IngentaConnect Fuelling America's Climatic Apocalypse

Author: Leduc, Timothy B.¹

Source: World Views: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, Volume 11, Number 3, 2007 , pp. 255-283(29)

Publisher: BRILL

Abstract:

This paper examines the powerful intersection of Christian fundamentalism and fossil fuel interests in the United States' Republican administration's policy response to climate change. Of particular interest is the increasing recognition that apocalyptic Christian beliefs are informing America's political economic and public understanding of environmental issues, thus allowing climate change to be interpreted from a religious frame of reference that could impact a viable response in a country whose GHG emissions are amongst the highest in the world. While liberal secularists may think the Christian apocalypse to be a misguided belief, scientific discourses on the potential interacting impacts of climatic changes and energy shortages offer an almost complementary rational depiction of apocalypse. By bringing these Christian and secular revelations into dialogue, the following interdisciplinary analysis offers a unique perspective on the way in which apocalyptic thought can both negatively and positively inform a political economic response to climate change.

Keywords: CLIMATE CHANGE; PEAK OIL; FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANITY; REPUBLICAN POLITICAL ECONOMICS; APOCALYPSE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1163/156853507X230555

Affiliations: 1: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3

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