let the mother go..." (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) Another good use of resources so they may continue into the future.

Another verse in that book says, "When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it … you shall not destroy its trees … you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down." (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

In these verses God says to guard nature—no obliteration of species, no destruction for short-term gain, no short-sightedness about immediate need, no justification of greed. These verses have an eye on the present for the sake of the future. Even the fourth of the Ten Commandments—the one about the Sabbath, the day of rest—is described as a time not just for humans, but for work animals to rest too (Ex. 20:10; 23:12). And every seventh year, the sabbatical year, the crops, vineyards and olive orchards were to be allowed to rest. (Ex. 23:11)

And in addition to all this, Jesus told us to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matt. 22:3). We often interpret that to mean loving the person next door, across town or overseas, but ethicist Robert Parham suggests we should understand this statement not just geographically but chronologically. “[We] should see future generations as our neighbours,” he says. “[We] love our neighbours in the future with what we do in the present, or we damn them with what we fail to do or do wrongly.”

Alan Dupont would be happy.

Yes, God seems to be an environmentalist. And as long as we worship Him and not the earth, it seems like we should be environmentalists too.