God's kingdom, but no Planet B?
Religious and Secular Sources for Common Action in Climate Adaptation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/0103-314X.2023.1.44005Keywords:
Environmental Ethics, Plurality, Transcendence, Climate Change, EschatologyAbstract
Environmentally conscious citizen don´t think homogeneous. Their different perceptions of the world cause a moral diverstiy in climate politics. The article shows that religious and non-religious approaches to climate adaptation refer back to a variety of transcendent notions of truth. Claims of validity result from concrete images of the world including community constructing ideas and action guiding notions such as the kingdom of God or the icon “blue Planet”. We can therefore not expect worldwide homogeneous climate-politics. But notions of truth do not describe the world as it is, they rather show the images that people follow. This is why even opposing conceptions for climate mitigation such as the demand for and the claim against nuclear power can be open to compromise. Voting for the acceptance of plurality, the article suggests not to ignore the Christian wisdom of Chalcedon that offers a way, how to deal with opposing proclaims. The article originates from the Global Centre for Water Security and Climate Change.
Downloads
References
ARBUCKLE, Matthew B. The interaction of religion, political ideology, and concern about climate change in the United States. Society & Natural Resources, 30(2), 2017, 177–194; DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2016.1209267.
ARRHENIUS, Svante. On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 9 (54), 1897, 14, DOI: 10.1086/121158.
AZMI, Nabehaa Arnatullah. KANDAR, Mohammed Zin. Factors contributing in the design of environmentally sustainable mosques. Journal of Building Engineering, 23, 2019, 27–37. DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2019.01.024.
BLACKSTOCK, Jason J. LOW, Sean. Geoengineering our climate: An emerging discourse. In Geoengineering Our Climate? London et al.: Routledge 2018, 1-10.
BLANC, Julia. Ökokatholizismus: Sozialethische Untersuchungen zu ausgewählten Ländern und Institutionen in Europa. Marburg: Metropolis 2017.
BOJE, David M. Storytelling in the global age: There is no Planet B. 2019, DOI: 10.1142/9781786346704_0001open_in_new.
BROWN, Andrew J. The Days of Creation: A History of Christian Interpretation of Genesis 1: 1–2: 3. Brill, 2019.
BROWN, Antje. The dynamics of frame-bridging: exploring the nuclear discourse in Scotland. Scottish Affairs, 26(2), 2017, 194-211.
CHRISTENSEN, Jan. Was meint Schöpfung? Zukunft angesichts der ökologischen Krise? In GÜTTER, Ruth et al.: Theologie neu denken, Leipzig: EVA 2022, 87-105.
DAVIS, Richard A. Climate Justice and God’s Justice in the Pacific: Climate Change Adaptation and Martin Luther. In Beyond Belief: Opportunities for Faith-Engaged Approaches to Climate-Change Adaptation in the Pacific Islands. Cham: Springer, 2021, 99-113.
DESSI, Ugo. ’Greening Dharma’: Contemporary Japanese Buddhism and Ecology. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 7 (3), 2013, 334–355, DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.v7i3.334.
EVANS, Alex. The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough, London: Transworld Publishers 2016.
FRÖMMING, Urte Undine/Reichel, Christian. Vulnerable coastal regions: Indigenous people under climate change in Indonesia. In D. Gerten & S. Bergmann (Eds.), Religion in environmental and climate change: Suffering, values, lifestyles, Continuum 2012, 215–235.
GRAF, Friedrich Wilhelm. Von der »creatio ex nihilo« zur»Bewahrung der Schöpfung«: Dogmatische Erwägungen zur Frage nach einer möglichen ethischen Relevanz der Schöpfungslehre. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 87.2, 1990, 206-223.
GRIFFIN, David Ray. Process theodicy and climate change. In: The History of Evil From the Mid-Twentieth Century to Today. Routledge, 2018, 302-319.
HAWKIN, Stephen. Kurze Antworten auf große Fragen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 2018.
HERRMANN, Dieter B. Besiedelt die Menschheit das Weltall? Leipzig: Urania 1981.
HERRMANN, Dieter B. Erde an Mars: Wie die Menschheit das Weltall besiedeln wird, München: Langen Müller 2021.
HOFHEINZ, Marco. Bleibend Wichtiges und jetzt Dringliches: kursorische friedensethische Thesen zur aktuellen Lage in kartografischer Absicht: ein Vermessungsversuch im Feld der christlich-theologischen Friedensethik. In Gerard den Hertog et al. (Eds.), Sagen, was Sache ist: Versuche explorativer Ethik, Leipzig: EVA 2017, 249-272.
HULME, Mike. Climate change and the significance of religion. Economic & Political Weekly, 52(28), 2017, 14-17.
IRRGANG, Bernhard. Zur Problemgeschichte des Topos “christliche Anthropozentrik” und seine Bedeutung für eine Umweltethik. Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 37.3, 1986), 185-203.
KAUFMAN, Gordon D. Theology for a nuclear age. Manchester University Press, 1985.
KOEHRSeN, Jens. Muslims and climate change: How Islam, Muslim organizations, and religious leaders influence climate change perceptions and mitigation activities. WIREs Clim Change, 2021, 12:e702, 2020, 1-19, DOI:10.1002/wcc.702.
LOUNASMERI, Lotta. Building New Nuclear in Finland: Crises Challenging Core Beliefs around Nuclear Energy. Journal of Energy and Power Technology 4 (2), 2022, 1-1.
LUTHER, Martin, Der kleine Katechismus fur den gemeinen Pfarrherrn und Prediger (1529), In Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch lutherischen Kirche: Hrsg. im Gedenkjahr der Augsburgischen Konfession 1930, Göttingen 1976, 510-511.
MENAMPARAMPIL, Thomas. Technology opens out an exciting path to the humans. To become Co-creators in the Universe. In Asian Horizons, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2016, 33–53.
NCHE, George C. Beyond spiritual focus: Climate change awareness, role perception, and action among church leaders in Nigeria. Weather, Climate, and Society, 12(1), 2020, 149–169, DOI: 10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0001.1.
POPE FRANCIS. Laudato Si’: Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home, Rome: Vatican Press.
ROLSTON, Holmes. Science and religion in the face of the environmental crisis. In: R. S. Gottlieb (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of religion and ecology, III 2006, pp. 376–397, Oxford University Press.
ROLSTON, Holmes. Caring for nature: What science and economics can’t teach us but religion can. Environmental Values, 15(3), 2006, 307–313.
SCHAEFER, Jame. Motivated for action and Collaboration: The Abrahamic religions and climate change. Geosciences, 6(3), 2016, 31. DOI: 10.3390/geosciences6030031.
SCHWARKE, Christian. Die Kultur der Gene: Eine theologische Hermeneutik der Gentechnik. Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln: Kohlhammer 2000.
TORABI; Maryamossadae/NOORi, Seyed Masoud. Religious leaders and the environmental crisis. The Ecumenical Review, 71(3), 2019, 344–355, DOI: 10. 1111/erev.12434.
VAIDYANATHAN, Brandon, KHALSA, Simranjit and ECKLUND, Elaine Howard. Naturally Ambivalent: Religion’s role in shaping environmental action. Sociology of Religion, 79(4), 472–494, 2018; DOI: 10.1093/socrel/srx043.
VERMA, Ashok Kumar. Sustainable development and environmental ethics. International Journal on Environmental Sciences 10.1, 2019, 1-5.
WHITE Jr, Lynn. The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Science 155, Vol. 3767, 1967, 1203-1207.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Teocomunicação
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright
The submission of originals to Teocomunicação implies the transfer by the authors of the right for publication. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. If the authors wish to include the same data into another publication, they must cite Teocomunicação as the site of original publication.
Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise specified, material published in this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is correctly cited.
