In this innovative and deeply felt work, Bron Taylor examines the evolution of “green religions” in North America and beyond: spiritual practices that hold nature as sacred and have in many cases ...replaced traditional religions. Tracing a wide range of groups—radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, new-agers involved in “ecopsychology,” and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred—Taylor addresses a central theoretical question: How can environmentally oriented, spiritually motivated individuals and movements be understood as religious when many of them reject religious and supernatural worldviews? The “dark” of the title further expands this idea by emphasizing the depth of believers' passion and also suggesting a potential shadow side: besides uplifting and inspiring, such religion might mislead, deceive, or in some cases precipitate violence. This book provides a fascinating global tour of the green religious phenomenon, enabling readers to evaluate its worldwide emergence and to assess its role in a critically important religious revolution.
The Future of Conservation survey, launched in March 2017, has proposed a framework to help with interpreting the array of ethical stances underpinning the motivations for biological conservation. In ...this article we highlight what is missing in this debate to date. Our overall aim is to explore what an acceptance of ecocentric ethics would mean for how conservation is practised and how its policies are developed. We start by discussing the shortcomings of the survey and present a more convincing and accurate categorization of the conservation debate. Conceiving the future of conservation as nothing less than an attempt to preserve abundant life on earth, we illustrate the strategic and ethical advantage of ecocentric over anthropocentric approaches to conservation. After examining key areas of the current debate we endorse and defend the Nature Needs Half and bio-proportionality proposals. These proposals show how the acceptance of an ecocentric framework would aid both practices and policies aimed at promoting successful conservation. We conclude that these proposals bring a radically different and more effective approach to conservation than anthropocentric approaches, even though the latter purport to be pragmatic.
•Explaining competing ethical underpinnings for nature conservation•Critical discussion of the Future of Conservation survey•Compelling categorization of ecocentric approaches versus anthropocentric approaches•Highlighting the importance of the Nature Needs Half framework
Apocalypse Then, Now-and Future? Taylor, Bron
Ecocene: Cappadocia journal of environmental humanities,
06/2020, Volume:
1, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Since The Limits to Growth study in 1972 scores of studies have concluded that, without a dramatic reduction in human numbers and per-capita consumption and thus ecosystem destruction, and absent ...concomitant transformation of technological, economic, political, and value systems, widespread collapse of Earth’s socioecological systems will commence and accelerate during the 21st century. Although apocalyptic end-of-theworld-as-we-know-it expectations are historically longstanding and typically entangled with religious beliefs such expectations are now firmly grounded in the sciences. The apocalyptic imagination, whether traditionally religious or fueled by science typically avers that after the envisioned cataclysm a better existence is possible (if not certain), at least for the survivors (who are sometimes assumed to be the religiously devout). Science-based apocalypticism, however, increasingly projects an utterly bleak, biologically and socially impoverished future. Nevertheless, it remains possible that apocalyptic sciences and the imaginaries they have kindled, including as expressed by environmental humanities scholars and amplified by the voices (speaking metaphorically) of Earth’s suffering organisms and ecosystems, will precipitate a new era of cooperation and innovation and thus, not only avert widespread socioecological collapse, but kindle ecotopian visions futures.
Environment-focused institutions aflliated with the United Nations and other non-governmental agencies have long sought to mobilize religious individuals and groups to construct environmentally ...sustainable societies. Often, those involved have come from the world’s academic, religious, and political intelligentsias. Two major conferences in 2016 continue the pattern, which, generally speaking, is characterized by religionists and scholars sympathetic to specilc traditions contending that, properly understood, the world’s religions promote environmental concern. Social scientilc studies regarding the role of religion in environmental behaviors question these earnest hopes. Indeed, comprehensive reviews of pertinent studies suggest that such assertions may represent a form of strategic essentialism designed to spur religious peoples to engage in something that, given their traditions’ foci, does not come naturally to them, namely, putting a priority on environmental conservation.
Despite signi?cant progress in the development of the religion and nature ?eld, there is still far too little data available to evaluate conclusively hypotheses regarding the ‘greening of religion’, ...regardless of whether the traditions in focus are large or small, longstanding or recently emerging. The ?eld needs to move beyond anecdotal information and wishful thinking and develop a much more complex and robust, mixed methods social science to explore the religious dimensions of the quest for environmental sustainability and conservation. Only then will we be able to assess more accurately whether it is possible for such phenomena to contribute strongly to efforts to create a more equitable and environmentally sustainable world. Scholars interested in pursuing historically and empirically such questions are invited to contact JSRNC editors in order to establish a task force to pursue these questions.
Michael Soulé is best known for his scientific contributions and central role in founding the Society for Conservation Biology and its flagship journal. Less well known are his childhood experiences, ...his affinity for Zen Buddhism and Arne Naess’ deep ecology philosophy, and his contributions as an environmental activist to efforts to protect biodiversity and rewild ecosystems. Also less well known is the extent to which he was an interdisciplinary environmental studies scholar, struggling to understand what promotes and hinders proenvironmental behaviors. In this regard, his life and that of many other conservation scientists provide important clues, but no easy answers. By attempting to integrate the humanities, with its quest for a meaningful and fulfilling human existence, with naturalistic nature spirituality and ecocentric values, as well as the social and natural sciences, Soulé sought to solve the riddle as to why human beings seemed unable to understand, slow, and halt negative anthropogenic environmental change. He thus modeled what interdisciplinary environmental studies is at its best. Those advocating the conservation of biological diversity have much to learn from Michael Soulé, not only from his scientific findings but also from his way of seeing, the questions he asked, and his love of the living world.
Michael Soulé (1936‐2020) y Su Visión de la Espiritualidad, la Ética y la Biología de la Conservación
Resumen
Michael Soulé es más conocido por sus contribuciones científicas y su papel central en la fundación de la Sociedad para la Biología de la Conservación y su publicación estandarte. Pocos conocen sus experiencias durante la niñez, su afinidad por el budismo Zen y la filosofía de ecología profunda de Arne Naess y sus contribuciones como activista ambiental para la protección de la biodiversidad y la refaunación de los ecosistemas. También es poco conocido el nivel que alcanzó como académico en estudios ambientales interdisciplinarios, siempre luchando por entender qué promueve y qué obstaculiza los comportamientos proambientales. Es en este aspecto que su vida y la de muchos otros científicos de la conservación proporcionan indicios importantes, pero no respuestas fáciles. Cuando intentó integrar a las humanidades, siempre en búsqueda de una existencia humana significativa y gratificante, con una espiritualidad naturalista de la naturaleza y los valores ecocéntricos, así como con las ciencias sociales y naturales, Soulé buscaba resolver el acertijo de por qué los humanos parecen incapaces de entender, disminuir y detener el cambio ambiental antropogénico. Fue así como modeló lo que son los estudios ambientales interdisciplinarios en su mejor expresión. Quienes defienden la conservación de la biodiversidad tienen mucho que aprender de Michael Soulé, no sólo a partir de sus descubrimientos científicos sino también de su manera de ver el mundo, las preguntas que hacía y su amor por el mundo viviente.
Article Impact Statement: The life, spirituality, and ethics of Michael Soulé provide valuable insights for biodiversity advocates.
“Soul surfers” consider surfing to be a profoundly meaningful practice that brings physical, psychological, and spiritual benefits. They generally agree on where surfing initially developed, that it ...assumed a religious character, was suppressed for religious reasons, has been undergoing a revival, and enjoins reverence for and protection of nature. This subset of the global surfing community should be understood as a new religious movement—a globalizing, hybridized, and increasingly influential example of what I call aquatic nature religion. For these individuals, surfing is a religious form in which a specific sensual practice constitutes its sacred center, and the corresponding experiences are constructed in a way that leads to a belief in nature as powerful, transformative, healing, and sacred. I advance this argument by analyzing these experiences, as well as the myths, rites, symbols, terminology, technology, material culture, and ethical mores that are found within surfing subcultures.
Trevor Schoonmaker, Spirit in the Land Taylor, Bron
Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture,
10/2023, Volume:
17, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Trevor Schoonmaker, Spirit in the Land (Durham: Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University Press, 2023), 136 pp, $29.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9780938989455.
