CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Religion could help save the ecology of our planet. Religious values are core to many people in this world3 and we must speak to this core to realize the radical ethical changes required to save our planet.4 Laws designed to prevent environmental degradation must be crafted and implemented with recognition that, in the face of scientific uncertainty, religious values play an important role alongside the traditional cost-benefit analysis, typically claimed to constitute rational decision-making.5 In this article, we have chosen 2006]

RELIGIONS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

to examine the religious path to an environmental ethic in order to offer “a framework that raises ethical issues and expects ethical conduct.” We hope that religious principles will serve as a “stepping stone[]” in bridging the gap between human-centered utilitarianism and the environmental moralist approach.8 Scientific uncertainty exists in many environmental decisions. Therefore, value choices must be made in the absence of known future consequences.10 Religious values, as well as other values informing policy decisions in the face of uncertainty, should be acknowledged so that they may be debated openly and honestly.11 environmental values relevant to their decisionmaking” including “certain ‘squishy’ values”); But see Bruce Yandle, Mr. Lomborg and the Common Law, 53 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 285, 292 (2002) (“For fundamental institutional change to enter the action agenda, calm and rational thought must have replaced fear, pessimism, and religious sentiments about environmental use.”). 6. Eric T. Freyfogle, The Land Ethic and Pilgrim Leopold, 61 U. COLO. L. REV. 217, 255 (1990). See also Robert W. Lanna, Catholic Tradition, and the New Catholic Theology and Social Teaching on the Environment, 39 CATH. LAW.

353, 354 (2000) (explaining that “[n]ot long after the modern environmental movement began nearly thirty years ago, a small number of theologians began exploring applications of Catholic tradition and social teaching to address the environmental challenges facing the world”); Larry B. Stammer, The Nation: Faith-Based Stance on Environment, L.A. TIMES, July 4, 2004, at A18 (reporting on a group of evangelical leaders from conservative Christian churches who have “agreed to work for faith-based environmental activism” and discussing how this may impact the Republican political agenda).

Holly Doremus, Environmental Ethics and Environmental Law: Harmony, Dissonance, Cacophony, or Irrelevance?, 37 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1, 6 (2003). See also Thomas M.J. Möllers, A Call for Consideration of Human Modes of Behavior When Promoting Environmentally Correct Behavior by Means of Information and Force of Law, in LAW & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 315, 319-20 (1999) (noting that even when people realize the negative consequences of their actions on the environment they fail to act appropriately since “[c]atering for one’s own personal needs – not to say desires – clearly take preference over a communal attempt to protect the environment”). 8. See Doremus, supra note 7, at 7. But see Dan Tarlock, Environmental Law: Ethics or Science, 7 DUKE ENVTL. L. & POL’Y F. 193, 200 (1996) (“[f]rom an environmental perspective both religion and Enlightenment thinking share the same defect: humankind is the exclusive interest.”). 9. See Holly Doremus, Constitutive Law and Environmental Policy, 22 STAN. ENVTL. L.J. 295, 297 (2003) (“Uncertainty pervades every aspect of environmental law.”).