God’s command to ‘subdue the earth’ was not license to destroy it but rather the bestowal of an office of stewardship, a responsibility to care for and cultivate the earth. After all, if by commanding mankind to ‘subdue the earth,’ God meant that we should turn it into the pollution-mired mess that it is fast becoming today, then why did he provide Adam and Eve with the paradisaic garden of Eden to use as a model? And why did God tell man “to cultivate it and to take care of it” and eventually spread its boundaries by subduing the “thorns and thistles” growing outside this model garden?​—Genesis 2:15; 3:18.

The stewardship instituted in Eden some six thousand years ago is not obsolete. Anyone today who respects the Creator can show it by respecting his works instead of heedlessly fouling the environment. Each of us can help to keep the oceans clean. (See below.) But sadly, this world system is set up so that anyone who wants to contribute nothing at all to the pollution of the earth and seas would have to become a hermit, isolated in the wilderness. Imitators of Jesus don’t have such an option open to them; their ministry does not allow that.​—Matthew 28:19, 20.