How are religion, spirituality, and climate change connected? Leaders from traditions around the world are calling on people to take action against climate change. If you’d like to read some of them for yourself, Yale has collected many of them at Climate Change Statements from World Religions. However, this position is new for some traditions, and still debated by others.

Our attitudes toward nature have been consciously and unconsciously conditioned by our religious worldviews. Over 50 years ago the UCLA historian Lynn White Jr. observed this when he noted: “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion.”

8.5.1 Loss of animism and anthropocentrism

White’s 1967 article in Science marked a watershed in contemporary reflection on how environmental attitudes are shaped by religious worldviews. He critiques Christianity for losing a sense of the sacredness of nature by banishing animism and elevating humans above nonhumans.

Animism is the worldview that everything has an inner being. Living things, inanimate objects and natural phenomena all have a living soul. Human activity is understood within a broader context of persons and their relationships; these persons may include visible beings such as humans, animals, plants, and rocks, and non-visible beings such as spirits or ancestors. The universe is seen as a web of relationships, within which the individual is less sharply differentiated, more integrated with a broader biological and social system.

Watch this 2:16-minute video, “The Condor’s Spiritual and Ecological Role Along the Klamath” (figure 8.34). On one hand it’s a story of how tribes along the Klamath River are working to reintroduce the critically endangered condor to the area. Their motivation is steeped in science. It’s also a story of the spiritual meaning of the condor and how their reintroduction is also important to uphold generations-long traditions. As you watch, pay attention to the specific spiritual meaning the condor holds to members of the Yurok tribe.

Figure 8.34 The Condor’s Spiritual and Ecological Role Along the Klamath | Tending Nature | KCET [YouTube Video]

With an animist worldview people have less need to destroy or reshape the world. Instead, the goal is to achieve harmony and balance among all living things.

White cites the Genesis passage (1:26) in which God gives humans dominion over nature and other species. Such dominion, this divinely mandated authority over our environment

he observes, has led to over-exploitation of the natural world.

The term anthropocentrism is often used to explain this shift to human-centered approaches to ethics and daily life. It is the belief that humans are the central and most important existence in the universe. Figure 8.35 gives anthropocentrism an illustration, and compares it to cosmocentrism, which holds in highest importance the universe or nature, and sees all in existence as connected in equilibrium.

Figure 8.35 Image: Anthropocentric vs ecological or cosmo-centric view of life

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8.5.2 New theologies

Christian theologians pushed back against White’s argument and began to develop forms of ecotheology, which emphasizes environmental ethics, stewardship, and creation care. Claremont theologian John Cobb helped to lead the way, publishing a book titled Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology in 1972. Among his many writings is a book with economist Herman Daly, For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future.

Theologians such as Rosemary Ruether, Sallie McFague, and Catherine Keller took up ecofeminism, which links the exploitation of the Earth to the degrading treatment of women. These ecofeminist theologians called for a new understanding of the Earth as sacred, indeed as God’s body. derstanding of the Earth as sacred, indeed as God’s body.

8.5.3 Broader environmental ethics

In the last two decades, other religious traditions were drawn into the search for a broader environmental ethics. Indeed, through the work of hundreds of scholars and theologians, a new field of religion and ecology has emerged.. Its rapid growth has been nothing less than remarkable, and its potential to affect change is significant because of the institutional dimensions of the world’s religions, which engage 85% of the world’s people.

This field has undertaken serious reflection on views of nature from the different world religions. The assumption was that environmental attitudes and ethics are predominantly shaped by religious and cultural contexts. These are vastly different in China and India than in the West. Indeed, our initial impetus was in large measure to highlight the traditions of China and India, knowing that their rapid development and industrialization would change the face of the planet—as it is already doing. It was also important that we raise up the voices of Indigenous peoples in a conference and a volume. The conviction was that understanding these varied cultural values and religious ethics will contribute to environmental solutions that include both humans and nature.into the search for a broader environmental ethics.

8.5.4 Religion’s problems and promise

As we have discussed throughout this chapter, religion is a source of destruction and construction. The table in figure 8.36 summarizes how religion and spirituality can offer both problems and promises in their approaches to dealing with climate change. For example, religion can be so bound by tradition, it may be difficult for leaders and members to adapt in order to support the healing of a planet. What do you see as the most important problems and promises?

Figure 8.36 A summary of some of the key problems and promises of religions (Tucker 2022:7-10)

Despite the problems with religion, there is great promise in a partnership between religion and science around climate change. This is vital because we need to encourage a new sense of progress, one that is concerned not just with economic growth, but with the genuine flourishing of the Earth community.

8.5.4.1 Ethical norms for life

The world’s religions may offer some ethical norms for enhancing this larger flourishing of life. For example, this is the work of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which urges businesses toward social and environmentally responsible investment and models this in the investment portfolios of religious congregations. To approach investing this way, shareholders have to consider the long term and future generations—that is, broader interests beyond weekly stock market indices and quarterly financial reports.

Such ways of thinking prioritize enhancing the quality of life, not the quantity of material possessions. In this framework, economic progress should be measured not by a nation’s gross national product (GNP), but rather by gross national happiness (GNH) indicators such as those the government of Bhutan has developed, and we have discussed in Chapter 5. Based on Buddhist principles of right livelihood and well-being, GNH is part of the Bhutanese constitution and is implemented by a GNH Commission.

Religions can assist in such endeavors, as they are well equipped to point toward more lasting values and sources of deeper happiness. They understand the efficacy of long-term thinking and have been attending to this for centuries. Religious communities are active in the fossil fuel divestment movement, and some, such as the United Church of Christ, have led the way. Union Theological Seminary in New York, the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and the Jesuit-based Seattle University have all divested from fossil fuels.

Figure 8.37 Protesters asking the Church of Scotland to divest from fossil fuels. Almost 3,000 people signed a petition urging the Church of Scotland to go fossil free in May 2016.

8.5.4.2 Framing environmental degradation with ethics

We can also see environmental degradation as an ethical issue. Until recently environmental degradation was seen as an inevitable consequence of economic growth and industrial progress. This view is being called into question in many circles, especially those of ecological economists. To stem the tide of destruction will require a new economics and the extension of ethical concerns to nature as a whole and to individual species in particular. The role of humans in causing climate change through greenhouse gasses is finally being acknowledged as ethically problematic. Our emissions (especially in developed countries) have adversely affected ecosystems, caused biodiversity loss, contributed to species extinction, and affected millions of people around the globe.

There have been moral responses to this by the US Catholic Bishops in 2001 and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2006. Canadian Bishop Luc Bouchard’s pastoral letter in 2009 is a unique example of a powerful critique of the problems caused by the extraction of oil in the tar sands in Alberta. Many other bishops’ conferences around the world have issued statements on the environment and climate change, calling for care for the poor and vulnerable, noting the need for a change in lifestyle among the wealthy, and holding corporations responsible for despoiling the Earth. Pope Francis refers to several of these documents in his landmark encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’”, issued in 2015.

Figure 8.38 A word cloud created from the “Laudato Si’”

Figure 8.39 Pope Francis visits the Typhoon Yolanda victims in Palo, the Philippines, 2015.

8.5.4.3 Religion, climate change and human rights

We can also use religion to create powerful social change by honoring both human rights and human responsibilities. It is necessary to expand the notion of human rights to include the rights to a healthy atmosphere and biosphere for present and future generations. To do this, we need to consider the rights to information, public participation, and justice regarding environmental issues. Clearly those families and individuals who are exposed to pollution from petrochemical and coal power plants and those who are affected by mountaintop removal mining were never given information to ensure their health and safety or to guarantee their environmental rights.

Faith-based religious initiatives in Appalachia, in Flint, Michigan, in Baltimore, and in Mississippi are trying to help such communities by calling for creation care and for environmental justice. Moreover, a landmark climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, brought by 21 young people from across the United States, is making its way through federal court. The suit alleges that the US government, through actions that cause climate change, has violated young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.

8.5.4.4 Religion and the long range vision

Religion can also play a role in being visionary, looking at long term consequences. For example, we must not only reduce emissions now, but also consider the long-term effects of our decisions. We know we are already compromising the quality of life for many people—including our children and grandchildren. The consequences of our actions, intentional and unintentional, need to become more visible. This is especially true as the unintended outcomes of various proposed solutions to climate change are becoming evident. For example, geoengineering schemes, such as seeding the oceans with iron to increase phytoplankton and draw down carbon, may inadvertently disrupt the food web.

Authors Gary Gardner and Forrest Clingerman studied  opinions of people about geoengineering from people of Judeo, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths to geoengineering. They report that many people feel geoengineering may be necessary to halt climate change, but they call for precaution in light of the unknown consequences of these procedures. This is an example of religions contributing an ethics of long-term thinking about the health and well-being of future generations beyond uncertain “technological fixes.”

8.5.4.5 Simplicity and Sustainability

Finally, many religions and spiritualities value simplicity and sustainability. As we examine strategies to impact climate change, we must support climate justice. A key justice issue is that of overconsumption and the high levels of affluence in the developed world as factors that contribute to climate disruption. How can lifestyle change (using and consuming less) be seen as a moral issue? This will involve reexamining our carbon footprint, our building patterns, our transportation systems, our development plans, our clothing manufacturing, and most especially our agricultural processes, which depend on fossil fuels. The factory farming of animals and the destruction of rain forests to raise crops to feed animals is contributing to climate change  Many religious communities are suggesting that eating less meat will help reduce greenhouse gases.

Framing our work of environmental justice as an ethical, spiritual or religious issue may give us more resilience and determination as we work together to heal the planet.

8.5.5 Responding to Climate Change