God, humans, and even animals can all deserve a certain kind of treatment because they are all conscious on the Christian worldview, although of course there are epistemological limitations that prevent one from knowing if other minds of any kind exist at all. Indeed, the Bible speaks repeatedly of the obligations and rights of animals and far more thoroughly on obligations to God and to the humans made in his image. However, the environment in which humans and animals live is among the things God calls "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and it follows from this that there would be such a thing as immoral treatment of the environment. How is it that it is a genuine obligation on the Christian worldview to not trivialize or needlessly exploit the environment when it is logically impossible for inanimate things to deserve anything one way or another?
Setting aside the unprovable and unfalsifiable possibility that all matter has its own consciousness (a philosophy called panpsychism that is at least largely compatible with Christianity, as surprising as that might be), the Bible does not teach or hint at human obligation to steward the world is for the sake of the world. There could be no such thing as moral rights and obligations unless there is a deity with a moral nature, not that there could be a universe in the first place without an uncaused cause to initiate the causal chain that brought physical matter into existence. If there was no uncaused cause or even an uncaused cause without a moral nature, there would be no such thing as morality because all that there could be is preferences and feelings pertaining to morality. Like a hallucination of a material object outside of one's mind that is not truly there, moral obligations would at best be something that seems to be there but is not. An obligation to not trample on the environment would thus be an obligation to God, whose nature is such that makes it morally mandatory to steward creation.
An obligation to protect or not abuse the planet and by extension the universe itself is not because the environment has rights in itself. No, it would be for the sake of God and for the sake of the beings that live upon/within it. After all, to think that the universe is something to dispose of or ruthlessly use would be to think little of the creator of matter, which makes anti-environmentalism a direct or indirect assault on God. Similarly, hostility towards the environment is directly or indirectly hostility towards the humans who bear God's image according to one of the most central Biblical doctrines of humanity. Not only does neglect or abuse of the environment show disregard for God since the universe is part of his vast creation, but it also shows a disregard for the apex of his creation: humankind.
An obligation to steward the environment has so much more to it than simply tending to an enormous, unliving rock. As always, since any existing moral obligations are inherently theistic, the morality of how one treats the environment is ultimately about whether one is willing to do that which is good because the nature of the uncaused cause makes it so. More than just the world is at stake, though an obligation to preserve and care for nature simply because it is the handiwork of God is in part because of the environment itself. It is impossible for conscience or collective agreement or personal preference to ground morality, if it exists, and there could be no obligation to an inanimate world just for the sake of the world. At a minimum, there is no morality without a deity's moral nature, and there would be no obligation to steward the environment without a theistic entity to ground this. Morally valid rather than pragmatically useful environmentalism is about far more than the environment.
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