In his 2018 book The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles C. Mann describes the work and approaches of two of the most important environmentalists of the 20th century: William Vogt and Norman Borlaug. Unfortunately, their “blueprints” are contradictory approaches to the problems of climate change. Mann categorizes those who follow Borlaug’s model of “techno-optimism” (that…
Continue readingTransgressing Our Planetary Boundaries
The Climate Crisis and Ecological Sin, Part 2
by Chris Durante In 1997, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople coined the term “ecological sin[1]” and since then his idea has come to influence a number of thinkers both within the Orthodox Church as well as others; the most prominent of which has been Pope Francis, who cites Bartholomew in his 2015 encyclical Laudato…
Continue readingEthics in the Book of Nature
The Climate Crisis and Ecological Sin, Part 1
by Chris Durante With another season of creation care upon us, we should take heed of the fact that the most recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) respectively affirm, for the first time, that climate change is in fact the result of human activities and that the catastrophic climactic events that…
Continue readingWho Ate All the Pies? On Famine and Fasting
by Natalia Doran Warnings of an impending world food crises are currently being issued by multiple organizations and media of mass communication. A recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation press release points out many factors that are threatening to bring about a famine of Biblical proportions: climate change, legacy of COVID-19, public debt burdens…
Continue readingOur Relation to Land and Sea: An Ethical Reflection on Our Food System
by Chris Durante With the fifth Halki Summit on the environment scheduled to take place in June 2022, I would like to take the opportunity to reflect upon the ways in which we, as Orthodox Christians, can more fully embrace the ecological message that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has repeatedly delivered for more…
Continue readingClimate Crisis and Creation Care
In Response to the Call from Halki 111
by Christina Nellist | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски On the publication of Climate Crisis and Creation Care: Historical Perspectives, Ecological Integrity and Justice and Climate Crisis and Sustainable Creaturely Care: Integrated Theology, Governance and Justice, both edited Christina Nellist (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2021). Today, it is reasonable to…
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