A friend of Cornwall Alliance points out that with most of the driving and large parts of the economies shut down around the world, air pollution emissions are declining, as are carbon dioxide emissions, so many environmentalists celebrate these results and think they point toward a better world.

Yes, there’s been lots of discussion of the “environmental benefits” of the “lockdown” designed to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2: fewer people driving to and from work, and fewer factories operating, means cleaner air, etc. This is certainly true.

Indeed, the world’s air would be much cleaner if there were no people burning wood, peat, coal, oil, gas, ethanol, other biofuels, etc., to make energy to grow and process food and make and transport clothing, shelter, vehicles, etc. I don’t think most even of the more radical environmentalists want a world with no people at all (though some do). But there’s a fairly simple flaw in the thinking that celebrates the cleaner air resulting from the economic lockdown.

Proverbs 14:4 should be at the forefront of every Christian’s mind in thinking about pollution and the environment: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

Stop and think about that for a minute. What was in Solomon’s mind? What would anyone in an agrarian culture in which oxen were the primary energy source for plowing and then for hauling crops have thought about oxen and clean mangers (long open boxes from which livestock eat food)? Well, the presence of oxen means dirty mangers—because some of the grain put into them spoils. And not just dirty mangers, but dirty stalls and whole barn floors, from the oxen’s manure. That stuff smells. It has to be mucked out from time to time. Wouldn’t life be so much cleaner and nicer without the oxen?

Well, yes, but—“abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

So if I’m a farmer, I need to ask the question: what benefits me, my family, and my neighbors more? The clean manger (and barn floor)? Or the abundant crops? It’s pretty clear from actual human decisions over the centuries that most of those who had to make such decisions decided the crops were more beneficial than the clean mangers (and barn floors)—and they were right.

The same principle applies to everything that contributes to pollution. Life is full of tradeoffs. Because we’re finite, we can’t escape that fact. The challenge we face in every instance is trying to balance the benefits and harms of any given activity.

So here’s a modern version of Proverbs 14:4: “Where no commuting and factory operations are, the skies are clean. But much food, clothing, shelter, transportation, electricity to light and heat and cool our homes and businesses and preserve our food and drink and medicine and run the machines that make our food and clothing and let us communicate with each other instantly over thousands of miles, and so on and so on to include practically all the things that make our lives healthier and longer, comes from commuting and factory operations.”

As I argued in my article “How Many Uninfected People Will the ‘War on the Coronavirus’ Kill?” there’s good reason to think the economic losses caused by that “war” will kill as many people as the virus—and perhaps far more. So what do we want? Well, obviously we want both clean skies and all those other things—but we can’t have either without some adjustments to the other. So we strive for the best balance we can achieve between them.

And, thanks to the ingenuity with which God endowed human beings, we’re learning over time to get more and more of both, as explained in the discussion of the environmental transition in my book What Is the Most Important Environmental Task Facing American Christians Today?

Photo by Daniel Halseth on Unsplash