The Georgia Tech Climate Policy Blog: A Religious Revival
Due to popular demand I have decided to revive the climate policy blog. I am going to take the opportunity to open with a somewhat taboo topic–religion. On Friday I attended an interesting talk hosted by Professor Judy Curry in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The presentation, given by Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics, was titled ‘Understanding Conservative Religious Resistance to Climate Science.’
Dr. Gushee explained that one of the reasons Evangelicals have disregarded environmentalism is because the environmental movement took shape amongst the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ of the 60s, and for better or worse environmentalism become associated with these characteristics. There are also concerns about the way the environmental movement has been interpreted in terms of population control and deism. Part of the problem may be that religion hasn’t ever really been welcomed into the climate change debate. Dr. Gushee pointed out that as scientists we are often not comfortable discussing religion. We like to convey climate change in levels of scientific certainty, leaving religion as a category outside of the debate. As policy makers or advocates we often engage various forms of economics and politics but not directly religion.
What we are facing in climate change or in the destruction of our global ecosystems more generally is not an exclusively political or scientific or economic issue, but a human issue. It is important to engage all aspects of that humanity. Turning a blind eye to aspects of life that make us professionally uncomfortable will not work, especially when they are aspects that are so fundamental to our societies.
Dr. Gushee’s presentation reminded me of an organization I came across while at a conference on Eastern European environmental governance in Oxford, the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). ARC is a secular organization that promotes conservation around the world by engaging local communities in the environmental messages that are found in their religious texts and traditions. Martin Palmer, ARCs Secretary General, stated the importance of working with the world’s religions as such, “Religious institutions have outlived every dynasty, every empire and they will outlive every ideology including the state. They will be there in a 1000 years’ time. When religions move, they move for generations not for a lifetime.”
To address climate change, we need the collaboration of most if not all of the world’s societies. We might more successfully get such collaboration by communicating to the heart of these societies. In the United States this requires in part finding a way to engage the religious right. As pointed out by Dr. Gushee, the Bible holds its own messages of conservation. Being heard is sometimes a matter of locating and delivering the right message. Can environmentalists and climate scientists engage with evangelical and other conservative religious communities to build common ground? The only way to find out is to do what Dr. Gushee does through his work and to start the conversation. Perhaps it is time for climate discourse to experience a religious revival.
Janelle Knox-Hayes
‘What we are facing in climate change or in the destruction of our global ecosystems more generally is not an exclusively political or scientific or economic issue, but a human issue.’
You are absolutely correct in this comment – this is a human issue and only by engaging with people at the level of their deep personal beliefs will we find ways to address the environmental destruction that is laying waste to the beautiful places of our planet and climate change which threatens us all.
That is why the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (for which I work) was formed in the first place, and that is also why, in 2007, the United Nations Development Programme approached ARC to ask it to work with the major faiths of the world to develop long-term action plans on the environment.
At a conference at Windsor, UK, in November 2009, more than 30 faiths and faith traditions – including American Evangelicals, Baptists and Catholics – launched action plans spanning from five to ten years but intended to bring about a change in attitudes and lifestyles for generations to come.
All the faiths agreed that caring for the earth is a moral issue. As the Pope himself said recently: “We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening around us, for the deterioration of any one part of the planet affects us all.”
Environmentalists and religions have traditionally found little to say to each other. Ironically, they share many of the same interests in wanting to protect the earth and are increasingly finding they can work together, even if they come from different viewpoints.
In Indonesia, Conservation International is working with imams and Islamic boarding schools on reforestation and conservation programmes, having previously found it hard to reach these influential groups. In Tibet when the Dalai Lama issued an appeal to stop killing tigers in late 2005, pointing out that killing endangered species is against the tenets of Buddhism, Tibetans stopped hunting tigers for their skins almost overnight.
On climate change how are we to persuade people in the affluent north to make the kind of personal sacrifices needed to cut carbon emissions sufficiently? Statistics, studies, facts and figures have failed to do so thus far; we have to find a way of engaging their hearts and their beliefs.