Episode • 1/5 of the Science vs. Climate Change podcast

Let us question the ability of different sciences – natural, human and social – to deal with climate change. Let us try here to understand why some authors believe that the solution to the environmental crisis does not involve a greater mobilization of science.

According to Lynn White, “With the exception of man, no creature has ever desecrated its habitat so quickly.”

We’ve already talked about it in these columns Lynn Whitean American historian specializing in the Middle Ages, publishes In 1967 An article entitled “The historical roots of our environmental crisis“. The text begins with a reminder of the fact that humankind has always modified its environment, but the author emphasizes that: “With the exception of man, no creature has ever desecrated its environment so quickly“. Why? The historian first seems to offer a technical explanation: in the ninth century AD, he points out that a new type of plow, allowing plowing much more efficiently than before, had brought about a major change in the relationship between humans and nature: “Previously, man was part of nature“, he wrote; “Now take advantage of it“But this technical invention was neither the result of chance nor the primary cause of the disruption with which White is concerned. Because, as he writes,”These innovations seem to fit into broader intellectual movements. What people do with their environmental environment depends on how they perceive their relationship to the things around them. Human ecology is largely conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny – that is, religion“If such a technical invention is able to exist, it is because a new framework has been imposed for representing the world. This framework, for White, is the Judeo-Christian religion and in particular Genesis – the story of the creation of the world. The world that appears in the Old Testament and which it founded.

Our sciences and technologies are born from a Christian position regarding the relationship between man and nature.

In this text, God created the world, man is created in the image of God (He “Imago Dei) His calling is to control nature. Indeed, God commanded him.”And they shall have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth“, Beside “Fill and subdue the earthThe reason, according to White, is: “Christianity is the most human religion the world has ever knownAccording to him, the biblical text contains the essential components of a worldview that is completely divorced from paganism: while in ancient times every tree, every spring, every hill had its own protective genius, Judeo-Christianity had desacralized the world and allowed the exploitation of nature. According to White Western science is closely linked to this representation of the world: since God created nature, it must bear witness to the divine mind. Since then, it has been legitimate to develop the study of nature under the pretext of a better understanding of God. Since our sciences and technologies are born from the Christian position regarding relationships between man and nature, which has now become globally widespread and thanks to which,We feel superior to nature, we despise it, and we want to use it to satisfy our lowest whims“So we’re not going to get out of this by resorting to more science and technology. How can we break away from this representation of a world where humans are superior to nature? Again, it goes back to religion. White sees this as the current mission and ends the article by apologizing for Francis of AssisiThis religious person called for equality among all creatures. White concludes his article as follows:I propose making Francis of Assisi the patron saint of environmentalistsIn 2015, in his encyclical Laudato CAs for protecting the common home, the Pope will say nothing else.

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