[2] The field is largely emerging through three individual streams of formal study and activity: science and academia, religion and spirituality, and ecological sustainability.
Recent written and spoken contributions of Pope Francis, particularly his May 2015 Encyclical, Laudato si', as well as unprecedented involvement of faith leaders at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris[6] reflect a growing popularity of this emerging view.
[6]Spiritual ecologists have identified the Scientific Revolution—beginning the 16th century, and continuing through the Age of Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution—as contributing to a critical shift in human understanding with reverberating effects on the environment.
[7] Some in spiritual ecology argue that a pervasive patriarchal competitive world-view, and a monotheistic religious orientation towards a transcendent divinity, is largely responsible for destructive attitudes about the earth, body, and the sacred nature of creation.
Spiritual ecology is a response to the values and socio-political structures of recent centuries with their trajectory away from intimacy with the earth and its sacred essence.
[11] Thomas Berry (1914–2009), the American Passionist priest known a 'geologian', has been one of the most influential figures in this developing movement, with his stress on returning to a sense of wonder and reverence for the natural world.
He shared and furthered many of Teilhard de Chardin's views, including the understanding that humanity is not at the center of the universe, but integrated into a divine whole with its own evolutionary path.
This view compels a re-thinking of the earth/human relationship: "The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components.
[13][14] Joanna Macy describes a collective shift – referred to as the "Great Turning" – taking humanity into a new consciousness in which the earth is not experienced as separate.
[15] Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee similarly grounds his spiritual ecology work in the context of a collective evolutionary expansion towards oneness, bringing us all toward an experience of earth and humanity – all life – as interdependent.
At the moment we are disrupting the teeming diversity of life and the 'ecosystems' that sustain it—the forests and prairies, the woodland, moorland and fens, the oceans, rivers and streams.
If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect.
[24]A Catholic nun interviewed by Sarah MacFarland Taylor, author of the 2009 book, Green Sisters: Spiritual Ecology, articulates this perspective of unity: "There is no division between planting new fields and prayer.
The term "indigenous" in this context refers to that which is native, original, and resident to a place, more specifically to societies who share and preserve ways of knowing the world in relationship to the land.
Features of many indigenous teachings include life as a continual act of prayer and thanksgiving, knowledge and symbiotic relationship with an animate nature, and being aware of one's actions on future generations.
[32][33][34][35][36][37][38] While this might cast doubt upon the view of indigenous wisdom and the sacred relationship to land and environment throughout the entirety of human history, it this does not negate the more recent devastating effects as referenced.
The understanding of humanity evolving toward a state of unity and harmony with the earth after a period of discord and suffering is described in a number of prophecies around the globe.
Among scholars contributing to spiritual ecology, five stand out: Steven Clark Rockefeller, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, Bron Taylor and Roger S.
[42] Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim are the co-ordinators of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology,[43] an international multi-religious project exploring religious world-views, texts ethics and practices in order to broaden understanding of the complex nature of current environmental concerns.
Bron Taylor at the University of Florida coined the term "Dark Green Religion" to describe a set of beliefs and practices centered on the conviction that nature is sacred.
[52] Pope Francis's May 2015 encyclical, Laudato si', offered a strong confirmation of spiritual ecology and its principles from within the Catholic Church.
There is also a Jewish ecological perspective based upon the Bible and Torah, for example the laws of bal tashchit (neither to destroy wantonly, nor waste resources unnecessarily).
[60] Many world faith and religious leaders, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, were present at the 2015 Climate Change Conference, and shared the view that: "Saving the planet is not just a political duty, but also a moral one.
He was the first philosopher to call for an attentive reappraisal of "animism" as a uniquely ecological way of perceiving, speaking, and thinking;[73] his writings are now associated with a broad movement, among both academics and environmental activists, often termed the "new animism" [74] The environmental conservation field has been informed, shaped, and led by individuals who have reported profound experiences of nature's sacredness and have fought to protect it.
[76]The World Wide Fund for Nature has developed "Sacred Earth: Faiths for Conservation", a program to collaborate with spiritual leaders and faith communities from all different spiritual traditions around the world, to face environmental issues including deforestation, pollution, unsustainable extraction, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
Other contemporary inter-disciplinary environmentalists include Wendell Berry, a farmer, poet, and academic living in Kentucky, who fights for small farms and criticizes agri-business; and Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk and founder of Schumacher College, a center for ecological studies.