This article is the eleventh in CPJ’s Ink & Impact series featuring young writers from across the country. In today’s political climate, often marked by cynicism and despair, CPJ’s annual Ink & Impact conference helps Christian young people become messengers of hope. In a world dominated by digital distractions, Ink & Impact develops writers who can articulate complex political topics in an approachable, nuanced way to inform the public. The views and opinions reflected in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of CPJ.
Commissioned for Sacred Stewardship
God’s creation offers a connection point with our neighbors. From the scent of wildflowers in the morning dew to the streaks of colors painting the sky at sunset to the roar of a cascading waterfall—encounters with the natural world inspire joy, awe, and wonder. The rich and poor, old and young, progressive and conservative alike marvel at such scenes. For Christians, we affirm this beauty as a gift of a beautiful God who blesses all humanity with glimpses of divine glory through general revelation in the created order.
As people who share earthly space with neighbors of many different backgrounds, the environment that we inhabit together offers a setting in which to love these neighbors. Creation itself reflects this design of interdependence. Humans are not distinct entities from other creatures and our environments; rather, God intentionally wove us together from the beginning.
In the first chapters of the Bible, God speaks order into chaos and crafts the universe by filling formerly empty spaces with structure and life and, finally, creating humans as the crown jewel, commissioned to embody the divine image (imago dei) by “ruling over” all creation (Genesis 1:26-28). This commission invites humans into a role marked not by coercion or subjugation of the created world but rather by stewardship of a sacred space. Love and abundance characterize God’s original design for creation. God created from an overabundance of the Trinity’s eternal love, and humans embody their true identity as image-bearers when they reflect that love and respond with gratitude through careful stewardship of creation.
Disruption to God’s Design
Unfortunately, the Fall’s corruption permeates all of creation, including human relationships with the environment. Rather than respectful stewardship, domination and exploitation ascended as modes of human engagement with the rest of creation. Whereas abundance characterized God’s original design, a sense of scarcity started to loom after the Fall. As soon as humans sought to elevate themselves above God, that competitive ethos distorted the relationship God intended between divine image-bearers and the rest of creation.
In fact, the law that God gave to ancient Israel contains boundaries against overconsumption and exploitation. The rhythms of Sabbath every seventh day, leaving the fields fallow every seventh year, and resetting the whole community every seven cycles of seven years through the Jubilee all function to preserve sustainable, healthy relationships between the people and their environment. These boundaries were necessary precisely because the temptation to exploit rather than steward creation was already at work long before the modern age.
In a modern world with unprecedented technological capacity, these ancient attitudes have led to measurable environmental damage. In recognition of this harm, the Nixon administration established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 to investigate risks, set limits, and enforce laws related to pollution. In 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan issued an executive order requiring explicit cost-benefit analysis for major environmental legislation, a standard the EPA enacted by developing monetary estimates for both the costs and benefits of proposed regulations.
Human health offers an objective metric conducive to quantifying the economic benefits of environmentally protective policies. While pollution consistently leads to detrimental health effects, regulations reliably yield empirical evidence of health benefits. Two pollutants in particular, fine particles (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone, are consistently linked to negative human health effects. PM2.5 refers to particulate matter (PM) measuring 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less, roughly 1/30 the width of a single human hair. While ozone in the upper atmosphere protects against dangerous UV radiation, at ground level it causes harmful effects when breathed in.
PM2.5 causes outsized harm when inhaled, penetrating the lungs and sometimes the bloodstream. Ground-level ozone corrodes and irritates the respiratory tract in a process that resembles an internal sunburn. Both pollutants exacerbate symptoms for people with chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Inhaling PM2.5 and ozone leads not only to immediate health issues, such as difficulty breathing, but also to long-term consequences, including impaired heart and lung function and complications in the nervous, reproductive, and endocrine systems.
When primary air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, react in the atmosphere, they form PM2.5 and ozone. Air pollution regulations frequently aim to prevent PM2.5 and ozone from forming by setting emission limits on the original sources, such as coal and gas power plants. The EPA estimates that PM2.5 regulations alone have saved more than 230,000 lives and billions of dollars.
Despite objective data demonstrating the effectiveness of air pollution regulations, in January 2026, the Trump administration announced the end of this longstanding practice of quantifying human health costs in the EPA’s regulatory analysis for PM2.5 and ozone pollution. While EPA officials clarified that they still intend to consider human health effects in their decisions, the cessation of monetary cost-benefit calculations opens a significant risk of reducing air quality standards. If a cost-benefit analysis fully quantifies the costs of environmental mitigation strategies but only describes the benefits abstractly, the costs will likely seem disproportionately steep. In contrast, quantitatively considering illnesses and premature deaths prevented and healthcare costs saved through proposed regulations reveals the benefits far more clearly. Analyses historically suggest that the quantifiable human health benefits of air pollution regulations outnumber the costs 30 to 1. By removing the comprehensive quantitative analysis, the new policy also removes the fairness of the framework for assessing proposed regulations.
Called to Tangible Love
As Christians, our faith compels us to care for the most vulnerable. Families bear the brunt of poor air quality’s detrimental effects, especially children and the elderly, as well as those of any age with chronic illness and those without stable housing, who often have no refuge from poor outdoor air quality. Pollution levels that cause minor irritation or moderate coughing in a healthy adult potentially lead to complications requiring hospitalization for medically vulnerable people. As air is the fabric of life that we share with our neighbors, the call to love our neighbor includes working toward safe air quality for all.
The biblical responsibility to care for children unites Christians across theological and political divides. Poor air quality not only damages developing respiratory systems but also disrupts classic childhood experiences, namely the ability to safely play outside. Due to advisories to stay inside on poor air quality days, which occur especially frequently in the summer, air pollution constrains children’s freedom and flourishing.
Empowered to Act
A public justice framework, including CPJ’s guideline on the environment, provides a constructive vision for the role of government in environmental protection. Sin drives the human tendency toward environmental degradation, and government bears a responsibility to restrain that tendency and promote flourishing within the bounds of its authority. While recent federal policy shifts present a real challenge, everyday people retain agency to advocate and act in pursuit of a clean, safe, and healthy environment. The U.S. government’s intentional limits on federal power mean that state and local governments exert significant influence on the environmental quality of their jurisdictions and frequently offer a more accessible, responsive path for everyday people to engage and advocate.
Several states have already prioritized environmental protection in the face of constantly changing federal policy. Montana, Pennsylvania, and New York incorporated amendments declaring a healthy environment a constitutional right for residents of their states. The political and ideological range of these three states illuminates the unifying importance of environmental protection. Responsible stewardship of our shared earth requires investment from and yields benefits for people across ideological lines.
Local officials, such as commissioners, council members, and mayors, often receive the least fanfare during elections but cause the most impact in ordinary people’s lives. Zoning and permitting for businesses is one of the most influential avenues through which local governments affect the environment. When a new business announces its intention to enter your community, research its environmental impacts, especially connected to pollution. Then, consider, in consultation with your neighbors, whether this business ultimately enriches or impedes your community’s flourishing. If a proposed business venture raises concerns, such as air pollution from an industrial facility, local political systems offer countless opportunities for citizens to raise their voices. When you call your commissioner or council member or comment at a public meeting, you directly contribute to the decisions that shape your community’s future.
If a business receives a permit despite public opposition or you discover that a polluting facility already exists in your neighborhood, meaningful options remain. Companies increasingly recognize the importance of a trusting relationship with the communities in which they operate. When local communities attest to consequences like increased coughing, difficulty breathing, and asthma attacks from poor air quality and urge facilities to implement more pollution control measures, the issue gains urgency because it affects their overall stability. The power of public opinion encompasses tremendous potential to hold companies environmentally accountable, regardless of federal regulations or the lack thereof.
Across the country, people of every background shape the state of our shared environment through everyday choices. Actions like purchasing energy-efficient appliances, turning off unnecessary lights, and opting for public transportation or carpooling empower ordinary citizens to contribute to a solution. As God’s image-bearers, called to steward the earth we share with all creatures, acting on air quality—from the individual to the federal level—embodies love of God and neighbor alongside hope in God’s promise to redeem all creation.
Fiona Balfe graduated from Wheaton College with a B.A. in Biblical & Theological Studies and a B.S. in Environmental Science. Since graduation, she has enjoyed working with Christian nonprofits, especially interning at the Center for Public Justice. In the future, she plans to pursue graduate studies in theology. She is passionate about cultivating a more holistic theology that embraces God’s care for the whole person in every aspect of life with a particular interest in theologies of embodiment and environmental stewardship.
Graphic by Center for Public Justice
