Religious Views on Climate Change Mitigation

"A December 2011 public opinion study by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland 
and its affiliate, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, found that the religious and moral beliefs of 
a majority of Americans can lead them to directly or indirectly prefer policies that would address threats to 
the environment and mitigate the effects of global climate change. Yet, the study also confirmed how few 
believers initially think of climate change and other threats to the environment in religious or moral terms. 
The wide-ranging ways in which questions about environmental issues can be framed could help to explain 
how believers who don’t readily identify addressing environmental threats as spiritual obligations are able 
to engage these beliefs. Other possible explanations include (1) that Americans think about their religious 
and moral beliefs more as they apply to people’s personal lives than to big-picture, long-term issues such as 
climate change and/or (2) that spirituality and public policy engage different cognitive modes and that 
individuals are willing to act out of a moral construct without scientific reason. Based on these survey 
findings, this paper suggests that finding ways to overcome these obstacles and engage individuals on the 
basis of their religious and moral beliefs could be an effective way to increase public support for action and 
policies aimed at mitigating environmental threats, including global climate change." 

For Full Article: 
Religious Views on Climate Change Mitigation  by Jonas Siegel, Research Associate (jsiegel@umd.edu) 
Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (USA)