Karenna Gore: “Let’s learn from spiritual leaders to manage the climate crisis”

Commitment to the environment is a family tradition. Like her father, Al Gore, vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001, Karenna Gore is an activist who works to combat climate change with her activity as a popularizer (she has written for El Paìs and for Slate) and lawyer. We met Karenna during an event she organized in New York, where various religious leaders will gather to discuss the issue of climate change.

Why bring together religious leaders to talk about the environment?
“I am interested in how different religious and spiritual traditions relate to ecology and in disseminating a set of ethical principles that can guide us through this complex time of the climate crisis. I am currently developing courses together with my colleagues at the Center for Earth Ethics where we explore the role that values, culture and spirituality play in the problems related to climate change”.

How did this interest in spirituality develop?
“I had no intention of going down this path. After I graduated, I was offered a job at Union Theological Seminary to help with their public programs. In 2014, I led the planning of a conference of over 200 religious and spiritual leaders around the world to reframe climate change as a moral issue and galvanize faith-based activism to address it.I was particularly inspired by people in my country’s native communities who shared traditional ecological knowledge along with holistic understanding of disease and healing. I continue to be inspired by them. I am also inspired by Nature itself.”

Over the past 20 years, awareness of the impacts and consequences of climate has increased. Yet, the same decades are characterized by a sharp acceleration in CO emissions_2. How do you feel when you think about this in a moral and ethical context?
“We are on a trajectory towards unspeakable loss, with more and more people dying and being displaced by extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, entire ecosystems disappearing, and so on. We cannot solve this problem if we just react at the level of these effects, we must instead think and act at the level of cause.On the material level, the cause is what Gus Speth described how the two modern megatrends of pollution and depletion, specifically carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels and the depletion of carbon sinks such as deforestation. But the deeper level of the cause is human behavior, which changed dramatically during the Industrial Revolution in a way that accelerated after World War II.”

Do you define yourself as religious?
“I have always been intrigued by the definition of faith in the book of Hebrews in the Bible as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ In that sense, I have faith in a higher intelligence at work in this world that strives for justice, responds to love and gives grace to all who are open to it. Also, I don’t think this is at odds with science. The life force behind this entire earthly existence defies easy scientific explanation The effects of ecological destruction will eventually reach everyone, which becomes clearer as the crisis unfolds. Hopefully, it will also make us realize the moral lesson that we should constantly care about each other’s well-being, even beyond all the illusory socio-political divisions”.

Do you think representatives of faith or religion can play a role in shaping a more resilient society through mourning habitat loss and ecocide/climate change?
“It is common to turn to faith in times of loss for many reasons and they all apply to this challenge. Many find solace in rituals and ceremonies beyond what can be expressed in words. They connect individuals to community, to the great mystery of life and to a larger sense of time. And community itself can be a balm, especially if it is a place to share food, music and friendship. Resilient societies must be built through social bonds such as those that can form in these spaces”.

What are the values ​​that in your opinion should guide the “green” transition? Do they exist in the political will?
“When we talk about the economy, we need to widen the circle of moral concern to include those three categories that are both most affected and least likely to have a voice: poor and marginalized people, future generations, and all non-human life. Any economic growth at their expense it is not ethical or intelligent. Politics is about collective decision-making and necessarily involves issues of power. In order for the green transition to happen in a positive way, we must create power by increasing the level of understanding of the reality of what is at stake” .

Do you know Italy? Have you got an idea of ​​how ecology has declined in our society?
“Italy has achieved a culture that is admired and loved around the world largely because of the way you have cared for your cultural heritage, protecting things that have deep and lasting value. We would all benefit from emulating the better than the Italian ethos. Italy has a unique and powerful role to play in the world right now.”