This course explores religious naturalism (RN) in relation to the climate crisis and climate justice. We will engage the climate crisis as a geophysical and planetary reality, a moral phenomenon, a religious concern, a social justice tragedy, and a problem of political economy. A primary purpose of the course is thus to help students develop an understanding of RN by considering it not only in philosophical, theological, and scientific contexts but also as a resource for creative response to contemporary social, moral and political challenges.
DESCRIPTION:
Three interrelated lines of inquiry shape the course:
First, what’s going on, geophysically, culturally, morally, and politically? What time is it—a time of transition, collapse, or emergence? Is there a relation between the discourse of the Anthropocene and religious-cultural “axiality”/turning?
Second, what is RN? Why might some people think of RN as an oxymoron? Is RN something new or old, ancient, modern, postmodern, altermodern? Is it emerging out of a new axial moment or perhaps even the harbinger of a new axial age? Is it culturally specific or transcultural? What is the common ground that holds together the varieties of RN? What is the relation of RN to other religious traditions? Is RN merely a form of religious consciousness? What is religious about RN and what is naturalistic? What might a politically and morally activated RN look like? How does RN help us to understand and negotiate difference (cultural, racial, religious, species) in new ways? How might RN be able to deepen our theological imagination, expand our moral empathy, and facilitate new forms of community and solidarity?
Third, what is the climate crisis? What are its causes/drivers and what are its effects? What makes it such a difficult moral challenge—conceptually, theoretically, practically? Why has it been politicized in the US? How and why should the climate crisis be construed as a justice issue? Who is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and why? What do the climate crisis and climate justice have to do with debates about the Anthropocene? How do the climate crisis and climate justice trouble/complicate/disrupt some of the modern west’s most fundamental concepts and categories—nature, culture, human being, species? Does the climate crisis, paradoxically and not without great loss, also provide opportunities for positive social, political, and cultural change?
The course will use field work (through the optional service trip or in students’ home communities), readings, films and other media, lectures, student presentations, and group discussion to explore these and other questions.
Rationale
The climate crisis is rightly considered by many to be the greatest challenge our species has ever faced, and climate justice is on the front end of this challenge. The populations most vulnerable to the risks of climate change tend to be least responsible for causing it while those who are most responsible for causing it tend to be the most insulated from its impacts. Poor people, people of color, and the elderly are disproportionately affected by climate change, in addition to other environmental hazards. To the extent that progressive religious leaders are committed to justice and compassion, then we should be actively committed to the struggle for climate justice. We need not only to understand its causes and dynamics, but also to learn with and from the most vulnerable, and to work in solidarity across lines of class and race to resist climate injustice and build more ecologically and socially resilient communities. As a religious option with an ancient, transcultural history and newly emergent possibilities, religious naturalism may provide helpful philosophical, theological, and moral resources for activating the new kinds of solidarities our world requires. In combination, the readings, lectures, discussions and field work in this course will provide students with a formation experience that will help them learn how to do theology and provide religious leadership in a time of climate crisis.
FIELD WORK This course requires ALL students to engage in field work of some kind. There are two tracks/options for this work.
OPTION ONE: UUCSJ JOURNEY: THEOLOGY AND CLIMATE JUSTICE—HURRICANE SANDY RECOVERY
Though it is not required, students are encouraged to register for and participate in the “Theology and Climate Justice” Service Journey (Brooklyn, NY; February 21-28). Professor Hogue will participate in the Journey but it will be facilitated by the Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice (UUCSJ)—current Meadville Lombard student Kimberly Johnson will be one of the facilitators!! There is an additional cost for the Journey ($650) that includes housing, meals, and basic equipment. UUCSJ has funds available for scholarships based on financial need. Grants are awarded on a first come/first service basis as long as funds last. See here for further details about the Journey.
Students who register for the Journey through the UUCSJ can also register for an additional half-credit “Rotation” through Meadville Lombard. Contact Lynn Penn-Hargrove, our registrar, if you have questions about this: vpennhargrove@meadville.edu. NOTE: STUDENTS WHO REGISTER FOR THIS TRIP, WHETHER OR NOT THEY ALSO REGISTER FOR ROTATION CREDIT, MUST COMPLETE THE PREPARATORY READINGS ASSOCIATED WITH THE JOURNEY ITSELF (in addition to the readings for this course).
Students who elect to participate in the UUCSJ Journey will need to prepare a 20-minute class presentation that integrates and reflects on your Journey experience. Your presentation should address questions such as (but not limited to) the following: 1) How did the Journey experience affect you emotionally, spiritually, and morally, and what is its theological significance to you? 2) In what ways, if any, has the experience changed the way you think and feel about the climate crisis? 3) How will the Journey experience inform the way you communicate to others about the climate crisis? 4) What did you learn through the Journey experience about climate injustice—about its various impacts and causes, about its human toll? 5) What did you learn about the challenges and joys of serving in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable to climate change? 6) How will this experience influence your emerging practice of religious leadership? 7) How will this experience influence your citizenship? Note: this presentation assignment is FOR THIS CLASS and needs to be completed along with the reading FOR THIS CLASS, and on top of the work required as preparation for and during the Journey itself.
OPTION TWO: LOCAL COMMUNITY RESEARCH Research your local area’s (e.g. town, city, metro-region, bioregion, etc.) awareness of, response to, and preparation for climate change. This research may entail a combination of internet research and inperson informational interviews. Further below you will find a small sampling of internet resources that may be helpful. Use your research to prepare a 20 minute class presentation that profiles your local community. Your presentation should answer questions such as the following:
*What are the existing and projected impacts of climate change in your local community, both direct (e.g. sea-level rise, more frequent extreme weather) and indirect (e.g. increasing food prices)? How are these local impacts related to regional impacts (e.g. West Coast, Pacific Northwest, Midwest, North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, Southwest, etc…)?
*Are there adaptive and/or mitigative systems in place in your community, whether governmental or nongovernmental? If there aren’t systems in place in your local community, are there regional systems? If not, have there been efforts to establish systems that were thwarted for some reason? If so, explain.
*What is the demographic make-up of your local community (e.g. race, socio-economic status, age) and which population groups are most likely to be most negatively affected by the existing and projected (direct and indirect) climate impacts in your area?
*Do the response systems in your community, if they exist, address the potential racial and economic or other disparities in your community/region?
*Are the more and less vulnerable populations working together? Are there cross-cultural, multiracial, interfaith climate justice coalitions at work in your area or region?
*How, if at all, are the religious communities in your local area dealing with the climate crisis and climate justice (e.g. education, protest, advocacy, organizing)? Are the religious communities working across denominational / traditional lines? Are they working across religious / secular lines? Which religious communities, if any, are engaged? Which aren’t?
*Is there a local or nearby Transition community? (See: http://www.transitionus.org/). Are there alternate economies and/or forms of cooperative, intentional community that are organized around ecological values? If so, how are they engaging climate change and climate justice?
*Given your reading and research, what more do you believe your local community can do to address the climate crisis and climate injustice?
*How might you communicate the moral, spiritual, economic, and social justice significance of responding to climate justice across faith and cultural lines?
Websites for local environmental/climate justice research:
http://scorecard.goodguide.com/index.tcl: This website provides lots of local and regional data on various pollutants and presents the data comparatively by income and race—but from what I can tell it doesn’t specifically address climate issues, the data may not be up to date, and the data may not be as thorough in all parts of the county as it is in others. It still may be useful. If it doesn’t provide data specific to your local zip code, you might try looking up other nearby zip codes.
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/fpt/guidebook.shtml: This links to the Climate Impacts Group which has put together a climate change preparedness handbook scaled to local communities. http://epa.gov/statelocalclimate/local/topics/impacts-adaptation.html: This EPA website on climate impacts and adaptation is excellent.
http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/: This is the EPA’s website on environmental justice. http://epamap14.epa.gov/ejmap/entry.html: An EPA EJ mapping tool may be useful. http://www.resilientus.org/: Local and regional resilience organization. http://www.ukcip.org.uk/wizard/current-climate-vulnerability/lclip/: This is a UK-based organization that has created a handy tool called the “Local Climate Impact Profile”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES
Required Reading
Bauman, Whitney A. Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethic. 172 +pp. [Purchase or borrow].
Bellah, Robert. “What is Axial about the Axial Age?”20 pp. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Bullard, Robert D., et al. “Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007: A Report Prepared for the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries”. 150+pp. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Crutzen, Paul, et al. “The New World of the Anthropocene”. Environmental Science and Technology. 44 (2010): 2228-2831. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Delegates of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. “Principles of Environmental Justice”. [Will be posted on Livext].
Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change. “Principles of Climate Justice”. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Foster, John Bellamy. “Four Laws of Ecology and the Four Anti-ecological Laws of Capitalism”. Excerpt from Foster’s The Vulnerable Planet. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Gardiner, Stephen. “A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics, and the Problem of Moral Corruption”. Environmental Values 15 (2006): 397-413. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Hogue, Michael S. “Religion without God: An Essay on Religious Naturalism”. The Fourth R 27:3 (2014). [Will be posted on Livetext].
Hogue, Michael S. “Towards a Pragmatic Political Theology”. American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. 34: 3: 264-283 (2013). [Will be posted on Livetext].
Liu, Eric and Hanauer, Nick. The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government. 165 pp. + notes. [Purchase or borrow].
Macy, Joanna and Johnstone, Chris. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy. 238 pp. + notes. [Purchase or borrow].
Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik M. The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (speculative-realist fiction). 79 pp. + notes. [Purchase or borrow].
Tokar, Brian. “Movements for Climate Justice”. From Handbook of the Climate Movement, ed. M. Dietz. 13 pp. [PDF will be on Livetext].
Wildman, Wesley. “Religious Naturalism: What it Can Be, and What it Need Not Be”. Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences. 1:1 (2014): 36-58. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Wolff, Richard D. “Capitalism’s Deeper Problem,” http://billmoyers.com/2014/07/15/capitalism%E2%80%99s-deeper-problem/
Choose One or the Other
Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy. 200+pp. [Purchase or borrow]. -OR- Menzies, Heather. Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good. 240pp. [Purchase or Borrow].
Supplemental – Elective Reading
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Climate of History: Four Theses”. Critical Inquiry. 35 (Winter 2009): 197- 222. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Clayton, Philip and Heinzekehr, Justin. Organic Marxism: An Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe.
Greer, John Michael. The Archdruid Report Blog: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
Greer, John Michael. Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America.
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate.
Klein, Naomi. “Interview”, The American Prospect, September 17, 2014: http://prospect.org/article/naomi-klein-pitting-environment-against-economy-risks-failure-both
Lambert, Yves. “Religion in Modernity as a New Axial Age: Secularization or New Religious Forms?” Sociology of Religion 60:3 (1999): 303-333. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Maslin, Mark. Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction.
Steffen, W., et al. “The Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 369 (2011): 842-867. [Will be posted on Livetext].
Swimme, Brian Thomas and Tucker, Mary Evelyn. Journey of the Universe.
Additional Resources: General Climate Crisis and Climate Justice Websites
Global Warming Primer, Jeffrey Bennett: http://www.jeffreybennett.com/a-global-warmingprimer/
Post-Carbon Institute: http://www.postcarbon.org/
Climate and Capitalism: http://climateandcapitalism.com/
Daily Climate News: http://www.dailyclimate.org/frontpage/
Environmental Justice Resources: http://www.ejnet.org/ej/
United Nations Environment Program: http://www.unep.org/
Climate Central: http://www.climatecentral.org/
Stockholm Resilience Center: http://www.stockholmresilience.org/
Transition USA: http://www.transitionus.org/
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch
Resilience website: http://www.resilience.org/
CLASS SCHEDULE, TENTATIVE:
(NOTE: THE PROFESSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHANGES TO THE SEQUENCE AND STRUCTURE OF THESE SESSIONS. STUDENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING THE READING AND IN-CLASS PRESENTATIONS COMPLETED BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE CLASS.)
Lesson 1: On the Anthropocene: Collapse and/or Emergence: [Required Reading: Crutzen, et al; Oreskes and Conway] [Supplemental: Chakrabarty; Greer; Steffen, et al.].
Lesson 2: Axiality and Religious Naturalism: [Read Bauman; Bellah; Hogue—“Religion without God”; Wildman]. [Supplemental: Hogue—“Towards a Pragmatic Political Theology”; Swimme and Tucker; Lambert].
Lesson 3 Climate Crisis and Climate Justice I: [Read Bullard, et al; Gardiner; “Principles of Environmental Justice”; and “Principles of Climate Justice”; Foster; Wolff]. [Supplemental: Clayton; Chakrabarty; Greer; Klein].
Lesson 4: Climate Crisis and Climate Justice II: [Read Shiva or Menzies; Tokar]. [Supplemental: same as Wednesday].
Lesson 5: Getting Engaged: [Read Liu and Hanauer; Macy and Johnstone]. [Supplemental: Resilience and Transition websites].