Reassessing the Role of Religion in Western Climate Change Decision-Making

Abstract

Environmentalism became a dominant form of secular religion in twentieth-century America.¹ It spawned powerful social movements that derived much of their moral and political authority from a type of “environmental fundamentalism,” which has been referred to as “the fourth great religious awakening.”² This environmental fundamentalism was often a reaction to social optimism grounded in the gospels of economic prosperity and the powers of science.