Laudato Si and the Role of Religion in Shaping Humanity's Response to Climate Change

Abstract

There are many ways in which people have sought to make climate change personally salient and actionable through self-interest, such as national security and human health. But the Pope’s recent encyclical letter, Laudato Si’ has elevated the importance of religious morality as a motivator. It’s a bold appeal to reevaluate our worldviews, values and spiritual beliefs and elevate climate change and the broad sweep of environmental issues beyond that of strictly an “environmental issue,” a label that has ghettoized the issue as one that is associated with a liberal environmental movement. When people hear the message to address climate change and protect the environment from the church, mosque, synagogue or temple, it will have far more power to motivate action than a regulatory or economic message ever will. Religion, unlike any other institutional force in society, has the power to directly influence our values and beliefs. And at this particular moment in our human existence on earth – the epoch of the Anthropocene – this religious voice is all the more important. A proper response to the Anthropocene Era calls for a new set of values and beliefs about our relationship with the environment, with each other and for many, with God.