The Nature of the Problem

Humanity faces multiple existential threats.[1] Above all, it is failing to live within non-negotiable biophysical limits. [2] For instance, despite over decades of intensive international negotiations, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise. Hence, according to the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), humanity will face increasingly severe climate change-related events.[3] These will include more extreme storms, droughts, heatwaves, fires, and floods, along with increasing ocean acidification, significant biodiversity loss, and accelerating sea level rise.[4]

Recent global and local events highlight what lies ahead. Already, global mean surface temperatures are approaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key guardrail set in the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, and since early 2023 daily sea surface temperatures have been at unprecedented levels.[5] During 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand experienced 17 states of emergency due to severe weather events, with flood damage exceeding $10 billion.

Meanwhile, current atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations, at around 420 parts per million, are at their highest levels in about four million years.[6] At that time, the global mean surface temperature was between 2.5°C and 4.0°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. Moreover, even if net-zero GHG emissions are achieved globally by mid-century, critical tipping points in the Earth system may be crossed, generating powerful positive feedbacks.[7] These could contribute, among other things, to multi-meter sea level rise by 2150, if not earlier, with severe social, economic, and ecological effects.

Where Does Hope Lie?

Unsurprisingly, in the face of climate change—and the wider ecological crisis—many people feel helpless, powerless, and without hope. Internationally, there is much talk of a “loss of hope”, if not a “crisis of hope”. To quote the eco-theologian Timothy Robinson: “individuals and communities everywhere are experiencing a loss of solace – an inability to take comfort in the world around them, an inability to imagine a flourishing future for themselves or their ecosystems.”[8] What, then, does the future hold? Can humanity avert a climate catastrophe? Realistically, what is there to hope for?

This article briefly outlines and assesses five responses to such questions drawn from a range of theological, scientific, technological, and socio-cultural standpoints. The assessment assumes the existence of God—a God who created, sustains, and loves the cosmos, but who has also granted creation a degree of freedom to become what it will.[9]

1.     It is already too late: civilization is doomed

The first response reflects the views of ‘climate pessimists’ and ‘climate doomers’.[10] From this perspective, earth’s life-support systems are on an irreversible path to destabilization and collapse. Important tipping points will be crossed within decades, thus sparking a protracted tipping cascade and accelerated warming. The result, eventually, will be a radically transformed planet, one largely inhospitable to human life, if not most forms of life. Compounding matters, humanity’s response to the unfolding ecological disaster will be ineffective, marred by armed conflicts, despotic regimes, and economic crises. Only small numbers of human beings are likely to survive.

How realistic is this grim scenario? While a tipping cascade with severe biophysical impacts certainly cannot be ruled out, many scientists question whether it is inevitable.[11] Nevertheless, even without a tipping cascade, a much warmer planet will generate huge costs, much suffering, and multiple extinctions. Accordingly, future generations risk being much worse off in multiple respects.

Regarding claims that it is “already too late”, note that there are many kinds of ecological losses and numerous variants of a global catastrophe; hence, there is a spectrum of possible damages, from lesser to greater.[12] Equally, it will never be too late, as the climate scientist Mike Hulme emphasizes, “to do the right thing”—that is, to act responsibly, courageously, and compassionately to prevent large-scale ecological or social harm.[13]

2.     There is no climate emergency

A radically different view is advanced by many who reject the IPCC’s assessments and dispute the idea of a climate emergency—or the wider ecological crisis. Those adopting such views fall into various camps.[14] Some are highly trained scientists but tend to be contrarians by disposition. Some work for major fossil fuel companies. Others are committed to ideological or religious presuppositions that are inconsistent with the key findings, or policy implications, of the mainstream science. For instance, those who oppose comprehensive environmental regulations are often quick to question the IPCC’s periodic assessments.

Various religious presuppositions also contribute to climate scepticism. The eminent American theologian, Wayne Grudem once declared,

It does not seem to me that God would set up the world to work in such a way that human beings would eventually destroy the earth by doing such ordinary and morally good and necessary things as breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm, burning fuel to travel, or using energy for a refrigerator to preserve food.[15]

Over the years such claims have been endorsed by numerous theologians and church leaders, especially in the United States.

But the theology and physics underpinning such contentions are fundamentally mistaken. Human actions, whether ‘ordinary’ or otherwise, matter; they have real consequences – both good and bad. This reflects the way the world is made. It is ordered. There are physical laws. There is cause and effect. If a fridge uses chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a refrigerant, it will damage the ozone layer. Thankfully, the theology embraced by Grudem did not influence the policy deliberations in 1987, which prompted the Montreal Protocol.[16] Otherwise, measures to prevent using CFCs may have stalled.

More generally, the empirical evidence supporting the claims of the mainstream climate science is overwhelming. It is unequivocal that the Earth has been warming for over a century, with the pace accelerating since the 1970s. Only anthropogenic influences provide a plausible explanation for such phenomena.

3.     God will miraculously rescue humanity

It is sometimes argued that God will miraculously save humanity from its ecological peril. Among others, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, doubts such propositions:

to suggest that God might intervene to protect us from the corporate folly of our practices is as unchristian and unbiblical as to suggest that he protects us from the results of individual folly or sin. This is not a creation in which there are no real risks; our [Christian] faith has always held that the inexhaustible love of God cannot compel justice or virtue; we are capable of doing immeasurable damage to ourselves as individuals, and it seems clear that we have the same terrible freedom as a human race.[17]

From Williams’ standpoint, therefore, a ruined world is a real and plausible risk. Nevertheless, Williams affirms: “God’s faithfulness stands, assuring us that even in the most appalling disaster, love will not let go.”[18]

But what does it mean for love to “not let go”? And in what ways, if at all, does God act to prevent or minimize suffering, whether by humans or other sentient creatures? Bear in mind that multiple mass extinctions have occurred during Earth’s history. Plainly, God did not prevent these.

While miracles (i.e. divine actions that violate, override, or temporarily suspend a natural law) cannot be ruled out, there is no evidence that they are common or widespread. Moreover, as the philosopher Richard Swinburne has argued, frequent miracles would undermine the good order of the cosmos and interrupt normal cause and effect processes.[19] This would render it impossible to understand the universe or make reliable predictions.

Yet God may intervene, perhaps frequently, in non-miraculous ways (i.e. ones that do not constitute a violation of a natural law) to demonstrate love and compassion for particular people and other sentient creatures. Such interventions might occur at the quantum level where the flexibility of physical processes may enable God to affect outcomes without breaking the laws of nature.[20] Alternatively, God may exercise providential care by influencing mental processes, brains states, imaginations, and intuitions, including through dreams, visions, specific promptings or ‘callings’, and similar cognitive processes.

Accordingly, in the current climate emergency, God may be:

•        stirring consciences, enlightening intuitions, and prompting ecological concern;

•        inspiring innovative scientific and technical solutions;

•        providing political, business, and civic leaders with wisdom to tackle complex challenges; and

•        calling specific individuals to vital societal roles.

Equally, Christians have long believed, to quote the Nicene Creed, that Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end”. But the timing of this miraculous return is unknown and unknowable. Meanwhile, our moral responsibility to love our neighbours and care for God’s good creation remains. Importantly, too, the affirmation that Christ will “come again in glory” provides no grounds for fatalism or resignation. Nor does it undermine the moral significance of everyday actions or deny the incalculable value of the natural world.

4.     Technology will fix the problem

The fourth approach is founded on the hope that humanity can invent, innovate, and engineer solutions to the current climate crisis. It reflects the proverb: “necessity is the mother of invention”. To quote David Wallace-Wells, “We found a way to engineer devastation, and we can find a way to engineer our way out of it – or, rather, engineer our way to a graded muddle … that … extends forward the promise of new generations finding their own way forward”.[21]

Techno-optimists have advanced multiple solutions, including:

•        the rapid development and large-scale deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, along with carbon sequestration via marine and land-based forestry and the extensive use of biochar and enhanced weathering;

•        further significant improvements in renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency, battery technologies, and aircraft propulsion;

•        major innovations to reduce the production of methane and nitrous oxide from livestock agriculture; and

•        the implementation of solar radiation management (SRM) to reduce the planet’s temperature (e.g. via stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and placing reflective mirrors in space).[22]

Doubtless a vast array of existing and new technologies will help reduce GHG emissions, facilitate adaptation, and forestall ecological damage.[23] But several caveats need mention.

First, for a 50 percent chance of remaining close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, global carbon-dioxide emissions must decline 8-10 percent per annum over the next decade – a fall similar in magnitude to the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the prospect of such reductions is low – whether through green growth or degrowth.[24] For one thing, current global investment in renewable energy technologies, notably solar and wind, is only half that required for rapid decarbonization.[25] For another, decoupling global economic growth from GHG emissions is complex and hard.[26] Above all, there are long lags in transforming human systems, including legislative and regulatory frameworks, planning systems, stationary energy systems, transport infrastructure, and land-use practices.[27] Hence, it is one thing to develop new technologies, it is quite another to deploy them at scale and speed. Potential problems include: geo-political tensions, weak political leadership, entrenched opposition by powerful interests, governmental corruption and incompetence, information asymmetries, the scarcity of critical raw materials (e.g. cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, etc.), and supply-chain bottlenecks. Also, some natural resources required for decarbonization are environmentally and socially damaging to exploit and/or located in politically unstable countries. Further, large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) will likely be needed to achieve net-zero GHG emissions, but serious questions remain over its funding and regulation.

Second, avoiding multi-metre sea level rise will necessitate cooling the planet, especially the oceans. But even with heavy reliance on CCS and/or SRM, the process will take generations. Moreover, SRM raises multiple scientific, ethical, and governance concerns.[28] More generally, many negative climate change impacts are not amendable to technological fixes.

Finally, relying primarily on technological solutions poses deep theological, philosophical, and moral issues. Unquestionably, humanity possesses a remarkable capacity for scientific and technological progress, but the capacity to ensure adequate political and institutional control of what is invented is more limited. While humanity may seek God-like powers, it lacks God-like wisdom. Arguably, therefore, the fundamental problem is not designing and implementing effective technical solutions to the climate emergency. Rather, as the theologian Ernst Conradie contends, the problem lies deeper, namely, in a “spiritual crisis” characterized by “a lack of moral vision, imagination, will, and leadership”.[29] If so, what might prompt the radical and widespread inner change of heart necessary to mitigate climate change and its impacts?

5.     Positive societal tipping points towards sustainability

This takes us to a fifth source of hope, namely, the claim that the climate crisis will prompt a profound societal transformation characterized by significant changes in values, behaviours, and lifestyles. This, in turn, will generate self-reinforcing feedbacks in socio-cultural systems and related politico-economic regimes.[30] Cumulatively, these will place humanity on the path to ecological sustainability.

There are various versions of this hoped-for societal transformation. Advocates of degrowth and post-growth, for instance, focus on abandoning economic growth as a major policy goal, certainly in developed countries.[31] Driven by significant and sustained changes in societal values, governments will implement major policy and institutional reforms, with strong and enduring commitments to net-zero GHG emissions, a circular economy, and less inequality. Changing ethical norms will also contribute to lower demand for resource-intensive and energy-intensive goods and services, major changes in transportation modes (e.g. comprehensive carpooling rather than individual vehicle ownership), and a large-scale shift to vegetarian and vegan diets.

Other versions of this hoped-for societal transformation emphasize the emergence and positive role of new social movements (e.g. involving indigenous peoples, young people, faith communities, pan-national groups, etc.), along with greater geo-political cooperation, and new models of deliberative democracy. Within the Christian tradition, for instance, the literature includes reference to the transformative potential – both locally and globally – of a major spiritual awakening and/or an “ecological reformation”.[32]

A related idea is that social systems, like their physical counterparts, contain tipping points. [33] Once crossed these will generate positive feedbacks or virtuous cycles, thereby shifting public policies and human behaviour towards ecological sustainability. Examples include increasing returns to adoption (e.g. learning by doing), network effects, and information cascades. Moreover, societal values can occur quickly.

Climate change, however, may equally spark negative societal feedbacks. Increasing cross-border migration resulting from severe climate-related impacts (e.g. major famines, heat-waves, fires, and floods) could exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions, along with other kinds of “outgroup” antagonism.[34] Fears of being overwhelmed by refugees will likely strengthen nationalistic, anti-democratic, and illiberal social movements, not to mention the adulation of charismatic leaders, as already evident in Europe and the US. Nor should the power of vested interests be underestimated. Additionally, climate-related impacts risk weakening rather than strengthening global cooperation and multi-lateral institutions. Aside from this, any perspective grounded in Christian theology will be mindful of the doctrine of sin and the forces of evil which oppose goodness, peace, and justice. In short, it is questionable whether the coming decades will witness increasing societal collaboration or snowballing moral virtue.

Nourishing Hope in Challenging Times

In summary, all five responses to the climate crisis are problematic. From a Christian perspective, therefore, what might constitute a plausible response?

First, living hopefully, faithfully, and courageously in challenging times requires a robust and secure theology—one sufficient to cope with extensive and protracted losses, destruction, and death, and one that prevents people from being overwhelmed or paralyzed by fear and foreboding. Any such theology, in my view, must be grounded in Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection. In Christ, God has demonstrated an unshakable commitment to the cosmos through becoming an integral part of creation. Next, through Christ’s crucifixion—his agony and death on a cross—God experienced the full depths of human anguish, affliction, and abandonment. In so doing, God accepted and demonstrated absolute solidarity with a suffering world. From this, we have assurance that God abides with us in our grief, loss, and sorrow, whatever its cause. Accordingly, we are never alone, never abandoned. Fundamentally, therefore, the universe’s creator and sustainer knows our creaturely plight from the inside out – and abides with us in our failures and self-inflicted wounds. As Rowan Williams reminds us, God’s love will never let go. Equally, Christ’s resurrection reminds us of God’s extraordinary transformative power and purposes and the ultimate hope of a new Heaven and new Earth.

Next, it is important to remember that catastrophic events and existential crises are nothing new.[35] Previous generations have survived dramatic and prolonged climatic changes (e.g. the onset and eventual termination of glacial periods), along with protracted wars, tyrannical governance, large-scale enslavement, major pandemics, and devastating plagues. Equally, the Earth system is inherently dynamic: massive tectonic forces continue to generate damaging earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Living with constant flux, instability, and uncertainty – and related suffering and death – is thus normal, not exceptional. Moreover, while climate change will have increasingly costly, disruptive, and debilitating impacts, the Earth will likely remain habitable for human beings. Not everything of value will inevitably be lost.

That said, there is an urgent need for open eyes and ears, and responsive hearts and minds. The true nature and gravity of the climate crisis must be grasped, however painful and disturbing this might be. Turning a blind eye, choosing wilful ignorance, or rejecting compelling scientific evidence have no place from a Christian perspective. But nor do false hopes and unfounded optimism.

Equally, the current circumstances demand genuine confession, lament, and repentance. As Pope Francis has highlighted, humanity has failed to “care for our common home”.[36] Our ecological responsibilities have been neglected. We have not exercised proper kaitiakitanga. Many “treasures” will thus be lost. That is rightly a cause for grief and sorrow. Necessarily, it should prompt repentance.

Finally, living in a carbon-constrained world generates significant moral responsibilities. The implications for individuals, whanau, iwi, businesses, and communities will vary, depending on their knowledge, skills, callings, and resources. For some, the primary duty will be to reduce their own carbon footprint; for others it will mean pursuing policy reforms, whether for ecological sustainability or greater societal resilience and fairness. In all cases, however, it will mean standing resolutely and compassionately with the afflicted, both globally and locally, and building today for tomorrow, even if that tomorrow appears unwelcoming and uncertain.

Jonathan Boston, ONZM, is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy in the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington. His research interests include: climate change policy (both mitigation and adaptation); child poverty; governance (especially anticipatory governance); public management; tertiary education funding (especially research funding); and welfare state design.

[1] A much longer version of this paper was prepared for the annual meeting of the New Zealand InterChurch Bioethics Council in Wellington in early October 2023. The paper is available at: https://www.interchurchbioethics.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Jonathan-Boston-Paper-for-Bioethics-Council-Confronting-the-Climate-Crisis-Keeping-Hope-Alive-in-Challenging-Times-Final.pdf. I would like to thank the following people for their helpful comments on earlier versions of that paper: Ernst Conradie, Gavin Drew, Mary Hutchinson, David King, Martin Macaulay, John McClure, Andrew Shepherd, Bethany Sollereder, Adrienne Thompson, and Neil Vaney.

[2] There is an extensive scientific literature on biophysical limits and planetary boundaries. For a recent authoritative contribution see: J. Rockstrōm, et al., “Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries,” Nature, 619 (2023): 102–111.

[3] See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2023—Synthesis Report: Summary for Policy-Makers, 2023, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf.

[4] For an analysis of some of the implications of climate change for New Zealand, see Expert Working Group, Report of the Expert Working Group on Managed Retreat: A Proposed System for Te Hekenga Rauora/Planned Relocation (Wellington: Ministry for the Environment, 2023), https://environment.govt.nz/publications/report-of-the-expert-working-group-on-managed-retreat-a-proposed-system-for-te-hekenga-rauora/.

[5] See: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

[6] See: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://research.noaa.gov/2021/06/07/coronavirus-response-barely-slows-rising-carbon-dioxide/.

[7] For an accessible summary of the scientific evidence see: OECD, Climate Tipping Points: Insights for Effective Action (Paris: OECD, 2022). For more technical analyses see: D. Armstrong McKay, et al., “Exceeding 1.5°C Global Warming Could Trigger Multiple Climate Tipping Points,” Science, 377, 6611 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7950. L. Kemp, et al., “Climate Endgame: Exploring Catastrophic Climate Change Scenarios,” PNAS 119.34 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108146119; T. M. Lenton, et al., eds., The Global Tipping Points Report 2023 (Exeter: University of Exeter, 2023), https://global-tipping-points.org/. For a more optimistic assessment, see B. O’Neil, “Comment: Envisioning a Future with Climate Change,” Nature Climate Change, 13 (2023): 874–876, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01784-4.

[8] Timothy Robinson, “Reimagining Christian Hope(lessness) in the Anthropocene,” Religions 11.192 (2020): 2.

[9] There is a substantial literature on such matters. See especially: D. Clough, On Animals: Vol. 1: Systematic Theology (London: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2012); E. Conradie, “Climate Change as a Multi-Layered Crisis for Humanity,” in African Perspectives on Religion and Climate Change, ed. E. Chitando, et al. (London: Routledge, 2022), 215–34; P. Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); N. Gregersen, “The Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology,40.3 (2001): 192–207; N. Hoggard Creegan, Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); G. O'Brien, “Perfecting Not Perfect: Christology and Pneumatology Within an Imperfect Yet Purposeful Creation,” Theology and Science 7.4 (2009): 407–19; B. Sollereder, God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering: Theodicy Without a Fall (London: Routledge, 2019);B. Sollereder, “The Human Role Revisited on a Rapidly Changing Planet,” Ephata 4.1 (2022): 259–83; C. Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); C. Southgate, “God and a World of Natural Evil: Theology and Science in Hard Conversation,” The Boyle Lecture, Zygon 57.4 (2022): 1124–1134; C. Southgate, Monotheism and the Suffering of Animals in Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023); R. Swinburne, Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); R. Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

[10] See, for instance, J. Bendell, “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy,” Institute of Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), University of Cumbria, Occasional Paper 2, 2018; D. Higgins, “Climate Pessimism and Human Nature,” Humanities, 11, 129 (2022),  https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050129.

[11] See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2023 – Synthesis Report, 18.

[12] Kemp, et al., “Climate Endgame,” 5.

[13] M. Hulme, “Is It Too Late (to Stop Dangerous Climate Change)? An Editorial,” WIRES Climate Change 11.619 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.619.

[14] J. Boston, “Evidence of Denial: The Case of Climate Change’, Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice 18.3 (2010): 11–22; S. Capstick and N. Pidgeon, “What is Climate Change Scepticism? Examination of the Concept Using a Mixed Methods Study of the UK Public,” Global Environmental Change 24 (2014): 389–401.

[15] Quoted by The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, ‘An Open Letter to the Signers of “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action and Others Concerned About Global Warming’, 2006, https://www.cornwallalliance.org/docs/an-open-letter-to-the-signers-of-climate-change-an-evangelical-call-to-action-and-others-concerned-about-global-warming.pdf.

[16] For details of the Montreal Protocol under the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, see: https://www.unep.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol.

[17] R. Williams, Faith in the Public Square (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 190.

[18] Williams, 190.

[19] R. Swinburne, Is there a God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 100–121.

[20] See Southgate, Monotheism, 56–57.

[21] D. Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future (Penguin Books, 2019), 30.

[22] See, for instance, P. Crutzen, “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?” Climatic Change 77.3-4 (2006): 211–20, doi:10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y.

[23] For a recent analysis, see: International Energy Agency, Global Energy Outlook 2023, https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023.

[24] J. Hickel, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World (London: Penguin Random, 2021); T. Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (London: Earthscan, 2009); T. Jackson, Post Growth: Life after Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022).

[25] See: International Energy Agency, https://www.iea.org/news/global-coal-demand-set-to-remain-at-record-levels-in-2023; https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-august-2023.

[26] See, for instance, N. Hagens, “Economics for the Future – Beyond the Superorganism,” Ecological Economics 169 (2020), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067; J. Hickel and S. Hallegatte, “Can We Live Within Environmental Limits and Still Reduce Poverty? Degrowth or Decoupling?” Development Policy Review 40.1 (2022): 1–24; J. Hickel and G. Kallis, “Is Green Growth Possible?” New Political Economy 25 (2020): 469–86; T. Jackson and P. Victor, “Unravelling the Claims For (and Against) Green Growth,” Science 366.6468 (2019): 950–51, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aay0749

[27] F. Geels, et al., “The Sociotechnical Dynamics of Low-Carbon Transitions,” Joule 1.3 (2017): 463–79.

[28] A. Tang and L. Kemp, “A Fate Worse Than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Catastrophic Risk,” Frontiers in Climate 3 (2021): 1–17.

[29] Conradie, “Climate Change,” 230.

[30] T. M. Lenton, et al., “Operationalising Positive Tipping Points Towards Global Sustainability,” Global Sustainability 5 (2022): 1–16.

[31] See Hickel, Less is More; Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth; Jackson, Post Growth.

[32] See, for example, Conradie, “Climate Change,” 232.

[33] Lenton, et al., “Operationalising Positive Tipping Points”.

[34] See, for instance, P. Pikhala, “Death, the Environment, and Theology,” Dialog 57 (2018): 287–94.

[35] See: Peter Frankopan, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (London: Bloomsbury, 2023).

[36] Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home, 2015, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.