Barbara Jane Davy, ESAC President
Anne Marie Dalton, Saint Mary’s University, CFORE

Beyond Consultation: Method in Global Ecological Ethics

Global ecological ethics is inherently inter-religious and cross-cultural, or in a post-colonial world, it should be.  While there is much good work being done in the efforts to build a global conversation (such as the Earth Charter movement, Berry’s “New Story”), Eurocentric assumptions and methods are nevertheless implicitly built into the framework of the discussion.  This presentation calls attention to this situation and suggests ways in which the methods of doing ecological ethics can be enhanced.  These include attention to ethical categories and the consideration of narrative as ethical deliberation.

Nancie Erhard, Saint Mary’s University

Doing Environmental Education in the Church: Obstacles and Opportunities

Millennia of historical tradition along with new ways of conceptualizing and enacting the human place in creation can offer intriguing guides for cultural critique and shifts of consciousness of individuals and congregations.  On the other hand, those involved in the churches may be concerned about errant belief systems, or focused on the traditional human-centred social action.  Like other citizens, those who are involved in churches may also be strongly influenced by the dominant social and cultural contexts of western civilization to the extent that environmental concerns and social transformation are difficult concepts to grasp.  This presentation will address these obstacles and opportunities through an auto-ethnographic exploration of actual environmental education experience in Catholic, Mennonite, and Protestant church-based contexts.

Randolph Haluza-DeLay, King's University College

Hermetic practices based in the Western spiritual tradition can provide a meaningful response to the uncertainties of climate change in the physical and social sciences.  Hermeticism is a synthesizing method that can interlink the individual and the environment (i.e. microcosm and macrocosm), using scientific knowledge as the starting point for a contemplative practice that can inform action.  I engage this hermetic practice of contemplating climate change by following the teachings of the 13th century anonymous book called the 'Cloud of Unknowing.'  The ‘Cloud of Unknowing,’ and the broader Christian tradition known as apophatic theology, embraces the inability of the intellect to pierce creation’s divinity by calling upon the active engagement of our uncertainty through a passionate love for mystery.  By affirming the unknowable while embracing scientific knowledge, the hermetic method can compliment scientific ‘understandings of’ and ‘responses to’ the uncertainty of climate change.

Tim Leduc, York University