scholarly journals Can the Earth be Sacred Once Again? Christianity and Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-123
Author(s):  
Sean McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Technological Revolution ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Come ◽  
Climate Crisis

The following paper takes Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change as an opportunity to re-open the debate, begun in 1967 by Lynn White Jr., on the theological origins of the environmental crisis. I note that the Pope’s critique of consumerist modernity is strong, but his lack of a genealogical account of modernity remains a weakness of the text. I argue, with White, that the technological revolution which has caused climate change would not have been possible without Christian assumptions. The original disenchantment of the world was the Abrahamic revelation which disjoined divinity and nature, and contra to appearances, the disjunction was only exacerbated by the doctrine of the incarnation. With climate change, modernity is returning to this revelation in the form of the sobering experience of the precarity of the planet. Nature is now experienced as finite once again, and it includes us. Modernity, however, cannot be disavowed any more than disenchantment can easily be forgotten. A return to the Christian roots of disenchantment might help us to remember what we have forgotten: the virtue of contemplation, which could qualify modern attitudes of control and domination, and engender a Christian experience of reverence for nature. While this is a Christian response to the climate crisis, other religious traditions will need to come to analogous forms of earth-centered ethics if we are to achieved the integrated ecological pluralism needed for the future of civilization.

scholarly journals Mother Earth, Mother Africa and Biblical Studies : Interpretations in the Context of Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul L. Leshota ◽  
Ericka S. Dunbar ◽  
Musa W. Dube ◽  
Malebogo Kgalemang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
African Women ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Climate Crisis

Climate change and its global impact on all people, especially the marginalized communities, is widely recognized as the biggest crisis of our time. It is a context that invites all subjects and disciplines to bring their resources in diagnosing the problem and seeking the healing of the Earth. The African continent, especially its women, constitute the subalterns of global climate crisis. Can they speak? If they speak, can they be heard? Both the Earth and the Africa have been identified with the adjective “Mother.” This gender identity tells tales in patriarchal and imperial worlds that use the female gender to signal legitimation of oppression and exploitation. In this volume, African women theologians and their female-identifying colleagues, struggle with reading and interpreting religious texts in the context of environmental crisis that are threatening life on Earth. The chapters interrogate how biblical texts and African cultural resources imagine the Earth and our relationship with the Earth: Do these texts offer readers windows of hope for re-imagining liberating relationship with the Earth? How do they intersect with gender, race, empire, ethnicity, sexuality among others? Beginning with Genesis, journeying through Exodus, Ruth, Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of John, the authors seek to read in solidarity with the Earth, for the healing of the whole Earth community.

scholarly journals ECO-PESANTREN AS THE PANACEA FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: LESSONS FROM NURUL HARAMAIN NW LOMBOK ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOL INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-121
Author(s):  
Abdul Quddus
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Ecological Concept ◽  
The World ◽  
Ecological Values ◽  
Climate Crisis

This paper examined the ecological concept and its implication at Nurul Haramain NW Lombok Islamic boarding school in response to the world climate crisis. Boarding schools have the potentials to bridge the environmental conservation initiative amid the secular science phenomena. This study employed a descriptive-explorative approach using a qualitative methodology. Thus, theoretically, this study was anchored in Mary Evelyn Tucker and Vasudha Narayan's theories of eco-theology in addressing the climate crisis. The findings showed that Nurul Haramain NW Lombok Islamic boarding school had implemented a sustainable lifestyle based on the ecological values in the Al-Quran and Hadith, in which Tuan Guru as the environmental conservation foreman.   Keywords: Eco-Pesantren, Climate Change, Environmental Crisis, Educational Theology, Eco Theology

The Philosophical Conception of a Constitution for the Earth

Human Affairs ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef Šmajs
Keyword(s):  
Wishful Thinking ◽  
Natural Evolution ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Artificial System ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Come

AbstractFor almost fifty years scholars have expressed their concern for the future existence of mankind and proposed ways of securing life in the years to come. Most of the declarations made by these movements do not, however, constitute viable instructions for change: they are rather moral discussion papers, containing much wishful thinking, or a list of flaws people are perceived to commit in their relation to Nature. All noble sentiments and efforts to understand and resolve the current crisis while ignoring the split of the planet into two opposing systems-Culture and Nature-are doomed to failure. The currently prevailing anthropocentric vision of the world is incorrect, not only in its details and in its specific arguments, but also in its deepest underlying principles-in short, in its entirety.That is this draft of a Constitution for the Earth is based on the ontological assumption that human Culture is not a continuation of natural evolution by different means. Culture is an artificial system opposing Nature. If it were set as Nature is in a biophilous, life-reverencing way, then Culture’s self-activity would grow in a desirable way. Culture would respect Nature and both systems would co-operate at a new level.

scholarly journals Premediating climate change in videogames: Repetition, mastery, and failure

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-199
Author(s):  
Laura op de Beke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Affective Dimensions

Abstract This article starts with the observation that growth-oriented, techno-futurist narratives are predominant in climate change videogames. It then accounts for the lack of variety by arguing that these videogames are privileged expressions of premediation. Premediation cultivates a multiplicity of future scenarios, while at the same time delimiting them to suit presentist concerns, evoking a sense of inevitability and predictability strengthened by repetition. The iterative, branching temporality at work in this logic is deeply ingrained in videogames, as the trope of mastery through repetition and its analysis requires attentiveness to the affective dimensions of gameplay. If videogames are to engage with the climate crisis more productively, they must develop different temporalities in which the potentiality of the future is preserved. In this article, I analyse the games Fate of the World and The Stillness of the Wind to demonstrate how videogames premediate climate change and how they can explore other temporalities latent in the present.

scholarly journals From Christian spirituality to eco-friendliness

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Orok Duke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Christian Spirituality ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Individual

Spirituality connotes praxis informed by religious or faith convictions. This can transform the individual and society at large. Christian spirituality is centered on how a person’s relationship with the God of Jesus Christ informs and directs one’s approach to existence and engagement with the world. The ecosystem concerns humanity and relationship with it is invariably influenced by faith or religious informed praxis. The reality of climate change is convincing many people that humankind’s common homeland needs to be treated with care and respect if created beings are to have a congenial habitat now and in the future. This article avers that Christian spirituality can contribute to eco-friendly behavior through re-formation of the behavior of people and emboldening their goodwill as regards the responsibility of all towards the care of the earth. Finally, this research proffers a three-fold model of eco-spirituality - scriptural, self-control, and sacramental approaches to the earth – as a contribution towards stemming the tide of ecological assaults on creation. Textual analysis is the method used in this research.

scholarly journals Giving Absurdity Form: The Place of Contemporary Art in the Environmental Crisis

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Anne Elizabeth Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Illusion Of Control ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

Absurdity in art creates bizarre juxtapositions that expose, and question conflicted, even dangerous, aspects of life which have become normalized. Absurd art appears in troubled times, subverting moments of extreme contradiction in which it appears impossible to think differently. For example, Dada (1917–1923) used nonsense to reflect the nonsensical brutality of WW1. The power to unsettle in this form of art rests in disrupting the world of the viewer and positioning them as interlocutors in a new framing. Absurdity in art reveals the absurdity that is inherent in life and its institutions, breaking the illusion of control. It can help us to comprehend the ‘incomprehensible’ in other species and spheres of life. In the challenge of anthropogenic climate change, how might the absurd capture the strangeness of current times in which a gap is widening between the earth we live ‘in’ and the earth we live ‘from’? This article explores qualities of the absurd in art as a possible way in which to grasp and reimagine ourselves beyond the anthropocentric, focusing on the work of the artists John Newling (b. 1952, UK) and Helen Mayer (1927–2018, US) and Newton Harrison (b. 1932, US), known as ‘The Harrisons’.

scholarly journals CULTURE AS THE FOUNDATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR PERSONALITIES AND LIVES

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-268
Author(s):  
Д. Пол Шафер
Keyword(s):  
Racial Violence ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Johan Huizinga ◽  
To Come ◽  
Defined Culture

Given all the problems that exist in the world today - from the COVID-19 pandemic and racial violence and prejudice to the environmental crisis and colossal disparities in income and wealth – people everywhere in the world are being severely challenged and thinking a great deal about the development of their personalities and lives. When Edward Burnett Tylor defined culture as "the complex whole," it was apparent that all people live a "cultural life" as a whole made up of many parts. Matthew Arnold went farther in this regard by contending that the challenge in life is to create a "harmonious cultural life" through the development of all our faculties and powers. Johan Huizinga went even further when he provided a powerful and profound insight into this matter by stating that the challenge is to create balance and harmony between the material and non-material dimensions of life, and therefore all the diverse activities and developments in the world and in life. Given the severe imbalances and disharmonies that exist in this area at present as a result of placing a much higher priority on the former dimension compared to the latter dimension, it is clear that this problem can only be resolved and rectified by placing a much higher priority on the development of non-material activities such as the arts, humanities, education, and spirituality going forward into the future. Not only is this the key to coming to grips with many of the world’s most complicated and life-threatening problems and changing directions in the world and in life in the future, but also it is the solution to developing our personalities and lives as balanced and harmonious wholes. This will result in a great deal more caring, sharing, compassion, cooperation, conservation, and creativity in the world, thereby putting us in a much stronger position to come to grips with the problems we will be confronted with in the future, creating more compatible lifestyles and ways of life, achieving sustainable development, and becoming cultural personalities in the realistic and idealistic sense.

scholarly journals Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ Call to Ecological Conversion: Responding to the Cry of the Earth and the Poor—Towards an Integral Ecology

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 136-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ileana M. Porras
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Integral Ecology

The recent Encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, is a remarkable document, both original and continuous within the tradition of Catholic social doctrine. Emerging from and grounded in a very specific religious tradition and constrained by the peculiar encyclical literary form, the document nonetheless seeks to open a dialogue with “every person living on this planet,” about care for our common home. Using the urgency of addressing global climate change as its point of departure, the Encyclical does a superb job summarizing the scope of the present environmental crisis and the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable populations of the poor and excluded. It also provides a careful analysis of the root causes of environmental degradation, mapping out the complex linkages and tensions between globalization, economic growth, liberalized trade, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, environmental degradation, involuntary migration, immiseration and growing inequality. In this respect, the Encyclical, may well come to serve as a useful position paper for the upcoming Paris climate change negotiations or as a background text for a course on climate change or sustainable development. Yet, properly understood, this is not its true purpose. Rather, in its deepest sense, the Encyclical is an appeal to all of humanity to listen to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” to reject the “throwaway” culture of consumerism, and to embrace a culture of care and a commitment to pursue integral ecology. It is, in other words, a call to ecological conversion: a call addressed not only to individuals but also to individuals-in-community.

scholarly journals Staging Climate Security: Resilience and Heterodystopia in the Bangladesh Borderlands

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Cons
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
The Future ◽  
Development Technology ◽  
To Come ◽  
Warming World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Climate Crisis

This essay interrogates an emergent genre of development projects that seek to instill resilience in populations likely to be severely impacted by climate change. These new projects venture a dark vision of life in a warming world—one where portable technologies become necessary for managing a future of climate chaos. I propose, following Michel Foucault, understanding these projects as heterodystopias: spaces managed as and in anticipation of a world of dystopian climate crisis that are at once stages for future interventions and present-day spectacles of climate security. My exploration of these projects is situated in the borderlands of Bangladesh, a space increasingly imagined as a ground zero of climate change. The projects discussed frame the borderlands as a site that reflects forward onto a multiplicity of (other) dystopian spaces to come. Their often puzzling architecture reveals a grim imagining of the future: one in which atomized resilient families remain rooted in place, facing climate chaos alone, assisted by development technology. In this way, these projects seek to mitigate against global anxiety about climate displacement by emplacing people—preventing them from migrating across borders increasingly imagined as the front lines of climate security. Yet at the same time, these projects speak a visual language that suggests they are as much about representing success at managing climate crisis to an audience elsewhere as they are to successfully stemming climate migration in a particular place. Heterodystopia provides an analytic for diagnosing the specific visions of time and space embedded in securitized framings of the future. In doing so, however, it also points toward counterimaginations and possibilities for life in the midst of ecological change. I thus conclude by contrasting climate heterodystopias with other projects that Bangladeshi peasants living in the borderlands are carrying out: projects that offer different ways of imagining the environment and life in the borderlands of Bangladesh.

What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Global Population

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all aspects of everyday life and work, while also threatening the health of the global economy. This crisis offers also an unprecedented view of what the global climate crisis may look like. In fact, some of the parallels between the COVID-19 crisis and what we expect from the looming global climate emergency are remarkable. Reflecting upon the most challenging aspects of today’s crisis and how they compare with those expected from the climate change emergency may help us better prepare for the future.

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