Wind, Sun, Soil, Spirit: Biblical Ethics and Climate Change  . By Carol S.Robb . Minneapolis , MN : Fortress Press , 2010 . xii + 195 pages. Softcover $20.00 .

Global warming is dangerous, and it is worsening. Our responses have been criminally ridiculous, grounded in commitments to ever‐growing quarterly earnings reports and to goods and services masquerading as “low cost.” Carol S. Robb wants us to shift our thinking about this crisis into the context of the world God so loves. Our failures to do so are the readily observable destructive trends in weather patterns, ocean acidification, atmospheric CO₂ and other greenhouse gases at peak levels and rising (CFCs perhaps excepted), icecaps and permafrost melting, and methane outgassing. All are shocking, unnecessary, and together threaten life as we know it on this planet.

Robb's clear and careful writing illustrates her deep understanding of the documents and processes of the climate change negotiations as well as her commitment to social justice as a fundamental aspect of Jesus’s ministry. She presents cogent discussions of the Kyoto process, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and ongoing negotiations up to about 2009. ¹ Her experience includes being a representative of the World Council of Churches at The Hague Meeting of the Conference of Parties in 2000. The book is thoroughly referenced with very rich endnotes.

There are two groups of climate deniers. Some religious sects are welcoming a scorched Earth as a sign of the Apocalypse, and some of these actually seek to hasten it. The second group consists of the wealthy and powerful who are worried about rates of economic growth, as currently defined, because, for them, that is the deity from which good things magically spring. By contrast, Robb's reading of the Old and New Testaments points to the reign of God as here and now—as seen in lives lived in fairness and justice between humans, and, crucially, between humans and all of nature.

The concept of the global atmospheric commons is central to Robb's analysis because profit and pollution in one part of the atmosphere impact all parts of the globe. Wind (think pneuma) begins with an almost folksy story about Robb working hard to reduce the carbon footprint of her life, her home, and her campus. She jolts us into attention by noting that even in the face of her numerous successes at good local/global citizenship, being a U.S. citizen means that her carbon footprint is still 19.8 tons of carbon per person per year (tcy) when it needs to be 2 tons—the no‐regrets level needed in order to stabilize and diminish atmospheric carbon. We humans, as individuals, corporations, and political decision makers, in every country need to take major steps toward that goal. The European Union generates 8.7 tcy; Russia, 16.2 tcy; and even Trinidad/Tobago is at 10 tcy. China and India, at 2.1 and 0.7 tcy, respectively, are special cases. Their total carbon output is nevertheless huge and masks enormous disparities between classes.

Robb shows us that seriousness, let alone fairness, is lacking in the climate negotiations. For example, the so‐called “fairness argument,” championed by developed nations, is, in fact, based on “grandfathering in” their high historical emissions; this simply means that high historic emissions levels would give high emitters “the right to pollute based on having polluted first. … The other proposed basis for distributing emission allowances would be equality, such that nations would be assigned allowances based on their population level at a negotiated date” (29). Robb shows that this latter approach would encourage innovation and carbon trading at least as much as the “grandfather” approach and be much fairer to poorer and technically undeveloped nations.

Issues of poverty and gender are of prominent concern throughout the book, both for policy and for ethical responsibility. Robb reports that it is widely recognized, for example, that poor women will be most harmed by the impacts of climate change on indigenous fisheries and agriculture and that women will have “greater responsibility for the care of the increased numbers of the sick expected from higher levels of malaria, cholera, and heat stress” (25).

Saving the atmospheric commons and life in the future requires working to halt and reverse global warming. Achieving this fairly will take huge, real alterations in the practices of the polluting nations. However, the current goals of the climate‐change (non)agreement are nowhere near this goal:

[Ideally,] while the polluting nations would engage in a process of contraction [of emissions], the developing nations would eventually converge with the industrialized nations at a point that is safely within the absorptive capacity of the atmosphere. That point could represent per capita global equality. On the whole, however, the question of justice in the distribution of emissions allowances is missing from the discussion of the Kyoto Protocol by the “umbrella nations” which include Japan, Canada, Australia, and the United States [who argue that] it does not matter where emissions originate, because wherever they originate they affect the whole atmosphere [and that] it is more cost effective to lower emissions in poor nations. (32)

Clearly, there is a desperate need for religious precepts and ethical voices in this argument. Robb believes that “people will not change their consumption and production habits on a consistent basis unless they believe that it is fair to do so. So, fairness has political leverage” (33).

Robb's analyses are straightforward and clear, and she allows readers to develop their own conclusions. But she does not mince words when presenting her conclusions; for instance, “If citizens of industrialized nations allow their representative negotiators to claim in effect, ‘we know we have a large impact on the global atmospheric commons, but we do not want to be inconvenienced by having to pay the true price of the energy and transport we use—plus you cannot make us,’ then who are we as peoples of this realm? The term ‘bullies’ comes to mind” (36). Please note, that “If” is rhetorical; this is exactly what the industrialized nations have effected. Her verdict may be summed up as follows: Excessive and unfair wealth accumulation is central to the problems that humans have wrought within the global atmospheric commons. The distributions of resources and despoliation are both unfair. It is now apparent that we cannot wait for politicians of wealthy nations to take the lead in adjusting the policies that protect current economic practices. We, as citizens, must engage conscientiously and politically to force policy changes. And we must come to recognize that “generation of wealth is not the first measure of a good economy, because wealth, when it exists alongside poverty, is suspect” (146).

We must now choose our future. Robb's program is clear: structure a commitment for the wealthy nations (however late we come to the disaster we have created) to lower their carbon emissions. In the global climate crisis, we still can make some choices. Robb lays out the IPCC scenarios and relates these profound ecological challenges to biblical themes. She notes, particularly in the second part of the book, that the actions of the people of God have always played out in political and economic as well as personal spheres. The Kingdom of God in Jesus’s teaching was a profound, earthly, alternative to the Roman Empire and the Temple. Robb's final, adroit move is to show that the global atmospheric commons is celebrated in the Bible as an important part of the Kingdom of God and a site of God's action. Robb has done an enormous service in presenting scientific, political, and religious evidence woven into a compelling call to action to inspire the resolution of this most acute and global of crises. It is to be hoped that this book foments many discussions.