Domain of the Gods: an editorial essay - Springer Link

Climatic Change (2007) 85:231–236 DOI 10.1007/s10584-007-9307-7

Domain of the Gods: an editorial essay Simon D. Donner

Received: 28 March 2006 / Accepted: 10 May 2007 / Published online: 5 October 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract She [the earth] belongs to men as the sky belongs to God. –Plinius Secondus, Natural History Each year in the Fijian village of Matacawlevu on the island of the same name, the people hold a festival to celebrate the planting of crops. There is food, music and no shortage of kava. But the most important part of the festival is a church service where the local minister leads the village in prayers for good weather and a strong harvest. According to Fijian religious tradition, a mix of Methodism and animism typical of the South Pacific, proper prayer assures that the rains will come. In the event of a drought, people blame either each other for not being devout, or blame the minister for failing to properly deliver the people’s message. The tradition of the planting festival masks a sophisticated system of land management that has sustained indigenous people in Fiji and across many islands in Polynesia and Melanesia for centuries. In Matacawalevu, the Chief’s decision to sanction planting is based upon years of experience and the advice of a villager trained in agronomy. Crops are rotated and selected land is left fallow to maintain soil fertility. The village’s agricultural practices follow directly from a deeply held belief that people exert control over land. The weather, however, is up to God.

1 Introduction The degree of public concern about human-induced climate change, especially in North America, has lagged behind that of the scientific community. In the words of writer Bill

S. D. Donner (*) Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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Climatic Change (2007) 85:231–236

McKibben: “Climate change is so obvious. Where’s the outrage?”.1 A lag between identification of any issue by the scientific community and public concern about that issue is expected given the time required for scientists to reach a consensus deemed certain enough to openly discuss the issue outside their community, and the myriad of obstacles, many institutional, to communication between scientists, the public, the media and policymakers. The failure of the public at large to embrace climate change as a pressing concern requiring immediate personal and political action have been attributed more to the unique dynamics of the problem (e.g., Moser and Dilling 2004). The common explanations include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Lack of immediacy. Temporal lag between greenhouse gas emissions and the climate impact Lack of connection between cause (e.g., emissions) and effect (e.g. weather) Climate and weather is multi-factorial (greenhouse gases are just one factor) Disconnect between those most responsible (e.g. present-day developed world) and those most at risk (e.g. future generations, developing world)

The prevailing logic is that these complexities seed doubt about the need, the cost and the ability to address climate change. The doubt contributes to the common arguments against personal emission reductions, including (i) the changes required are not acceptable, in terms of cost or lifestyle, (ii) personal actions are insignificant, (iii) the climate problem is exaggerated, and (iv) the responsibility for action lies with other people, organizations or governments (Stoll-Kleemann et al. 2001). The personal response can be described using the psychology theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957). If there is a dissonance – an inconsistency – between an attitude and a behavior, the attitude is likely to change to accommodate the behavior. In the case of climate change, dissonance often exists between the attitude that increasing greenhouse gases are detrimentally changing the climate and the costs of behavior required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under this logic, the impasse between the attitude and the behavior should end, and emissions reduction should begin, if people learn that the benefits (limited climate change) are greater than the costs (emissions reductions). If climate change is fundamentally a psychological and economic problem, this logical framework should be able to find an optimal solution. But what if climate change is also a philosophical problem? What if human-induced climate change counters our beliefs?

2 The sky as domain of the gods The notion that humans can strongly influence or be in control of the climate counters thousands of years of religious philosophy and existing traditional belief systems worldwide. In Matacawalevu, the people are capable of managing the earth but leave the climate to the deity, in this case a Christian God. The conflict between the basic notion of human-induced climate change and a millennia-old belief in a separation between earth and sky may underpin the slow public response to warnings about climate change. Philosophers since Kant have argued that the ordered movement of the sky and seeming existence of the human soul led cultures worldwide to develop the notion of a supreme being. The sky or atmosphere above appears infinite and transcendent, beyond the access or

1

“Too hot to handle”, New York Times, Jan. 5, 2001.


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control of the residents of the planet (Tanzella-Nitti 2002). The idea that the earth and sky were separated, due to human transgressions, is common throughout mythology (Cornelius and Devereux 1996). The ancient western mythologies or early religions – e.g., Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian and Hindu – all viewed the sky as the domain of the gods (Williams 1998). The best example is Greek mythology, in which Zeus, the Lord of the Sky, was ruler of the Gods. Religions and indigenous belief systems worldwide contain this spiritual separation between earth and sky. For example, the notion that the sky is the home of the supreme being is found in the Old Testament – the blessings of God come “from the sky” – and in the Koran (von Franz 1986). The names of supreme being(s) in traditional cultures reflect this separation of earth and sky: Tulugankul (Inuit) means “he who dwells in the sky”, Ngai (Massai, central-east Africa) means “he who dwells in the sky, behind the clouds”, Orenda (Huron, N. America) refers to both divinity and the sky, Nurelle (Wimbajo, Australia) means “the one who has risen to the sky” (Tanzella-Nitti 2002). The belief that the sky as the home of the Gods also explains the reverence for mythical birds, particularly eagles, in both ancient (e.g., Aztec) and traditional (e.g., native North American) belief systems (Cornelius and Devereux 1996). From ancient mythology to indigenous belief systems to modern organized religions, weather phenomena are believed to be explicitly controlled by the sky-dwelling gods. The weather is central to creation myths – in the book of Genesis, God’s first action after creation of the earth is to blow a wind across the waters. It is also used to discipline or reward people for prayer. In ancient Egypt, the sky-based religion included prayer rituals for rain (Frisinger 1977). Native North American rituals involve communicating with the spirit world that controls the weather and climate. Examples of supreme control of the weather can be found throughout Judeo-Christian texts. In the Leviticus (26:3–4) of the Old Testament, God promises Moses “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will give you rain”. In praying for rain at the annual planting festival, the people of Matacawalevu are continuing a tradition – looking to their god for the weather – followed for thousands of years by people of different cultures and belief systems worldwide.

3 Shifting paradigms The existence of variability in weather and climate is present in the prominent religious texts and narrative of many traditional belief systems. For example, the Biblical “Great Flood” is referenced in the mythology of other religions and some scholars argue its existence is supported by archaeological evidence (Ryan and Pitman 2000). Evidence of weather prediction can also be found throughout ancient religious texts and indigenous oral traditions. As such, the fact that the weather and climate can change over time has been accepted by traditional belief systems for millennia. The possibility that human activity can be responsible for those changes is, on the scale of human history, an extremely new concept. This ability to influence the climate represents a major paradigm shift, arguably on the order of the Copernican Revolution. The common belief in a separation between earth and sky has limited the public understanding of human-induced climate change. It is most apparent in indigenous or strongly observant religious communities. In most Pacific Island nations, educators argue that the commonly held belief that the Christian God controls the weather is greatest obstacle to educating people about climate change. The ability to predict the weather is

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accepted – in the Fijian village of Tilivilevu, an elder accurately predicts the arrival of cyclones by watching the stars2 – but the ability to affect the weather is not. As a consequence, activists in the Pacific Islands must seek the involvement of religious organizations. When the Kyoto Protocol became binding in 2005, the Pacific Council on Churches (PCC) distributed educational material about climate change, including a prayer to read at Sunday services (PCC 2004). Such educational material must specifically address the perceived conflict between reports of rising sea levels and God’s promise to Noah in the Book of Genesis: Some Christians view this covenant as a guarantee that they are not at risk of flooding from climate change. But the sea level is rising and threatening Pacific Islands with flooding from high tides and storm surges. This is not an act of God. It is a result of human economic and consumer activities that pollute the atmosphere and lead to climate change. The stark language illustrates the paradigm shift. Whether in Fiji or in the United States, today’s society evolved from the idea that we must manage the earth, the domain of man, in part to protect ourselves from sky, the domain of the gods. Over modern history, we have constructed complex infrastructures – from the agricultural system of Matacawalevu to the global grain reserves – to protect society from shifts in the weather and climate. The fact that humans can significantly affect the climate contradicts the very beliefs on which today’s society is founded. Weather is today enshrined as an “act of God” in business and everyday discourse. The lasting influence of religious beliefs on perception of weather and climate in Western culture was apparent during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The combination of extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina and research suggesting that ocean warming may be causing an increase in hurricane intensity (Emanuel 2005) brought the science behind climate change into the public eye. There was also extensive public discourse about whether Hurricane Katrina and other recent natural disasters were a result of divine retribution for perceived sins, as seen in religious texts. Mainstream media entertained discussion of the possibility that Hurricane Katrina was a sign of an apocalypse, also foretold by religious texts3. An October, 2005 ABC News/Washington Post poll found 23% of Americans thought Hurricane Katrina was a deliberate act of God versus 39% who thought it was a result of global warming4. More telling than the specific result is the fact that the pollsters and the public viewed global warming and God as two plausible, competing explanations for a weather event. Today, the concept of human-induced climate change may not directly conflict with the everyday religious beliefs of the majority of people in North America or Europe, as it does in many Pacific Islands. Yet doubt about human influence on the climate may be grounded in a more general feeling, a remnant of thousands of years of belief in earth–sky separation, that unspecified forces grander than humans control the climate. Skeptics of climate change have effectively exploited this spiritual uncertainty about human influence on climate by stressing the natural variability in the climate system. For example, organizations discouraging reduction in greenhouse gas emissions often distribute material that focuses 2 Final Report of “Capacity building for the development of adaptation measures in Pacific Island countries”, Canadian International Development Agency, 2005. 3 For example, CNN’s “Situtation Room” on October 5, 2005. Transcript is available at http://transcripts.cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/10/sitroom.03.html 4

Poll available at http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=1174220&page=1.


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on the large forces that alter climate over time, rather than the evidence for a human impact on the climate: The earth’s temperature has fluctuated for millions of years. The ice ages are a good example. The planet cooled sufficiently to cover large land masses with ice, then warmed, causing the ice to retreat. In modern times, most people can remember summers that were hotter and drier than usual and winters that were colder and wetter.5 Though this excerpt from an Exxon-Mobil publication contains no explicit mention of a supreme being that dwells in the sky, the thesis is clear: the weather and the climate are beyond human control. This form of argument is extremely common throughout the literature of those skeptical of human-induced climate change, from materials distributed by industry-funded lobbying groups to State of Fear, the best-selling Michael Crichton novel. Whether intentional or not, the argument taps into our pre-existing doubts that humans could disturb the domain of the gods.

4 Conclusion From Galileo to Darwin, science is full of examples where new discoveries challenged traditional beliefs. If history is a guide, it can take decades or centuries for the new science to become the new orthodoxy. The battle over public acceptance of natural selection is still being fought 150 years after the publication of the Darwin’s The Origin of Species. The potential for human-induced climate change may not belong on a list of the most fundamental scientific discoveries of last 500 years. Like those discoveries, however, it does challenge a belief held by virtually all religions and cultures worldwide for thousands of years. This long view of history needs to be reflected in campaigns to educate the public, who do not have the benefit of years of graduate training in atmospheric science, about the science of climate change. The true communications challenge facing climate scientists, educators and policymakers is time. Aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could need to begin in the next decade to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference” in the climate system, like the collapse of major ice sheets, shifts in ocean circulation and the widespread degradation of coral reefs (e.g., O’Neill and Oppenheimer 2002). Garnering strong public and political support for any substantial near-term action is requiring society to adapt beliefs held relatively constant for millennia in a matter of years. This is one example where scientific community may need to work with theologians and philosophers. Many leaders in the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic community recognize the possible threat posed by human-induced climate change and are actively working to reconcile understanding of climate change with their belief systems (Schut and Barnett 2005). The influential Christian evangelical movement in the USA recently began a campaign to educate followers about the need for action on climate change (Hagg 2006). Scientists should not be afraid to embrace religious or philosophical initiatives to address the fundamental understanding of the human relationship with the climate. Otherwise, future historians may conclude that a failure to confront questions of

5

Excerpt from ExxonMobil Safety, Health and Environment Progress Report, 2000.

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belief, rather than questions of economics, explains the failure of our generation to act in time. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many people interviewed during field campaign that led to this essay, including Ilisapeci Neitoga, the climate change officer for the Government of Fiji, Jyotishma Rajan from Greenpeace, Alexander Hoener from the World Council of Churches, Nakibae Tenatabo from the Government of Kiribati, and Sakeasa Ralulu, the agricultural officer in Matacawalevu. The insights of the editor and an anonymous reviewer were instrumental in refining this essay.

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