Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8.3 UNDERSTANDING HUMAN
BEHAVIOURS: RELIGION,
SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
8.3.2 Religion and its role in the
ecological crisis
In a more recent historical context, some thinkers
have claimed that it is the emergence of organ-
ized religion - particularly in the Judeo-Christian
tradition - that lies at the centre of our exploitative
environmental conducts. In a famous paper pub-
lished in the journal
Science
in 1967, Lynn White
Jnr argues that it was not just scientific and tech-
nological development that enabled large-scale
environmental transformation but the fact that
these developments often occurred in a Christian
context. In his paper,
The Historical Roots of the
Ecological Crisis
, Lynn White Jnr (1967) argues
that Christianity (and related religions) have
established a sense of separation between humans
(as the chosen ones of God) and the rest of cre-
ation (the natural environment) (Nelson, 2001:
203). Lynn White Jnr claims that Christianity
has generated a situation where humans believe
that they are superior to the rest of nature and
that human scientific and technological interven-
tion within the environment is a moral good.
On these terms, it is not so much that humans are
predisposed not to care about the environment,
but that we feel it is our moral duty to transform
and thus improve the natural world. Lynn White
Jnr recognized that many people were not overtly
religious, but claimed that Christian teaching
on human superiority over nature had become
a commonly held belief within general society
(for counter arguments on the role of religion
in influencing human-environment relations, see
Pepper et al, 2011). It is possible to see some of
these sentiments in the voices of those who claim
that the emergence of the Anthropocene necessi-
tates ever-greater forms of human intervention
into natural systems in order to ensure that they
function in ways that continue to serve human
designs (Crutzen, 2002).
Before considering specific examples of initiatives
and policies that have been developed to redirect
human behaviour, it is important to outline the
frameworks that have been conceived to interpret
and understand human behaviours towards the
environment. This section briefly outlines some
of the dominant theories in and through which
humanity's behaviour towards the environment
has been explained. In essence, these theories
provide important clues as to how affluent soci-
eties have been able to create systems of mass
production and consumption that appear so
indifferent to their deleterious environmental
consequences.
8.3.1 The biological perspective
One group of theories concerning the nature of
human behaviour towards the environment
suggests that our current attitudes actually derive
from the long-term evolutionary development
of our collective consciousness. Evolutionary
biologists operating within a Darwinian frame-
work (see
Box 8.5)
argue that by the very nature
of our evolution as a species - competing with
other species and exploiting environmental
resources as best we can - we tend to be 'by nature,
aggressive, materialistic, utilitarian, and self-
interested' (Rifkin, 2009: 1). On these terms, it is,
perhaps, unsurprising that we remain indifferent
to the environmental harm that is caused by our
current lifestyles, as our very survival and develop-
ment as a species may have involved an ongoing
competitive struggle with the ecological systems in
which we live. It is important to note that recent
developments in the biological and psychological
sciences suggest that we may not as a species be as
self-interested and uncaring as we believed, and
that we may actually be an inherently
empathic
civilization
(see Rifkin, 2009 and
Box 8.5)
.
