Climate collapse has been an “all-hands-on-deck issue for a long time,” says Diane L. Moore, Faculty Director of Religion and Public Life. She continues, “We all have a stake in addressing this question. We must all be attentive to climate if we are to engage in a more sustainable future. That includes Religion and Public Life.”
The first semester of the newly launched Religion and Public Life (RPL) program has been characterized by its investment in climate. The public Weather Reports series hosted by Terry Tempest Williams was in partnership with Moore, who simultaneously taught the HDS course, “Weather Reports Seminar: Conversations in a Climate of Uncertainty.” Moore explains this two-pronged approach, saying, “the implications of climate collapse are deeply relevant to the mission of RPL and Harvard Divinity School, so RPL is eager to make climate an overarching frame for all its work.”
With many diverse entry points to the climate conversation, RPL needed an expert to ground and deepen climate engagement at HDS. Consequently, Teresa Cavazos Cohn joined RPL’s 2021–22 Fellows in the Professions cohort as the first RPL Climate Change Fellow. Cohn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire and affiliate faculty member in the Department of Natural Resources and Society at the University of Idaho. She is also the co-founder of the interdisciplinary Confluence Lab at the University of Idaho, which facilitates collaboration between biophysical scientists, social scientists, and arts and humanities scholars with community members to address contentious environmental issues—including climate—in creative and productive ways.
Moore and Cohn sat down to have a conversation about religion and climate following the Weather Reports series and seminar. Cohn’s approach to communicating about climate issues is important to Moore. She says, “Teresa not only brings expertise in the science of climate and climate change but also in communicating complexity to a general audience. Her work is deeply collaborative with other communities, including Native communities. That, for us, is the heart of what we're trying to do with RPL: engage in deep, ground-level collaborations with people who share a vision of a just peace.”
No matter how much a person cares about an issue, such as climate, there are moments when they withdraw. Moore asserts that it is important to understand that cultures are shaped by individuals. She says, “The values that animate a given culture are influenced by people's convictions and their determination to represent those convictions.” One example is the “centrality of humanity” framework that often fails to cultivate respect for the natural world and non-human life. Beliefs such as this have been baked into history and often supported by religions.
Such entrenched ideas can make culture seem inevitable, but Moore assures us that this is not true. She says,
“Our beliefs and actions create culture; thus, individuals can shift culture. Whether we represent values that legitimize both structural and direct violence or values that legitimize both structural and direct peace is up to us. I believe profoundly in the power of asserting one’s individual agency. We must take seriously the idea that our convictions and daily actions matter.”
She continues, “We need to be courageous about expressing our values. We need to find communities that sustain our belief that we can make a difference and shift our culture away from the dire future that seems inevitable right now. What we believe is possible matters.”
Even with this understanding of culture and our ability to make a difference, not having a clear way to engage can create a psychological barrier to entry. Cohn recalls Paul Slovic and Scott Slovic’s research on “pseudoinefficacy.” Pseudoinefficacy is our natural tendency to disengage from vast, abstract issues that deal with a lot of numbers. Cohn explains, “Knowing that our natural tendency is to disengage from overwhelming issues is helpful. It indicates that if we focus on the concrete, intimate aspects of an issue, we can give people a path toward action rather than paralysis.”
Cohn believes that sharing stories can help people connect on an individual level, which increases their capacity to engage with issues empathetically. She says, “This approach doesn't require a person to solve the climate change problem. It just asks them to engage in the things that inspire hopeful action.”
Moore adds, “We need to pay attention to that which we often overlook—the webs of connection that bind us all. Our interactions, human-to-human, and our deep recognition of our interdependence with the natural world provides a sense of hope because it brings joy. It helps us see beauty, which reminds us why any of this matters in the first place.”
Cohn has had to think a lot about how to bring people together for productive conversations in Idaho, where feelings about the environment and climate change are often complicated. She says, “Conversations about developing more sensitive relationships with the natural world have proven productive. It is a different kind of conversation from climate change, but I believe that creating spaces for stories with dialogue that focuses on shared experience rather than divisiveness can help us create change.” Moore adds,
“If we can create spaces where rich complexities can emerge and exist as opposed to the one-dimensional discourse around climate, then we can extend an invitation to come and explore the fullness of who we are.”
“This work isn’t just about solving the grand problem.” Cohn explains. “It’s also about how we better negotiate the rooms we find ourselves in, have productive dialogue, and develop a community that will engage together to solve the problems at hand.” Moore agrees, saying, “One reason the Weather Reports seminar was powerful was because of the incredible diversity in the room. We think about what it means to really engage people that you might not otherwise encounter and take them seriously.”
We often write off each other too quickly to create spaces of meaningful engagement. Moore ascribes this tendency to a “politically charged, simplistic sense that the world is a zero-sum equation: you’re either with me or against me.” She says, “If we can get away from the political division and just start inviting people into connections, then I believe we can build communities that yield a different kind of political will. A will to engage in policies that are attentive to the fullness of the community and not just a single dimension of it.”
Understanding that making space for complexity is a crucial part of productive dialogue, Moore says, “We have to ask ourselves what it looks like to invite curiosity as opposed to judgment. We must presume that we are more than the worst fear we have about each other. We are more than the worst thing we've done. We are more than the worst idea we have. We are such complex rich beings. This is what sustains our attention to each other and the natural world.”
To Moore, these ideas are what characterize meaningful hope. She describes this type of optimism, saying, “It’s not simplistic or naïve. It’s deeply realistic and dedicated to the process of imagining and enacting new futures together.”
Cohn relates to the need for hope as well. After reading an article in Nature that shared post-2050 predictions on water and water availability, she shares, “We have all read many sobering predictions and stories. Yet, we can still be bowled over by them, having to rework it all in our minds again.” She continues, “While I’m still reeling from the information in that article, my positive experience working with students at Harvard Divinity School helps me maintain a sense of hope. It doesn’t change the weather, so to speak, but it changes my sense of community and my optimism about creativity and our ability to generate new ideas. It has helped me feel that we have the tools to manage the situation.”
Providing people with the tools to interact with complex issues like climate is an important part of RPL’s mission to promote the public understanding of religion in service of just peace. Moore says, “This is not an abstract, purely intellectual, or neutral enterprise. We believe that better understanding of the power of religion can truly help us achieve what will benefit both humanity and the natural world. This enterprise of understanding the power of religion in both its negative and positive forces is crucial to helping us become the best of what we can be in this critical time.”
Cohn frames some of the questions we can ask ourselves as we try to join this enterprise: “How do we create strong communities? How do we create beautiful relationships? What can we do to facilitate the spaces that we’re in so that they’re functional and productive and work towards a better common future and just peace?”
As we move forward, Moore forecasts a “dense fog with a persistent shimmer of light.”
“The dense fog is a recognition that we only know what we know, which is often what we have right before us. The shimmering light is my sense that we have power together and power in the natural world. If we are open to understanding climate and pause to attend to it, then it will guide us. We must attend to it because climate change is relevant to everything we do. It is at the forefront of our consciousness. Climate changes everything.”
By Natalie Cherie Campbell