CLIMATE, CATASTROPHE, AND FAITH

One of the world s leading scholars of religious trends shows how climate change has driven dramatic religious upheavals Long before the current era of man made climate change the world has suffered repeated severe climate driven shocks These shocks have resulted in famine disease violence social upheaval and mass migration But these shocks were also religious events Dramatic shifts in climate have often been understood in religious terms by the people who experienced them They were described in the language of apocalypse millennium and Judgment Often too the eras in which these shocks occurred have been marked by far reaching changes in the nature of religion and spirituality Those changes have varied widely from growing religious fervor and commitment to the stirring of mystical and apocalyptic expectations to waves of religious scapegoating and persecution or the spawning of new religious movements and revivals In many cases such responses have had lasting impacts fundamentally reshaping particular religious traditions In Climate Catastrophe and Faith historian Philip Jenkins draws out the complex relationship between religion and climate change He asserts that the religious movements and ideas that emerge from climate shocks often last