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and the US Presiding Bishop for the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori,
has testifi ed before Congress on the risks of climate change.
Ministers and lay people are organizing projects such as fi ghting mountain top
removal, educating children in ecology, conserving energy in the Interfaith Power
and Light project (
www.theregenerationproject.org
). Many of these activities are
depicted in the fi lm,
Renewal
that features eight case studies of religious environ-
mentalism across the United States (
www.renewalproject.net
). Catholic nuns around
the world have been especially active in projects on sustainable agriculture and
ecological literacy (
www.sistersofearth.org
;
www.genesisfarm.org
;
McFarland
2007
). In addition, in the U.S. the National Religious Partnership for the Environment
has been working for 15 years with Jewish and Christian groups in the United States
(
www.nrpe.org
), while the Alliance for the Conservation of Nature in England has
established numerous ecological projects around the world (
www.arcworld.org
)
.
As this fi eld and force has expanded there is a growing recognition from many
quarters of the importance of the participation of religions in environmental pro-
grams and concerns, such as climate change. For some years, for example, scientists
have been asking for religious communities to play a more active role in environ-
mental issues. They recognize the large number of people around the world who are
involved with religions. There are one billion Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and
Confucians, respectively. They observe that moral authority has played an impor-
tant role in many transformations of values and behavior, such as the abolition of
slavery in nineteenth century England and in civil rights by Martin Luther King and
other religious leaders in the United States and South Africa in the twentieth
century.
26.7
Support of Scientists and Policy Makers
Moreover, scientists such as E.O. Wilson have called for an alliance between
religion and science in a shared concern for the future of the environment. This was
articulated in
A Warning to Humanity
in 1992 and more recently in Wilson's topic,
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
(Wilson
2006
). Similarly, biologists
Paul Ehrlich and Donald Kennedy (
2005
) have proposed a Millennium Assessment
of Human Behavior. In addition, policy think tanks, such as Worldwatch Institute in
Washington DC, have encouraged the role of religions. One of their principal
researchers, Gary Gardner, has published a chapter on this topic in the State of the
World report of 2003 and his topic
Inspiring Progress: Religious Contributions to
Sustainable Development
(Gardner
2006
). Moreover, the policy expert and former
Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale, James Gustav
Speth has also called for the participation of the world's religions in his topic,
Bridge at the Edge of the World
(Speth
2008
)
.
While religions have their problematic dimensions, including intolerance,
dogmatism, and fundamentalism, they also have served as well springs of wisdom,
as sources of moral inspiration, and as containers of transforming ritual practices.
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