Subdue the Earth: The Forgotten Christian Answer to the Climate Debate

Modern climate politics treats humanity like an invasive species.

We’re told we consume too much, build too much, develop too much, and emit too much. The message is clear: human beings are the problem, and the earth must be protected from us.

But that is not Christianity.

It’s not even close.

For 3,000 years, the Judeo-Christian worldview taught something radically different—that humans are image-bearers designed to create, cultivate, innovate, and build. The very first job description in Scripture is found in Genesis 1:28:

“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over every living thing.”

To modern ears, “subdue” and “dominion” sound imperial. To ancient readers, they meant responsibility, stewardship, cultivation, and development. The earth was not a fragile deity to tiptoe around; it was a raw, untamed gift meant to be worked, shaped, and stewarded for human flourishing.

And here’s where the climate debate goes off the rails.

If you believe Genesis, then energy is not a moral liability—it is the means by which humans fulfill their mandate. Energy is how you lift the poor, feed nations, sustain families, run hospitals, build infrastructure, and create the conditions for long-term stability and—ironically—environmental improvement.

Yet the climate movement has turned this mandate upside down. It demands sacrifice, limitation, and deprivation in the name of “saving the planet.” The message to the world’s poor is simple: stay poor a little longer so the West can feel environmentally virtuous.

Jordan Peterson recently laid this out at the ARC Conference without quoting a single verse. His argument was straightforward: if we actually cared about the poor, we would give them the energy they need to stabilize their lives, grow economically, and then—only then—transition to cleaner systems. You can’t build wind turbines when you’re cooking over dung fires. You can’t run a hospital on wishful thinking and solar panels that die during monsoon season.

Peterson is not alone. A growing number of thinkers—economists like Bjørn Lomborg, energy analysts like Vaclav Smil, and writers like Alex Epstein—are all saying the same thing, whether they use biblical language or not:

Human flourishing comes before climate austerity.

Energy access is a moral good.

Poverty is not an acceptable climate strategy.

The irony is thick: secular thinkers are rediscovering what Genesis spelled out plainly. Human beings are not intruders on the earth. We are its stewards. And stewardship requires power, tools, innovation, and yes—energy.

If you want to solve poverty, you don’t throttle energy. You expand it. You diversify it. You make it abundant and affordable. The cleanest nations on earth became clean because they became rich first. Wealth creates environmental capacity. Poverty destroys it.

The Christian view is simple: the earth was given to humanity to cultivate, not fear. The resources here are meant to be used responsibly, not locked away because climate bureaucrats believe modern prosperity is a moral sin.

The climate debate will never make sense until we recover the foundational truth Genesis established: human beings were meant to build. Meant to advance. Meant to subdue the earth—not as tyrants, but as stewards.

The earth is not a god to appease.

It is a garden to cultivate.

If you want the environment to thrive, let people thrive first. Let them rise out of poverty. Let them access abundant energy. Let them build. That’s not climate denial. That’s acknowledging the created order.

And if the climate movement wants to help the poor, perhaps it should stop worshiping the earth and start remembering who was actually given dominion over it.

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