By Vijay Jayaraj

Scripture places the olive tree near some of the most solemn moments in the life of Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus prayed in Gethsemane before his arrest, among olive trees that had already become symbols of peace, endurance, and covenant life.

And now, across parts of southern Europe, these ancient olive groves and grasslands are cleared to make room for solar installations. You are told this is climate salvation. But when you look closely, you see nothing but a loss of wisdom. You see a misunderstanding of both nature and energy. You see a rejection of stewardship rooted in fear rather than faith.

Olive Tree, Jesus, and Standing the Test of Time

Some of the olive trees in and around the garden of Gethsemane may be around 900 years old, while the root systems or genetic lines behind them may stretch much further back. Olive trees are not fragile ornaments of the present age. They are among the most enduring organisms on earth.

In fact, the famed Vouves olive tree in the Greek island of Crete has been described as potentially 2,000 to 4,000 years old, making it one of the oldest living olive trees known to us. It was already a massive, fruit-bearing giant when Alexander the Great conquered the known world. It witnessed the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

When the Apostle Paul navigated the Mediterranean and walked the dusty roads of Crete to preach the Gospel, he moved through territories defined by these very trees, and perhaps even the same tree that that stands there today.

Aztecs and Rain Gods: Uprooted in the Name of Fear

Now contrast that enduring patience of olive trees with the logic of today’s solar push. Large-scale solar projects in Southern Spain, particularly in Andalusia, are resulting in the removal of more than 100,000 olive trees, including mature and centuries-old olive trees. Approximately 20,000 hectares of farmland are being impacted annually, with thousands of trees already uprooted in areas like Lopera and Jaén regions of Andalusia, Seville.

It is a personal disappointment for me, as I have visited the Andalusia region during my time as an intern and witnessed these olive trees that have stood the test of time. In fact, my graduate degree thesis — in the Alentejo grasslands of Southern Portugal — focused on the mortality of birds from collision to energy infrastructure. Often incorrectly dismissed as trivial, wind energy is one of the top mortality contributors of large raptors globally, including the American Bald Eagle.

Just like Aztecs sacrificed humans to please the weather gods, today’s modern climate-Aztecs are culling trees, birds, and wildlife at the altar of climate doomsday. They believe reducing CO₂ emissions from conventional energy sources like oil and gas will save the planet from warming, a claim that is scientifically untenable when the 12,000-year history of the ongoing Holocene geological phase is analyzed closely.

Shiny Panel and Death of Wisdom

The issue is not whether solar has any role. It does. Rooftops, small-scale systems, and specific off-grid applications can make sense. The issue is the claim that vast industrial solar fields are a near-miraculous answer to civilization’s energy needs. They are not.

Solar panels produce electricity only when sunlight permits. They require storage, backup generation, long transmission lines, and substantial material input. They also create waste at end of life, and the recycling problem is real. What is sold to the public as simple, cheap, and clean is often more complicated, more expensive, and more land-intensive than the slogan admits.

France offers an instructive contrast. Its electricity system remains anchored by nuclear power and does so with a very small land footprint. That matters. It is about density, reliability, cost, and how much land a society is willing to sacrifice for each unit of power. Solar, by comparison, spreads thinly across the land and still cannot provide around-the-clock baseload power — that must come from other sources like nuclear and fossil fuels.

That is why the talk of “green energy” often rings hollow, especially when it destroys green habitats. And the justification they use as an excuse is always the same. We are told there is a climate crisis.

Replacing Fear with Stewardship

The trouble with much climate rhetoric is not concern for the environment. Fear becomes the first principle. Dread becomes the organizing force. Guilt replaces judgment. And once that happens, people stop asking whether a policy works and start asking only whether it sounds righteous.

Scripture does not support this type of panic-driven decision-making, especially when the entire narrative is predicated on unrealistic, exaggerated projections of a climate collapse that even Nobel prize-winning scientists disagree with.

The current state of affairs calls for wisdom, discernment, and trust in God’s sovereignty. Fear-driven environmentalism often replaces trust in God and truth with trust in human projections. It elevates worst-case scenarios to the level of certainty, and even those worst-case climate crisis scenarios only cause a minute economic impact as per the best available scientific analysis.

The folly of man is not that he acts, but that he acts without wisdom. He mistakes urgency for truth. A crisis narrative is not a substitute for prudence, wisdom and stewardship. You do not honor creation by dismantling it in pursuit of uncertain outcomes. You honor it by using your God-given abilities to manage it wisely.

Vijay Jayaraj is Research Associate for Developing Countries with the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition. He holds a M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, postgraduate degree in Energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a B.S. in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research assistant at University of British Columbia’s Changing Oceans Research Unit in Canada.