I am a fisherman and I worry about my livelihood.
Vast areas of the ocean are closed to fishing, and
now oil is creeping into the estuaries and marshlands
that serve as fish and shrimp nurseries.
Breath to breath, body to body, we are One.
So be it.

I am a dolphin used to swimming freely around
the ocean oil rigs, but now when I dive
and surface I must go through layers of oil.
My pod and I cannot get away from it.
Breath to breath, body to body, we are One.
So be it.

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It’s not the connection I would make, but the analysis of what counts as “religious faith” (i.e., at least organized religion) is not uncommon.

Faith is belief without verifiable evidence. This unquestioned adherence to the theory of Global Warming bears all the markings of what traditionally would be recognized as a religion. Complete with sin (the emitting of carbon dioxide), scriptures (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports), commandments (drive a Prius, use Compact Florescent Light bulbs, do not eat meat etc.), indulgences (carbon offsets), proselytism, prophets (Al Gore), priests (scientists), prophecy and apocalypse (floods, hurricanes, dead polar bears), infidels (Warming skeptics), and salvation (the halting of carbon emitting industrial progress) the religion of Global Warming fits the mold.

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[Worshipers at a shrine in Muranga pray facing Mt. Kenya during a ceremony to ask for rain. They also sacrificed a goat. The 17,057-foot mountain has lost 92% of its glacier cover over the last 100 years. Edmund Sanders / Los Angeles Times]

It’s easy to see why religious people would have any number of responses to the problem of climate change. Some have taken climate change as an opportunity to practice what they see as a God-given stewardship over the earth. Some, on the other hand, think that the earth is God’s gift to humanity and that it is our to use. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say these folks think it’s OK to abuse the earth, perhaps people in this group wouldn’t call certain environmental practices as form of abuse.

But this article from the LA Times puts the religious aspects of climate change into a much different context: the context of loss of faith. What happens when your god inhabits a mountain and the mountain’s environment changes? Climate change might kill off a tree frog, let’s say. But can it kill a deity?

In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, reduced melts have contributed to rolling blackouts when rivers fed by the mountain are unable to run hydroelectric plants.

But for those Kenyans who still practice tribal religions and revere Mt. Kenya as the home of God, the environmental alterations mean more than a threat to their livelihood. For them, the melting ice and other changes on their mountain have triggered a crisis of faith.

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