Editor’s note: This column includes a discussion between columnist Peter Kindilien and director of UNM’s religious studies program Rich Wood. Kindilien wrote the introductory piece.
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More than 85 percent of the world’s population claims some religion. Religion defines many global, national and local groups, and has a substantial sway over politics in every nation and most communities. Politics and science have also combined to change religion throughout history.
In the United States, religion is being used to influence the debate over global warming and environmental protection. Voters are encouraged to focus on the latest conflicts between religion and social mores, and to support political platforms that espouse a single-minded adherence to the “right to life,” regardless of the contempt these platforms may display for environmental and climate concerns. Morally and logically, a philosophy focused on the protection of human life must recognize the associated necessity for a sustainable habitat for mankind.
We are fed waves of propaganda that promote demonic thirst for economic prosperity and misdirected hatred. Meanwhile, there is accelerating pollution and population growth, depletion of finite resources, melting ice and warming temperatures. Any system reliant upon unlimited growth in resource demand and on nonrenewable resource supply is destined to fail. Cheap energy that paved the way to technological nirvana has produced waste products that are triggering global warming, unleashing a monster that ravenously feeds upon itself. Continuing down this path, much of modern society may end up as a charred footnote in the history of man’s folly.
Corporations are effectively stalling action on carbon emission regulations. You know the game: pay off a few unscrupulous scientists to spread doubt, no matter how unsubstantiated by the vast majority of their peers, leading to public and political controversy and delays, providing time for lobby groups to buy more political influence and for judges to be purchased if need be. Meanwhile, create a movement opposed to overregulation, and throw in some knee-jerk political talking points. Drive enough people who didn’t bother to learn about complicated real issues to the voting booths like sheep to the slaughter. One more mockery of democracy.
Kindilien: If religion is to provide a moral compass for mankind, what place do you think it should have in the debate over global warming and the protection of Earth’s ecosystem?
Wood: Religion should be central in the conversation about climate change — but in a very different way than it currently is. Many of the religions of humanity — including Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but also other world religions and many tribal religions — speak of a god who deeply cares about creation. Properly understood, such a belief can help drive us to our responsibility to minimize our impact on the biosphere. We need both the best science available and the spiritually grounded sense of our continuity with and dependence on the natural world if we are to end our destruction of nature even as we benefit from it. Both humanity and nature will pay dearly otherwise.
K: Perhaps we thought that warming wouldn’t be such a big deal, and that poorer, southern-hemisphere countries would be the ones most affected. The growing repercussions of messing with nature past an acceptable level are becoming harder to ignore. None are as blind as those who will not see, but I’ll bet that even the willfully vision-impaired are beginning to sense the truth, as we begin to sizzle, right here in the middle of our sacred consumer paradise.
Those who continue to harp on the sanctity of human life, as they promote the same old political agenda of maintaining a free reign for the biggest corporate polluters, are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Cloaked in a mantle of respectability, they connive to control all the avenues of power, so that they may continue to feast on the remains of our precious natural resources. Meanwhile, their offshore bank holdings grow exponentially. Who will be left holding the bag for the expenses we’ll face as economies are increasingly wracked by storms, droughts, floods, power outages and scarcity of food and fresh water? Bet it won’t be the people who are still denying global warming, and fighting against industry regulation, nor will it be their corporate backers.
For many nonreligionists, the growing abuse of nonprofit tax-exempt status by powerful religious groups that are involved in political activities, and who are financially backed by special interests, is a blatant affront to the constitutional requirement for a separation of religion and state.
As a religionist and a social scientist, what adverse affects do you see of present day political influence on religion? And vice-versa?
W: I think religious groups should be held to the same standards of nonpartisanship that other nonprofit groups are held to — on this terrain, there is nothing particular about religious faith that should be singled out. But to be taken seriously in the public arena, religious groups have to operate rationally, including taking the best-documented scientific findings seriously. I think the more fundamental problem is the almost unchecked influence of money in politics — that is, all money, not just religiously connected money. Unless we find ways to make sure politics is more driven by actual people’s voices rather than unlimited money, real democracy may be doomed.
K: The Western lifestyle of overconsumption and waste is being adopted by more and more countries. Chief Sitting Bull had us nailed 150 years ago when he said, “the love of possessions is a disease in them.” The fight for the resources that remain is about to become fiercer, at the same time that our world becomes increasingly hostile to life as we have come to know it. The days of steady economic growth are over, done and gone, no matter what the puppet masters would have you believe. Whoever propagates the myth of eternal economic expansion is not a leader — they are a fool or a liar. There is only one way to prevent the whole situation from spiraling completely out of our control, and that is to curb methane and carbon-based emissions, which have been proven to be the main cause of the recent increase in greenhouse gases, and to be directly linked to the climate change we are experiencing. This requires regulating the energy industries and all the other polluters, and effectively curbing our dependence on fossil fuels — immediately. The decisions that we make today are going to influence the survival odds of many future generations.
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In the scientific community, there is no debate that humans are causing global warming. The debate is over what can still be done to retard and possibly halt it, and what kinds of nasty events we can look forward to if we don’t.
Why do you feel that it is worthwhile for people to bother to vote, and what role should independent thinking have in that process?
W: I absolutely believe it is worthwhile for all of us to vote.
It’s one of our best tools for at least beginning to hold elites accountable for how they lead. But don’t just vote — if you do only that, it’s easy to feel like your vote does not matter. Instead, I would encourage folks to be active citizens, really engaged in their chosen political party or community organization or social movement. If you get involved early, and learn how to bring other people along with you, you can make a real difference in who gets elected. That’s when independent thinking can make a contribution: thinking about what policies will move society in the right direction and get people elected who support those policies. It takes time, but what’s the alternative? To let others set the terms of your life.
K: Mother Nature is exhibiting scornful disdain for token sentiments and hunting stories, as we continue to rape the land, foul the air and poison the waters. Will we finish destroying the gift we were given, in the name of material lust and willful negligence? Males appear incapable of providing responsible leadership — perhaps equitable gender-shared government could lead to more humane and sensible policies. It would be quite an underachievement, to march to extinction as a species, on the heels of an obstinate refusal to temper competition with compassion and sensitivity.
