Ecological Theology

I just spent the last four days on a trip with my Stream Ecologist uncle up to Montana for some rafting and mountain biking. The trip was a blast, but as I spoke with my atheist uncle on the long drive through Idaho and Western Montana, I realized a lot of things about this world that I tend to not give as much attention to, specifically, the notion of us as human beings being good stewards in the environmental sense.
My father, on whom I don't rely for theological advice, often expresses his contempt at those who "preach global warming." He believes that if God gave this green earth to us, then there is no way that we can ever mess it up. I find this notion slightly comical, for during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union both amassed enough nuclear firepower to annihilate every living creature on this planet several times over. If we are able to do that completely on purpose, what sort of damage could we also accomplish simply by neglect?
In the end of the first chapter of Genesis, a story which most Bible Scholars admit is naught but a fable, God gives to humans dominion over all plants and animals of the planet.
Often times this verse is cited to give reason as to why humans are omnivorous, or why hunting is justified for us, or farming or ranching.
However, the problem is that we end up acting the spoiled millionaire heir, spending our funds foolishly, unaware of whence the money comes or how great the sum really is. Eventually, the spoiled heir, living out of his means, will use up a fortune which most men could easily have survived comfortably on for several lifetimes.
We live in a time where it is increasingly easier to be responsible stewards and live comfortable lives. But we often trade convenience for sensibility. We would rather trash deforest large areas for cattle grazing, or pollute streams and rivers rather than using safer, less "effective" chemicals. We would rather spray our produce with pesticides and herbicides which destroy the ecosystem rather than spend the extra money to breed natural predatory insects to protect our crops. We would rather build a mini mall to alleviate our apparent need to consume rather than enjoy the wetlands.
Some of us have even become criminally negligent. My uncle told me about a friend of his, Tyrone Hayes, a fellow stream ecologist specializing in frog populations who discovered that the presence of a popular herbicide, atrazine, in a thirtieth of FDA permitted levels in our drinking water will turn a male frog into a female hormonally speaking. What this means is that what we are federally permitted to ingest will turn an entire population of frogs into females, all of which will actually produce eggs. Now, at this point, we are not only destroying a species which, even according to the Bible, has been here longer than us, but we are also destroying ourselves, causing infertility in human males as well.
This is only one example of how our desire for convenience, also known as greed, is quite deadly. Rachel Carson also opened our eyes forty years ago with her book Silent Spring in which she demonstrated the dangers of DDT.
When it comes down to it, I don't believe that God will hold us simply responsible for what we do to each other in a very direct, easy to see manner, such as theft, adultery, murder, rape, but will also hold us accountable for what we do by our negligence. It isn't only what we advertise that will get us in trouble, but what we fail to advertise that will. And as stewards of this planet, it is our responsibility to care for it, a responsibility which I don't believe God will overlook at the last day.