What are our Obligations to the Environment?

(1) Of David. A psalm. The earth is the Eternal's and all that fills it, the world and all that lives on it.

(2) The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims God's handiwork.

(15) The Eternal God took the human being and placed him in the garden of Eden, to work it and guard it.

When the Blessed Holy One created the first human, God took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, it was for you that I created it. Pay attention that you do not corrupt and destroy My world: if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you.

(26) God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”

(1) How does one recite blessings for fruits? On fruits growing on a tree, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the tree," except for wine; on wine, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the vine." On fruits growing from the earth, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the ground," except for bread; on bread, one says, "...Who brings forth bread from the earth." On vegetables, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the ground." Rabbi Yehudah says: [One should say instead,] "...Who created various types of herbs."

He who makes a threshing floor in the midst of his domain, a privy, or does work which raises dust and particles of earth and they go out from them and harms his neighbor must put the work at a distance in order that he does not cause harm by dust or by the smell in order that he do no harm to his neighbor. Even if it is a strong wind that carries the particles of earth to his neighbor in the time that he is doing work, or causing the waste to go out from these and harms his neighbor, he is obligated to create enough distance in order to eliminate contact and harm. And even if it is an ordinary wind in all these instances, it is still similar to doing damage with arrows...

They would keep at distance from the city; carcasses, graves, tanneries, kilns, and beehives from the city 50 amot, and the wouldn't make tanneries other than in the east of the city in order that the angry east winds would lessen the damage of the smell from working the hides ...

Ten special regulations were applied to Jerusalem: That a house sold there should not be liable to become irredeemable; that it should never bring a heifer whose neck is broken; that it could never be made a condemned city; that its houses would not become defiled through leprosy; that neither beams nor balconies should be allowed to project there; that no dunghills should be made there; that no kilns should be kept there; that neither gardens nor orchards should be cultivated there, with the exception, however, of the garden of roses which existed from the days of the former prophets; that no fowls should be reared there, and that no dead person should be kept there over night.

"That no kilns shall be made there - on account of smoke"...

Rashi says it would blacken the walls of the town.