The link between belief and behavior (Case Study: global warming)

CO2 is the exhaling breath of the global economy. Changing this will require an unprecedented and united global effort. Which, in turn, will require a higher level of global consciousness. This is the inevitable direction we’re heading, and we should be privileged that our generation has the opportunity to achieve it.

That’s my best summary of the message in Al Gore’s new slideshow. The question of how belief and behavior are linked is a central one for this blog, and we’ll have more to stay on it, and look forward to your comments, in the coming posts. For now, here’s Al:

So how do we go about achieving a new level of global consciousness? In Gore’s 1992 book, he points out various philosophies and Faith movements that could inspire us in this direction, including the Baha’i Faith:

One of the newest of the great universalist religions, Baha’i, founded in 1863 in Persia by Mirza Husayn Ali, warns us not only to properly regard the relationship between humankind and nature but also the one between civilization and the environment. Perhaps because its guiding visions were formed during the period of accelerating industrialism, Baha’i seems to dwell on the spiritual implications of the great transformation to which it bore fresh witness:

“We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.”

And, again, from the Baha’i sacred writings comes this:“Civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men.”

What do you see as the role of religion in addressing climate change or other global issues?