CLIMATE CHANGE IN RELIGIOUS REVIEW

In 2007, the columnist of the Financial Times John Kay wrote a column with a headline: Green lobby must be treated as a religion¹²⁰. Kay marvelled at the inefficiency of the environmentalists in times of crisis – it is as if they weren’t interested at all in finding solutions to problems, moreover they concentrate on preaching about improvement and penances. Why indeed not seriously invest in the search for efficient technology that diminishes emissions? Why show more interest in imposing gestures that try to impress the public although they don’t really have any importance as a whole? “The danger of environmental evangelism is that rituals, gestures and rhetoric take the place of substance”, Kay reasoned.

It is not difficult to find concepts in the climate change rhetoric with a religious scope or with metaphors borrowed from the religious use of language. Hulme mentions such concepts as “carbon sins” and “penances” which are implemented, among other things, by acquiring emission allowances from the personal “guilt”

that is linked to flying, or from the “conversion” to a low-carbon life style (Hulme 2009a:173–174).

It is of no surprise to detect a religious notion in the use of language. A religion often expresses a personal feeling and scope related to one’s way of life; moreover, it would be rather surprising, if there was not any use of religious metaphors in the context of other matters that we consider to be important, like the combat against climate change. More likely, the question is why a religious attitude is so strongly present that it is repeatedly mentioned. Why is climate change so often talked about as a new religion? Why does one natural phenomenon have such an important role in our culture that it is paralleled by a religion-related sentiment:

piety, repentance, devoutness and proclaiming pathos – often also moralism? For example, the London School of Economics professor, Gwyn Prins, has spoken of climate puritanism and climate orthodoxy in his presentations, when describing the atmosphere around the climate change discussion.

The previous chapter gave an answer to this question – it could concern a fear, which is being controlled through a religious sentiment. It could also concern power:

a religious approach offers a short-cut to the human mind – a human being is a religious creature.

What kind of religiousness can we then speak of? If we look at climate preaching from the point of view of the Christian High Church vs. Low Church dichotomy, the answer is clear. It can be seen as a form of Low Church Evangelicalism i.e. neo-Pietism or puritanism, a religious movement emphasising individual piousness and repentance. Just like Pietism, the repentance sermon aims at personal conversion

120 http://www.johnkay.com/2007/01/09/green-lobby-must-be-treated-as-a-religion

and endeavour, the environmental movement puts a lot of emphasis on the individual’s choices and personal lifestyle. Large-scale technical solution models do not arouse their interest.

A similar observation has been made by a professor of economics, Robert H. Nelson (2010), who has analyzed the normative basis of both economics and environmentalism. In the philosophical background among American environmentalists he recognises elements of classical Calvinist worldview and thinking, as Max Weber originally described it. According to Nelson, the enthusiastic reception for environmentalism in the United States is partially explainable by the original Puritan heritage of the nation and the continuing strong hold of a Puritan mentality on American thinking even today. On the American soil, Puritanism was the local version of European Calvinism. In the argumentation of the environmentalist, classical Christianity has been replaced by a kind of secular religious thinking both in America and in Europe: ”Despite many assertions to the contrary, the fact that Europe has become more secular does not necessarily mean that it has become less religious; it may simply mean that the form of religion has been changing significantly.” (Nelson 2012: 428)

The scope of the religious environmental concept can also be scrutinised in a positive light. Thomas Dunlap, an environmental historian, adopted a positive attitude in his work Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as a religious quest (Dunlap 2004), according to which environmentalism can be regarded as a growing religious tradition, since it expresses so many of the same features that the more established religious traditions include.

It is not very surprising to notice that the most religious communities have spoken out towards saving the planet. It is not a foreign idea for any religion that the created world is a gift that should be protected. During his visit to the Vatican the former British Foreign Minister, David Miliband, already stated that climate change is not just an environmental or economic issue, but also a moral and ethical question, and it equally concerns religious communities, politicians and enterprises.

This is why he demanded “ecological conversion”¹²¹.

Instead, it is perhaps, to some extent, a little surprising that the churches have so uncritically associated the general concern over the climate with one political solution model. For example, several Christian churches have spoken out strongly for the Kyoto Protocol. They have done the same in favour of a climate law or the regulation of emission allowances in emissions trading, i.e. backloading. The intentions have surely been very sincere but a statement on just one specific measure, the Kyoto Protocol, is really a political message itself and would require certain

121 http://www.qct.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126%3Aethical-dimensions-climate-change&Itemid=107

knowledge concerning the consequences of the agreement, with all the good and bad sides. Quite clearly, the churches did not have that knowledge, only a good will and genuine conviction in the direction where we should head. At the same time when it is justified for churches and religious communities to speak out for the good and worthy targets of the climate and environmental protection, they should only comment with great consideration on the climate-political measures.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland’s pronounced involvement in climate questions during the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century was somewhat surprising; the church did not seem to recognise how rigorous a political line it has chosen, even though it probably only believed to speak out for the environment. A church that traditionally shuns fundamentalism in its different forms seemed to be blind to recognise fundamentalism and climate puritanism as soon as it took a stand outside its field of expertise¹²². Plenty of fundamentalist elements can be observed in the environment and climate discussions.

This is illustrated well in the discussions of the peak years of the climate hype:

the discussion was heavily marked by strict orthodoxy and restraining oneself to certain means – by condemning others.¹²³

In his interview, the founder of Greenpeace who then resigned from the organisation, Canadian Patrick Moore, has named precisely fundamentalism as the reason for his withdrawal. He described the so-called Round Table meetings with the government an efficient method to achieve results. “The Round Table method was important in the whole of Canada in the 1990s, and we reached many good and sustainable environmental solutions using it”.

“Compare this to Greenpeace’s ‘No compromise for Mother Earth’ campaign.

A hard line, fundamentalism, which inevitably leads to the question concerning the movement’s perception of the human being. Are humans only destroyers?

Doesn’t the human deserve a place on Earth? In the end, many activists do not care about human beings.”¹²⁴

Also Moore saw religious-fundamentalist elements in the climate discourse: ”For instance Al Gore, who recently compared ‘deniers’ to racists. It’s a dirty thing to say!

Climate issue nowadays is as close to religion as possible!” (Karlsson 2011:31–39)

122 I described the atmosphere of climate-orthodoxy during a climate change discussion of the 2009 Finnish Church Days: ”The non-conformists are demonised, the threats are exaggerated. After the means to combat climate change were chosen and sanctified, it has been hard to criticise without being questioned even in terms of motives: that one has never been in ‘true faith’ anyway! The one’s who speak correctly will be rewarded, doing the ‘right thing’ does not matter.”

123 Adaptation and nuclear power are examples of forbidden means

124 Patrick Moore’s interview was published in the Katternö magazine http://www.katterno.fi/assets/

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