On the Significance of Religion in Climate Change

This book explores the role of religion in discussions about climate change and, particularly, the development of responses to climate change on global, state, institutional, and local levels. It considers examples of the ways that different religious traditions, including Indigenous, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian communities, have responded to the different effects of climate change by using different methodological approaches, including political science and international relations (e.g. public opinion polls and constructivism); religious studies scholarship on climate change, including an overview of religion and ecology as a subdiscipline in religious studies; and environmental humanities approaches.

This volume interrogates the diverse ways religion both acts and is acted upon by different actors, including institutions and nation states, in response to climate change. Within single traditions, different actors advocate for planetary care and concern, while their co-religionists may remain passive or deny climate change as a phenomenon.

This book hopes to complicate and unravel the complexities of how different religions approach climate change and recommends that religions are taken seriously in the development of climate change mitigation strategies at different scales.

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia is a research associate in the Hidden Stories: New Approaches to the Local and Global History of the Book project at the University of Toronto and Princeton University.

Youssef Chouhoud is an Assistant Professor of Political Science affiliated with the Reiff Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at Christopher Newport University.

Lan T. Chu is a Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College.

Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Asian Studies at Occidental College.