Shortly after the massive explosion of industrial growth following World War II, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger warned that modern life was beginning to treat the earth only in terms of its usefulness. As he put it: “Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by… We call it the standing-reserve.”
Heidegger’s phrase continues to strike a chord with me. I hadn’t considered the possibility that I was thinking of nature that way, but I have since realized how often I treat it as background—there to serve me, to serve us all, not to relate to.
An abundance that will never diminish.
Yet, it makes sense that this “standing reserve” won’t last forever.
Heidegger wasn’t offering policy. He was urging us to live more thoughtfully—to dwell, not just use. To slow down and let things be. Not everything must be optimized; some things need to be honored. His concern wasn’t only environmental. It was existential. When everything becomes utility—trees as timber, water as irrigation, land as resource—we risk forgetting how to be human.
And that was before the internet, before global supply chains, before Global Forest Watch or NASA’s Landsat viewer could show us the Amazon vanishing acre by acre.
The reserve is shrinking.
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I’m struck by my own duality. I recycle. I’ve swapped most lights for LEDs. But I also drive a pickup truck. I fly a few times a year. I’ve never thought of myself as wasteful, but the atmosphere doesn’t care about self-perception.
Digging into this, I learned that a typical American household emits about 16 tons of CO₂ per year. It would take about 70 mature trees annually to absorb that. But trees grow slowly. Most of their early work happens underground—unseen, necessary. You can clear-cut in a weekend. You can’t rush a forest back.
Plenty of credible organizations—like the nonprofit Ecologi, reforestation partner One Tree Planted, and the certified offset platform The Gold Standard—offer to plant trees or support carbon reduction efforts on your behalf. Set it. Forget it. Let someone else do the keeping. That isn’t inherently bad—but when automation replaces reflection, we risk losing our sense of responsibility.
But isn’t that a form of kicking the problem down the road? Of outsourcing for convenience rather than responsibility? If agency means anything, maybe it starts with seeing. With asking what part of the keeping is still ours to do.
Maybe it starts with measuring our own shadows.
If we believe the earth is God’s, it’s not just resource—it’s relationship. And relationships ask something of us.
At BYU–Hawaii, a campus initiative embraces the Hawaiian principle of mālama ʻāina (mah-lah-mah eye-nah)—to care for and live in harmony with the land. As one voice in the video says, “We only have one island—we have to take care of it.” It’s stewardship rooted in gratitude. Read more here.
In scripture: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden… to dress it and to keep it.” And, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” We live in a borrowed place. It’s still God’s green earth, and we are here as stewards—not owners.
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No, I haven’t made all the changes I could. I will likely drive a truck for a few years to come. I haven’t installed solar.
But I do walk more (it’s a given with my last name). I combine errands. I ask different questions. Not out of guilt, but out of awareness.
That’s what real stewardship looks like: not perfection, but participation. And I’m looking to participate more fully.
There’s a quote—“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” That line hits differently when you have children. Or even just a sense of time that stretches beyond your own.
As I thought more about legacy, Rousseau’s social contract came to mind. Maybe it needs an addendum—more than just a pact between citizens.
Perhaps it’s also a quiet agreement between generations.
That we won’t use up what isn’t ours.
That we’ll pass forward air that can be breathed, choices that haven’t already been made for them.
Perhaps good stewards simply pay attention. Measuring shadows. Bringing light in the form of insight, action, compassion that reaches beyond us.
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I’m newly committed in three ways:
- I’ll walk more gently, aware of the roots that took generations to grow.
- I’ll continue to question the standing reserve and how I engage with it—not just whether I use things, but whether I engage wisely, without taking advantage.
- And I’ll watch my shadow more carefully—reducing what I can, where and when I can.
One island.
Not ours to keep, but to pass on.
