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“Slowing or even reversing the existing trends of global warming is the defi­nite challenge of our age.”

(Cited by Mr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the 4th Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 17 November 2007, Valencia, Spain).

This is the gauntlet thrown down to the world community by the IPCC report, Climate Change 2007, published last year. The report inevitably makes sober reading, but it is not a prophecy of doom. However, there is an urgency that we need to grasp – and the timescale is short – if we are to avoid the calamitous consequences that are waiting in the wings. Viewing the weather predictions on TV has moved from light entertain-ment to serious centre-stage drama.

Recently I attended an interfaith meeting entitled “One Earth, Many Faiths”. The experienced keynote speak­er announced that in the light of the IPCC report, we have reached the end of the beginning in the debate on the environment, after 20 years of wasted time since the 1987 Bruntland Report, Our Common Future.

 

Scepticism about the scientific evi-dence is no longer an option. There was no need to be apocalyptic about the con-sequences of climate change, but we are fast approaching a tipping point when we will no longer be able to maintain control over our destiny. The scientific facts presented us with a revealed truth, said our speaker, a truth which has been known for many years: present levels of consumption are not sustainable. This report represents a final wake-up call. Talk of destiny and revealed truth mean that it is also a religious call.

 

It is important not to paint our-selves into a debilitating corner of pow-erlessness in the face of the enormity of the problems. There are at least 3 responses to climate change, argued our speaker, from which we can take heart immediately: a) renewable technolo-gies will make a massive difference, b) smarter consumption ought to be pos-sible, and c) there are some motivat-ing benefits from being made to face the realities of ecological pain. Beyond these factors, the speaker proposed that the religions are not militant enough (the choice of phrase was deliberate) about the resources they contain in their various storehouses of wisdom for making a difference. Citing the eco-theologian, Thomas Berry, he argued that without the psychic energy and spirituality generated by the religions the world’s obsession with consumerism will not be healed.

 

Religiously committed people at the gathering pointed to key resources in tradition which could possibly help. The rabbi pointed out that Jewish tradition was keen to celebrate the goal of human flourishing and divine delight in the earth itself as better motivators for action than the gloom of some eco predictions. A Muslim educationalist wondered if the time was ripe for declaring eco-jihad, a rightly directed struggle against the forces of environmental destruction. A Christian theologian named the sense of powerlessness, which many experience in the face of the perceived enormity of the problems facing the planet, as a spir­itual issue. All agreed that an affirmation of radical hope was required, a hope that accepted full responsibility for the future which has been given into human hands. Survival was not to be taken for granted, no matter how we theologised about the big picture of historical flux. If religions have been used to taking the long view then the ecological gauntlet shatters any easy complacency associ­ated with a “God will always be there to rescue us” mentality. The view which assumed that the material order is sim­ply a backdrop for human activity has become irresponsible.

 

So where does this leave us? With those feelings of powerlessness? Not necessarily. If the religions are store­houses of psychic energy, spirituality and hope, then the question is why they have not been harnessed for ecological awareness until the present. As vehicles of transformation there is every reason to think that they can be put to fresh use in the service of a sustainable future. But to do this they will need to absorb the story of creation as a cosmic story of development over millions of years. Moreover, they will need to focus their energies on transforming the way we view one another and the material world as a place of astonishing beauty, diversity and creativity. The age-old belief in the connectedness of all things is a value shared across traditions.

 

There is one final point to make. Ecologists remind us of the interwoven strands of justice, peace and sustain­ability. It occurred to me that the inter­religious movement may have been so preoccupied, for obvious reasons, with the first two of those threads, to the detriment of the third. If that is the case, then there is a pressing dialogical task in the face of climate change, namely, to share wisdom across boundaries in the hope of redressing the balance between justice, peace and sustainability. There is time. But, as the speaker said, the time is short.

 

This is of course underlined by the recently concluded conference of concerned nations in Bali. The Bali Roadmap sets out the course that is imperative for all to follow. It is a step back from the abyss.

 

Alan Race