How the World's Religions Are Responding to Climate Change: Social Scientific Investigations. Edited by RobinGlobus Veldman, AndrewSzasz, and RandolphHaluza‐DeLay. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Abstract

Climate change as a socio-political issue has quickly risen high up on the agenda of the international community over the past decade, particularly since the publication of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. This rise can be attributed to the increase in reported impacts of climate change throughout the world and the increased in the political debates, specifically those linked to the international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The focus of the mass media on climate change, its impacts, and the related political processes has also increased over the years. Many faith-based organizations and movements have played an important role in debates about climate change, and have contributed to the narrative around climate change action within their own communities. This role, as the book under review here has shown, ranges from progressive and proactive climate change education and action to complete disregard of the issue, or, at worst, to fuelling anti-environmentalism and climate denial. Many religious-inspired institutions have engaged in theological interpretation or explanation of climate change, and others have engaged in the actual politics and climate change programmes at national, regional and international levels. In this context How the World's Religions Are Responding to Climate Change: Social Scientific Investigations, edited by three eminent professors and researchers, explores the role of religions and religious organizations in addressing climate change. Editors Robin Globus Veldman (PhD candidate at the University of Florida), Andrew Szasz (Environmental Studies professor at the University of California), and Randolph Haluza-DeLay (an associate professor at King's University College in Alberta, Canada) have a collective and individual wealth of knowledge and scholarship in the fields of sociology, religion, and environmental studies. In this wide-ranging presentation – which encompasses numerous religious experiences, research, and anecdotes derived from an expansive social science inquiry – 25 contributing authors present the findings of different studies. They argue that religion has played a significant role, both positive and negative, in interpreting and responding to climate change. The book elaborates the potentials of world religions as well as the barriers that religion might face, or create, in the broader response to climate change. The book investigates some examples from Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduisms, and some indigenous religions in Africa and Central America. It highlights three aspects that make religion an important player in responding to climate change; namely, its influence over its followers’ views, the moral authority and leadership of religion, the institutional and economic resources of religions, and lastly, the potential of religion to provide connectivity, thus reaching a very large number of people all over the world. As a social scientific investigation, the publication depicts excellent cases from different religions of the world. The examples are drawn from several countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America and Europe. A great majority of the cases come from the global South, with an added emphasis on the vulnerability of these regions to climate change impacts. The book clusters the examples according to the traditional regional divides of global South and North, with an additional cluster called the transnational context. Whether this division and presentation is helpful or not is up to the reader to decide. The book has succeeded in making a case for the varied, sometimes contradicting, understanding of climate change by religious communities throughout the world. It has also succeeded in discussing the generally unharnessed potential of religion in matters that are social and political in nature, like climate change. The potential power and influence of religious institutions is exemplified by the context of the Solomon Islands, where often churches represent an authority in communities that is often greater than that of the government. It is among the very first books to undertake indepth social scientific exploration of religions and their response to climate change, even though much of the content is broadly about how some specific religious communities have understood and interpreted environmental issues. The book in my opinion is not specific to climate change, as a natural science or a political issue. Some of the examples presented do not present specific actions of religious communities to tackle the impacts of climate change, but rather are narratives about the broad understanding of relationship between humans and their environment. One weakness of the studies presented in the book, therefore, is that they have not made a clear distinction between climate action and the broader environmental discourse. It is difficult, for example, to see a religious community's interpretation of a drying river, in religious terms, as a response to climate change. Climate change action and response has over the years become quite specific in terms of mitigation and adaptation and everything that relates to the two. Isaiah Kipyegon Toroitich is the global policy and advocacy coodinator for the ACT Alliance.