ÒThe Historical Roots of Our Ecologic
CrisisÓ : White's article was based on the premise that "all
forms of life modify their context", that is: we all create change in our environment. He
believed man's relationship with the natural environment was always a dynamic and interactive
one, even in the Middle Ages, but marked the Industrial Revolution as a fundamental turning point in our ecological history.
He suggests that at this point the hypotheses of science were married to the
possibilities of technology and our ability to destroy and exploit the environment
was vastly increased. Nevertheless, he also suggests that the mentality of
the Industrial Revolution, that the earth was a resource for human consumption, was
much older than the actuality of machinery, and has its roots in medieval
Christianity and attitudes towards nature. He suggests that "what people do
about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation
to things in their environment." He argued that Judeo-Christian theology was
fundamentally exploitative of the natural world because:
1. The Bible asserts man's dominion over nature
and establishes a trend of anthropocentrism.
2. Christianity makes a distinction between man
(formed in God's image) and the rest of creation, which has no
"soul" or "reason" and is thus inferior.