Many human beings have come to behave as materialistic tyrants. Those that tyrannize the Earth are themselves, sadly, tyrannized. If human beings treated one another's personal property the way they treat their environment, we would view that behavior as anti-social. We would impose the judicial measures necessary to restore wrongly appropriated personal possessions. It follows that, to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin.
Many nations are reluctant to act unilaterally.
This self-centered behavior is a symptom of our alienation from one another and from the context of our common existence. We are urging a different and, we believe, a more satisfactory ecological ethic. This ethic is shared with many of the religious traditions represented here. He imposed on humanity a stewardship role in relationship to the Earth. How we treat the Earth and all of creation defines the relationship that each of us has with God.