Concern for the world (κόσμος in Greek) is not new. The Romans addressed air and water pollution. Soil conservation was practiced in China, India and Peru 2,000 years ago. The modern environmental movement began in the late 19th century in Europe and the U.S. in response to the Industrial Revolution. Humans, individually and corporately, impact the cosmos, whether by planting a garden or detonating a nuclear weapon.
Lake Erie was almost devoid of fish in the 1960s and partly responsible for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. My first awareness of the word “ecology” was around 1970 when I saw it on a campus poster. Young people today are aware of the cosmos at an earlier age than my generation, and exercise more responsibility, as demonstrated by Greta Thunberg.
Perhaps you’ve that noticed that sustainability is an important focus among today’s companies. Some large corporations now have a Chief Sustainability Officer. “ESG” (environmental, social and governance) is prominent in corporate annual reports and presentations. ESG is a significant investment theme and there’s a growing number of sustainability-themed mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Children are leading. Corporations are leading. Cosmos has been an undervalued faith theme because some faith groups have been slower to lead, but that appears to be changing.
Tomorrow: Peace.
ted.today 
I certainly hope evangelicals become less deniers of climate change.
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Thank you, Kathy. The article linked to the post comes from Deutsche Welle (DW), a consortium of German broadcasting organizations. I included the article because their European perspective is different from our usual media fare and I found it thought provoking. Even with today’s global communications capability, I’m aware that much of my news information comes from a relatively narrow bandwidth. I’m not willing to settle for that!
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