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The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis
White's 1967 Science essay arguing that Western Christian theology — its doctrine of human dominion over nature — supplied the cultural preconditions for both modern science and the ecological catastrophe that followed.
Published in Science in March 1967, the essay became one of the most cited articles in environmental history and reshaped how scholars thought about the relationship between religion, technology, and ecological degradation. White argued that the Judeo-Christian tradition, by positioning humanity as the master and steward of a nature created for human use, provided the theological foundation on which the scientific and industrial exploitation of the natural world was built. The essay's conclusion — that the ecological crisis would not be solved by better technology alone but required a transformation of values — was both the source of its influence and the focus of decades of critical response.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The essay emerged from White's work on medieval Western Christianity and his growing alarm at the environmental degradation he witnessed in postwar California. Its argument ran against the prevailing assumption that science and religion were antagonists: White proposed