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Worldwatch’s Gardner says shift in values needed to achieve sustainability (video and transcript)
Monica Trauzzi, E&E TV
The link between religion and sustainability is becoming increasingly prevalent as churches around the country incorporate environmental and sustainability issues into their teachings. During today’s OnPoint, Gary Gardner, director of research at the Worldwatch Institute, discusses his new book, “Inspiring Progress: Religions’ Contributions to Sustainable Development.” Gardner makes the case for why he thinks religion could be successful at helping creating a new value system for a society that is accustomed to excess. He cites specific programs in which religion and sustainability have been linked successfully. Gardner also addresses how current issues with religion may affect the goals and ideas he puts forth in his book.
(12 Oct 2006)
As the enormity of peak oil and climate change becomes apparent, I find myself agreeing more and more with Gardner. Technology and self-interest by themselves are insufficient responses. -BA
God & the Environment
A Grist special series
Various, Grist
Environmentalists and their politically progressive allies have long dismissed conservative evangelical Christians as repressive moralists and industry apologists. The suspicion and hostility are mutual: evangelicals see environmentalists as godless, anti-human pagans and socialists.
Not exactly a match made in heaven.
But relations are slowly thawing — in part thanks to, well, thawing. As glaciers and ice shelves melt, the existential danger posed by global warming has become impossible to ignore. In February, 86 evangelical leaders signed a statement calling on believers to join the fight against climate change. More and more evangelical churches are preaching a gospel of “creation care” (don’t call it environmentalism, please), an ethic inspired by scriptures wherein God gives humanity dominion over the earth, and with it a sacred obligation to exercise conscious stewardship of the land, air, and water.
In practice, this aligns evangelical goals with the goals of countless grassroots environmental groups around the U.S. — cleaning up streams, planting trees, advocating for clean energy and against overconsumption and materialism. Haltingly and sporadically, the two communities are beginning to interact. Nothing better dissolves suspicion and hostility than sweating together in the dirt.
This wary courtship is a source of hope, but also a source of questions: Can two communities with so much to divide them work in concert? Will creation care move beyond the pews and into the halls of power? Are Christian ethics in tension with ecological ethics? How will this fledgling strain of evangelical conservation relate to other religious movements with longer traditions of environmental activism? Can environmentalists learn to speak the language of faith — and even feel its power in their own work and lives?
We’ll be exploring these questions and many more over the coming weeks, gathering insight from legendary journalist Bill Moyers, eminent biologist E.O. Wilson, environmental journalist Bill McKibben, noted evangelical writers and thinkers, and others.
(5 Oct 2006)
See original for links to articles in the series.
“Is God Green?”
Bill Moyers, PBS
A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man’s stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming.
But they are being met head-on by opposition from their traditional evangelical brethren who adamantly support the Bush administration in downplaying the threat of global warming and other environmental perils. The political stakes are high: Three out of every four white evangelical voters chose George W. Bush in 2004. “Is God Green?” explores how a serious split among conservative evangelicals over the environment and global warming could reshape American politics.
Explore these conservative evangelical issues and learn how other faiths view their obligation to the planet-and let us hear your voice-in the MOYERS ON AMERICA Religion & the Environment Citizens Class.
(Oct 2006)
Website for the PBS documentary by Bill Moyers now airing. Contains readings, links and video clips.
