We are currently immersed in a global environmental crisis that has various manifestations such as pollution of air, water, and soil, along with the deterioration of ecosystems and massive loss of species. This is in part because of our explosion from two billion to seven billion people in one hundred years coupled with rapid industrialization, unlimited consumption, and overarching technological power. The effects of this on human health and planetary well‐being are increasingly evident. The distinguished scientist Thomas Lovejoy calls our present moment an endgame in which the rapidly deteriorating global environment may not be able to support civilization itself (Lovejoy ).

Until recently, degrading nature for human use—clear‐cutting forests, strip‐mining mountains, depleting fisheries—was not considered a critical ethical issue. Polluting the atmosphere, soil, or waters was simply an external consequence of industrialization and a necessary cost of economic growth. But now our industrializing powers and economic systems are disrupting the carbon cycle and causing massive climate change. We have reached the limits of degrading the atmosphere, land, and oceans without significant consequence.

Although there is still denial in the United States regarding the reality of climate change, it is becoming increasingly visible as a major environmental challenge, especially with severe droughts in the west and the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Yet this visibility has still not led to unanimity regarding the causes of climate change or clarity regarding solutions. This is partly because the fossil fuel companies and Koch Brothers–supported think tanks have spent millions in disinformation campaigns that have confused the American public. Appropriate action and the political will to move forward have thus eluded us in the United States, creating adverse impacts on the rest of the world.

All of this means that we still haven't embraced climate change as a moral issue, but Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment is raising new awareness. It may be the case that—like the abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century and civil rights in the twentieth century—until climate disruption is seen as a moral challenge, there won't be a sufficient response at the scale and speed that is required. The integration of the moral issues of ecological degradation and climate justice into social consciousness, political legislation, and international negotiations remains to be realized.

Two interrelated questions then arise: where do we begin and what can we build on? For each part of the world the response will be different. For the United States the task is far from easy and one of the main messages may be dismissed or ignored. The hard truth is that our hyper‐inflated life style—our massive consumption of energy and goods—is having adverse effects on people and the planet, both at home and abroad. Moral awakening is critical, but will moral rebuke be the most effective tool? Or is evoking compassion for the Earth community—both people and planet—what is needed, more than guilt?

It is clear that we in the United States are, and have been for some time, a source of the destruction of the environment, both its intricate ecosystems and its myriad species. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the consequences are that we are also a cause of increased inequity and injustice for the poor, the vulnerable, and the climate refugees who are now suffering from the devastating effects of climate change. Several of the Small Island Nations are asking the high‐emitting countries for just compensation for their forced migrations and loss of homeland. We are indeed at an endgame and what to do still eludes us as intergenerational justice looms on the horizon.

A way forward is to see climate change as an issue, which brings science and religion together as never before. We need both scientific knowledge and morality to confront this massive problem. The challenge is: How can we break through scientific complexity to moral clarity that gives rise to social and political change? But there are problems with science and with religion that we also need to identify.

Problem with Science: From Scientific Fact to Sociopolitical Action

The complexities of the issues surrounding climate change are undeniable. However, the consensus from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change can no longer be dismissed. This report of over 1,500 scientists from around the world represents the largest collaborative scientific project in history. Some of these scientists are now calling for action. But even this call to action is contested, as scientists don't generally see this as their role (“Time to Act” 2009).

Indeed, a dozen years ago Richard Alley, a well‐known climate scientist from Penn State, gave a detailed talk at Bucknell University on his Arctic ice core findings demonstrating current climate changes. At the end of the talk he made a very tentative statement: “I think it may be time that we consider the possibility of doing something about this situation.” A well‐respected geologist, Dick Nickelson, leapt up from his seat in the front row and said, “It is well beyond time that we do something about it.”

This desire for knowledge to be translated into sociopolitical action has caused frustration and unease among scientists, including those studying climate change for decades at the Boulder‐based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Indeed, some of them have despaired of the American public waking up to the climate emergency and responding in a timely manner. They thought that scientific facts and graphs would change people. Some of them are in psychoanalysis because of their despair over this seeming indifference. As James Hansen puts it, there is a widening gap between what scientists understand and what the public knows. However, there are new openings. As Tony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, is reporting, in polls Americans are increasingly favoring policies to combat climate disruption and to move toward sustainable energy. Can we build on this? First let's identify the obstacles to public understanding that we have faced and are still facing in the United States.

Barriers to Knowledge and Action on Climate Change

Why has the urgency of the challenge of climate change and its moral implications been so poorly understood by many Americans? We can point to a variety of factors including: language, media, skeptics, business interests, lack of political will, and the academic divide between science and policy. Let me elaborate.

First, as many have observed, language can be a barrier in making complicated science clear to a broad audience. For example, the term “global warming” can be misleading as for some it suggests this might be good for the planet (Broder ).

Second, the media's misplaced concern in the United States to uphold the so‐called “fairness doctrine” resulted in efforts for many years to present “both sides” of the science. This gave undue attention to climate skeptics and deniers. For over a decade they were allowed equal time along with research scientists who had studied the issue carefully and reported their findings to the IPCC. Moreover, meteorologists and television weather reporters in the United States rarely speak about climate change for fear of taking sides.

Third, it is now widely known that oil companies and other corporate interests funded many of the reports of these skeptics. Koch Industries, headed by brothers David and Charles Koch, gave nearly $50 million between 1997 and 2008 to some 40 groups that deny climate change and oppose clean energy policies and technologies (Greenpeace ).

Fourth, economic concerns have also made it difficult for legitimate climate scientists to be heard. The continual refrain that “attending to climate issues will hurt the economy” has gained currency in the business community. The Princeton economist Paul Krugman and many others have refuted that claim (Krugman ). The Stern Review published in 2007 by the British government suggested that not addressing climate change would be far more costly in the long term, specifically the costs of the two world wars combined.

The barrier to economic inaction is breaking down in the insurance industry, which understands what is at stake for people and the planet as ocean waters rise. Reinsurance industries, such as Swiss Re and Munich Re, cover climate issues extensively on their websites; some major U.S. insurance companies will no longer insure property along coastal waters; and securing insurance on Long Island is becoming increasingly difficult.

Fifth, lack of political will due to economic misperception has resulted in government inaction since 1997. Despite Al Gore's role in drafting the Kyoto Protocol, the Clinton administration failed to get it adopted. Then the attempts by the Bush administration to dismiss the IPCC report, to silence outspoken scientists (such as Hansen), and to refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol caused the United States to lose years of important work in mitigation and adaptation. President Obama has barely tackled climate change. However, it should be noted that states and cities in the United States have moved forward on climate issues.

Engaging Science: Toward Sustainability

Perhaps most problematic is the academic divide between scientific fact and policy action. Most scientists tend to see their research as ranging from pure to applied science but would not want to advocate for particular solutions. They are comfortable with objective description and wish to avoid ethical prescription. This is understandable, but when scientific reports don't translate into behavioral and legislative change we face a considerable impasse.

The so‐called objective nature of scientific research should be respected and at the same time reexamined. This became clear at the American Museum of Natural History in 1998 when the curators realized they would have to rethink “neutral” research. This was the year that, among six finalists for an ornithology position, four had experienced their birds going extinct as they studied them. This was a wake‐up call for the scientists who asked, what does it mean to do research within a global extinction spasm? The creation of the Hall of Biodiversity in 1998 was one response. The scientist and curator of this permanent exhibit, Niles Eldredge, highlighted the complexity and beauty of biodiversity, along with the threats such diversity is facing around the world. The exhibit combines what it sorely needed, namely, information on the problems as well as identifying potential solutions.

The plaque on the floor of the Hall of Biodiversity states definitively that we are in a sixth extinction period and that this is being caused by humans who have the potential to stem the tide of destruction. The exhibit shows both the destruction and restoration of habitat that is affecting biodiversity around the world. I would suggest that this Hall marked a new phase for science education, one that moved from only providing information toward showing solutions. The IPCC report likewise has forced this issue of pure research and active engagement with solutions into new light as natural and social scientists have struggled to work together. However, ethicists and the religious communities have remained on the sidelines.

Yet despite disciplinary obstacles in science and prejudices against religion, there has emerged in certain circles a growing sense of the vital importance of interdisciplinary dialogue of science, policy, ethics, and religion, especially as we face intractable environmental issues such as climate change. Over the last twenty years some efforts have been made that we can now build on. One of the earliest statements in this regard was the 1992 "Warning to Humanity" from the Union of Concerned Scientists, signed by over 1,500 scientists including some 200 Nobel laureates. This was a call to the world's religions to enter the dialogue. Five years later the distinguished marine biologist and former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco, gave her presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at their annual meeting in Seattle. There she called for science to embrace a “new contract with society” in response to pressing environmental issues (Lubchenco , 491–94).

The emerging field of sustainability sciences as developed by Bill Clark at Harvard along with Bob Kates and Bob Corell can be seen as a robust response to Lubchenco's challenge. Since their article in Science in 2001 there has been a growing interest in bringing the natural and social sciences together around a variety of pressing issues, including sustainable development and climate change. Many sessions at the AAAS have been devoted to this effort of bringing science together with policy for sustainability.

An interesting example of how this is being resolved appears in the January 2010 issue of Science. Scientists reporting on mountain top removal practices in Appalachia concluded that environmental impacts, especially with regard to water and streams, were so deleterious that mitigation could not address them. The scientists did not stop in simply reporting their conclusions but went on to make a policy recommendation, which is unusual: “The science is so overwhelming that the only conclusion one can reach is that mountaintop mining needs to be stopped” (Palmer et al. , 148–49).

This tension between science and policy exists in many academic programs on the environment. I am suggesting this is one of the reasons that the moral dimensions of climate change are still invisible, both in academia and in the society at large. There are many other reasons for this: namely, that religion and ethics are marginalized in secular academia; that schools of theology have not made environmental issues and environmental ethics central to their curriculum; and that religion and ecology is still a new field in academia. Yet it is fair to say that this field has significant potential for becoming a moral force in society. The Pope's encyclical on the environment has done much to change this, as well by making action on climate change a moral imperative.

The Promise and Problem of Religion

We are assuming here that religions are necessary, although not sufficient, partners in seeking environmental solutions. This is why we developed dialogue partners in our ten conferences on world religion and ecology at Harvard and in the website of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale over the last twenty years (, Tucker and Grim ; Grim and Tucker ). These include science, economics, and policy. We hope this interdisciplinary dialogue gains further traction through conferences such as this one.

The problems and promise of religions should also be clearly identified. Those of us in the field of religious studies, or in positions of religious leadership, or members of religious communities, or in divinity schools also need humility to enter the environment and climate field. Important work in these areas has been going on for decades without us. Religions are indeed late, but their contributions may be indispensable for realizing a sustainable future for the planet. That is our challenge in the years ahead, to contribute to a moral awakening regarding the planetary emergency that faces us. This is not only about developing an ethics for homicide or suicide, but also for imagining an ethical response to biocide or ecocide.

To summarize the problems and promise of religions:

Engaging Religions: Toward Flourishing

Despite the problems with religion there is great promise in a partnership between religion and science around climate change. This is vital because we need to encourage a new sense of progress, one that is concerned not just with sustainability or economic growth but with the larger flourishing of the Earth community. The world's religions may offer some ethical norms for enhancing this larger flourishing of life.

For example, to do this we have to be able to think for the long term and for future generations, namely for broader interests than weekly stock market indices or quarterly financial reports. This involves enhancing the quality of life, not the quantity of material possessions. In this framework economic progress is not measured by gross national product but rather by the Gross National Happiness indicator (as the government of Bhutan has developed). Religions can assist in this endeavor, as they are well equipped to point toward more lasting values and sources of deep joy. They understand well the efficacy of long‐term thinking and have been attending to this for centuries. This needs to be directed not toward the next world but toward this world.

The long term now refers to the common good for the flourishing of the Earth community—land, water, air, soil, and all species—human and more than human. It means upholding the wonder, beauty, and complexity of nature for present and future generations. This sense of wonder is shared by religion and science and can help reorient our lives by grounding us in gratitude. Life is an extraordinary unfolding process of which we are a small but indispensable part.

Our essential ethical question, then, is what does the flourishing of the Earth community require in the face of climate change? We need to develop a moral framework within the world religions for responding to climate change that allows for common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed world has different responsibilities from the developing world and yet our common future depends on creating the basis for a shared and vibrant future. Otherwise, as Thomas Lovejoy reminds us, civilization itself is at stake.

I am suggesting that ethical responses to environmental issues such as climate change involve reimagining human–Earth relations on a scale that is locally differentiated, culturally sensitive, ethically grounded, and globally attuned. An awareness of place‐based local concerns is indispensable, as is sensitivity to particular cultures and religions. From this basis an ethics can emerge that is grounded in place and culture, but also globally attuned.

Our biggest challenge to realizing this broader perspective in the United States (and some other Western‐influenced societies) is individualism and a devotion to personal liberties over a sense of a common good. The unanswered question is how to move from a narrow devotion to individual rights toward an embrace of a larger sense of responsibility for the flourishing of life. We need to articulate and image a common well‐being that is not hegemonic or totalizing but inviting, energizing, and participatory. The film and book on the Journey of the Universe has this possibility of bringing us together with a common story that respects differences while acknowledging that we are part of a vast unfolding universe and a living Earth community (Swimme and Tucker ). It is a perspective which affirms that “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects,” as Thomas Berry often observed.

The next sections present suggestions of principles, strategies, and tactics toward the flourishing of people and planet in the face of rapid and relentless climate change.

First Foundational Principle: Valuing Nature as Source Not Resource

Second Foundational Principle: Honoring Humans: Rights and Responsibilities

First Key Strategy: Thinking Consequentially, Short Term and Long Term

Second Key Strategy: Integrating Solutions: Energy and Technology

First Interrelated Tactic: Ensuring Restraint: Curbing Consumption and Population

Second Interrelated Tactic: Creating Law: Global Governance and Global Ethics

Conclusion

As The Earth Charter states:

We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Toward this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.

In this moment of great transition, we need science and religion to work together as never before for the flourishing of the Earth community.