It seems as though humans have exploited nature for a very long time. People had unknowingly butchering the land for agriculture purposes in the past without thinking of any consequences of the future.
The idea White brings up is that Christianity follows the belief that man was created by God, and man then named all of the animals. This has made humans dominant from the beginning of mankind. People should make sure not to worship the Earth as pagans and to continue to follow the Christian faith. In comes science and technology that changed the view point of Christianity and then back to nature. As White discusses further, the Franciscan belief was that all nature is equal.
More further into the selection, White discusses Christianity vs. paganism. I thought this part was relevant to today's society, as I'd read in a newspaper that the Vatican's review on the movie "Avatar" by James Cameron was negative as they did not want people worshiping the Earth and becoming pagans. (On a quick side note, that is somewhat of a contradiction to Christian belief. In their beliefs, God created the world and everything in it, so taking care of the Earth and in a sense, worshiping it, is still following Christian God is it not? How can a tree just be a tree, if it was created by God? Did He not create tree's to help sustain us? Without trees we do not survive, so in a sense they are an extension of "God" or a god. White even commented that a Governor of California stated "when you've seen one you've seen them all", referring to a redwood tree in the forest. Similar to my questions above, is a redwood tree not a symbol of God's power and beauty? Nature is not to serve us, but to provide for us in a way that we should be thankful and not ignorant to it's purpose. We all work together here, and without a working symbiotic relationship our long term success on this planet will not happen.
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