In the Orange County Register, Senior Editorial Writer Alan Bock reviews the Acton Institute book, “Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition.” (Available in the Acton Bookshoppe for the bargain price of $6).

The book might be viewed as an extended rebuttal to a famous 1967 Science magazine article by Lynn White that contended that the biblical injunction for people to have “dominion” over the Earth led to an arrogant view toward the environment that led to widespread environmental despoliation. The proper religious attitude toward the Earth, the authors argue, is one of stewardship, which includes using Earth’s resources to improve the lot of humankind, but doing so with an attitude of responsibility and even love, taking care not to destroy what cannot be replaced. Mistakes certainly have been made along the way, but these have resulted from an imperfect understanding of the requirements of stewardship – often by people who were not motivated by religious attitudes – rather than biblically decreed arrogance.

The perhaps counterintuitive but, on reflection, logical thread running through the three essays – along with a statement called the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship promulgated in 1999 by an interfaith group meeting in Connecticut – is that achieving a certain level of wealth in a society seems to be a prerequisite to effective environmental stewardship. A secondary theme is that a system of private property and relatively free markets is the most effective way to achieve both societal wealth and environmental protection and improvement.

Read the entire review on the OC Register site.