Climate Change: Insights from Hinduism

Abstract

A LARGER CRISIS THAN ANY THAT typically makes the evening news-a terrorist attack, a relentless war that claims civilian lives as "collateral damage," the lengthening shadow of death cast by a fatal virusengulfs us all, even those who are sheltered from the cruel afflictions to which a good portion of humankind is still subject, especially in the global South. Over the last few years, as the opening article in this roundtable by Todd LeVasseur so clearly sets out, a consensus has slowly been emerging among members of the scientific community that climate change is presently taking place at a rate which is unprecedented in comparison with the natural climate change cycles that have characterized our earth in the course of the last half a million years; moreover, as successive Assessment Reports of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) have affirmed, global warming is, to an overwhelming degree, the consequence of human activity. Scientists and increasingly other commentators-various practitioners of the social sciences, journalists, and policy makers-are now inclined to the view that this

Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India

“…Among Indians there were diverse characterisations of earthquakes, some of which located their causes in the motion of heavenly bodies and reflected a longer‐standing trend of astrological predictions (Marcussen, 2017). Gandhi attributed the Bihar earthquake to the ‘sin’ of extreme social and religious inequality known as untouchability (Paranjape, 2011; Lal, 2015). Prasad, however, used his platform as Congress President to articulate a naturalistic vision.…”

Beyond environmental science: Climate action in Hindu religion and Sant Mat tradition

“…The concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which means that the whole world is one family. balances the idea of "self" in Hinduism (Lal 2015). Pankaj Jain suggests that the category of dharma over religion is better equipped to account for the ecological sensibilities of local Indians (Jain 2011).…”

Religion and Climate Change

“…By interpreting climate change through a religious community's native ethical concepts, religious thinkers may seek to show members of a tradition why climate change is a moral issue, and perhaps also why their tradition is particularly well-suited for responding to it. Vinay Lal (54), for example, argues that a cosmology of interconnectedness and concomitant moral posture of solidarity makes Hinduism specially fit for the Anthropocene age. Lal highlights how Hinduism inflects climate comprehension by training practitioners to think in multiple temporal registers, and thus to affirm the existential significance of the deep past and distant future.…”