The role of religions in shaping public responses to climate change today should be taken seriously by civil society and policy makers. This is true for the question of how to adapt to a warming world as much as it is for how to prevent it. But the complexities and diverse interpretations of both those phenomena (religion and climate change) mean that the answers are far from simple, or unified.

In this research panel we will hear from three scholars working on different aspects of religion and climate change, with the aim of provoking and deepening the public debate.

Evan Berry (Philosophy and Religious Studies, American University) will report from a project exploring the complexity of the relationship between religion and the environment. Diverse global case studies will both highlight possibilities of synergy, and remind us of how religious commitments can also run at cross purposes to ecological sustainability.

Jeremy Kidwell (Christian Ethics, Birmingham University) will present work in progress on the temporality of (climate) activism. Exploring in particular the power of place, attachment and ‘nostalgia’, and combining social scientific and philosophical research with years of field work in the UK climate activism scene.

Stefan Skrimshire (Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds) will present some work in progress on religion and the ‘sixth mass extinction’. He will explore Christian approaches to mortality and immortality as a critique of the politics of extinction: that is, attempts to globally manage, engineer, and master death and life in response to climate change.

Panel presentations will be followed by responses from two members of CRPL: Emma Tomalin (Religions and Global Development, University of Leeds) and Rachel Muers (Christian Studies, University of Leeds), before opening up to discussion.

Please confirm your attendance to CRPL intern Hollie Gowan (jh09hgg@leeds.ac.uk)

For further information, please contact: Stefan Skrimshire (s.skrimshire@leeds.ac.uk)

Photo credit: British Province of Carmelites