Spiritual and Sustainable: Religion Responds to Climate Change (original) (raw)
Annual Review of Environment & Resources, 2018
Understanding the cultural dimensions of climate change requires understanding its religious aspects. Insofar as climate change is entangled with humans, it is also entangled with all the ways in which religion attends human ways of being. Scholarship on the connections between religion and climate change includes social science research into how religious identity figures in attitudes toward climate change, confessional and constructive engagements of religious thought with climate change from various communities and traditions, historical and anthropological analyses of how climate affects religion and religion interprets climate, and theories by which climate change may itself be interpreted as a religious event. Responses to climate change by indigenous peoples challenge the categories of religion and of climate change in ways that illuminate reflexive stresses between the two cultural concepts. [pre-publication proofs; cite from the final paper at Annual Reviews]
Varieties of religious engagement with climate change
Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology (eds.) Tucker, Jenkins, Grim, 2016
In exploring the relationship between religion and climate change this essay argues three things. First, it makes the case that religious thought and practice -- cosmologies, beliefs and perceptions, ethics and ways of life -- is important for understanding how the idea of climate change is given meaning in the contemporary world. Second, the meanings attached to climate change by different religious traditions will be diverse and at times contradictory. Third, more informed engagement with the world’s religions – on the part of scholars, advocates and politicians - is essential to shape the unfolding story of climate change and humanity.
Religiosity and climate change: An eco-religious approach
Environmental & Socio-economic Studies, 2024
An eco-religious approach is one that combines religious beliefs with ecological awareness, thus giving rise to responsibility for the natural environment, such as the threat of a climate crisis due to climate change, as part of the understanding of religion itself. This approach is not universally accepted because views on climate change, and the role of humans in addressing it, can vary among different religions and religious traditions. This research explores the relationship between religiosity and climate change, with a focus on the concept of an ecoreligious approach. The aim was to understand how religiosity can influence climate change using the ecological footprint as a proxy. The crosscountry robust regression analysis method was employed to address this objective. Robustness and sensitivity model checks were also performed, resulting in reliable regression analysis that can be generalized to various situations. The results of the study suggest that increased religiosity is associated with a decrease in per person ecological footprint. This research suggests a transformation of religious values towards a more inclusive eco-religious perspective, encompassing bio-centric and eco-centric ethics, and not just anthropocentric views. Collaboration between religious and non-religious communities is key in addressing climate change. Religious institutions are also identified as essential agents in mobilizing environmental movements, participating in international forums, and incorporating climate change issues into educational curricula. This research supports the potential of religiosity as a positive catalyst in global efforts to preserve environmental sustainability and address the holistic challenges of climate change.
Religion to the Rescue (?) in an Age of Climate Disruption
Since the early 1990s calls by religious elites as well as by scholars who affiliate with and study religions to address the negative consequences of anthropogenic climate change have been increasing. An important example of the trend occurred in November 2014 during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Diego where ‘Religion and Climate Change’ was the conference’s central theme. Data presented at this meeting, however, was not encouraging for those hoping that religious individuals were embracing consensus scientific understandings about anthropogenic climate change, and becoming deeply concerned about climate disruption and making a strong response to it a high priority. The scientific study of the religious dimensions of perceptions and actions related to climate change, for its part, is showing signs of becoming more rigorous and illuminating, better able to track changes that might unfold with regard to religious perceptions and practices related to the earth’s environmental systems.
Holy Climate! Comparing Religious Responses to Climate Change
Master Thesis, 2020
Climate change not only poses a problem of changing weather patterns and alternating living conditions, it also poses a challenge to dominant cultural systems as these are intimately linked with its causes. As such, climate change is described both as a ‘crisis of cultural imagination’ and as a ‘religious event’ - because it challenges the cosmologies and worldviews that underpin the modern world. For these reasons, and because religion plays an important role in the lives of around 84% of the world’s population, understanding religious responses to climate change are an essential part of understanding the cultural implications of climate change. Although research on the climate change-religion relation has been rapidly expanding within the past ten- fifteen years, there still is a lack of comparative studies that map-out variations across global and religious viewpoints. The thesis seeks to address this gap in the research by providing a comparative analysis of the four major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism), asking how religious actors are responding to climate change in narratives as well as in actions. Additionally, by also comparing traditional religious actors’ responses with those of secular and neo-religious actors, the thesis reveals how multiple pressures from religious and secular bodies alike, critically express a need for re-evaluating the modern conception of the human-earth relation, and to re-calibrate the conception of nature to one that views it with more respect and treats it with more care.
Religion & Climate Change: An Emerging Research Agenda
Understanding Climate Change Through Religious Lifeworlds, ed. David Haberman, 2021
This volume represents an important milestone in the emergence of a new research field. Although connections between religion and climate have been made and studied for about as long as climate change has been a formal object of study, a recognized field for comparative, generalizing, and multidisciplinary exchange has emerged only in the past decade. 1 The
Climate change and religion: from ethics to sustainability action
E3S Web of Conferences, 2021
This library research aims to: 1) explore the ethical aspects of the environment in climate change events, 2) map the moral values and philosophy of religion in climate change actions, 3) integrate the ethical, moral and philosophical aspects of religion by presenting new knowledge in sustainability actions. In this study, there are three concepts of environmental ethics, namely, the anthropocentric view, ecocentrism view, and religious, moral view. The anthropocentric view makes humans own and control natural resources exploitatively. The ecocentrism view places humans and the universe connected in a web of life. Moral religion sees problems born from human consciousness caused by sin and holiness. The way to solve the problems is to follow the “middle way,” which advocates simplicity in consumption and the fulfillment of basic human needs. This approach builds a new order by combining the application of technology, law, and global ethics from an anthropocentric perspective—the eco...
Environmental Spirituality: Grounding Our Response to Climate Change
Climate change calls us to examine our understanding of our place within, and relationship to, the natural world. At heart this is a spiritual search, which has deep resonance with our being. A spiritual search stresses developing: 1. awareness of self; 2. consideration of the impact on others; 3. feeling of universal connectedness. These three characteristics of lived spirituality are used to explore environmental spirituality. A distinction is made between 'environmentally motivated spirituality' and 'spiritually motivated environmentalism'. Discussion on environmentally motivated spirituality leads to an exploration of Deep Ecology and consideration of principles of equity. Here we argue for a transactional view of the relationship between self and nature. We also develop a principle of ecological integrity, which posits a hierarchical interdependency between economy, society and nature. Developing an environmentally motivated spirituality has normative consequences and thus is part of the development of an environmental ethics. An environmentally motivated spirituality is both a prerequisite to and grounds our spiritually motivated environmentalism. Ontology comes before Ethics. Promoting sustainable development requires the utilisation of the energy of creation and the enhancement of our synergy with God as creator. This fundamental Christian belief could constitute our spiritual approach to the task. We conclude by briefly exploring spiritually motivated environmentalism as it relates to the construction of environmentally sustainable approaches to climate change.