The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics

Environmental Ethics

Events

Future

Past

A sustainable future? A serious look at the Sustainability Development Goals

A day conference looking at the UN's new Sustainability Development Goals (running from 2015-2030), how they might help guide us towards a sustainable future, and what an appropriate Christian response might be. Run by the John Ray Initiative in association with ForMission, A Rocha UK and Micah Global. Birmingham, 5 March 2016.

On Tuesday 1 December, the UK’s leading environmental theologianProfessor Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh) spoke in Cambridge on ‘The Paris Climate Summit: A Theological Response’. The Paris Summit, just under way on 1 December, is the hugely important United Nations conference on how to address the urgent issue of climate change. The event was hosted by St Paul’s Church Eco-congregation Committee in partnership with KLICE.

Colin Bell spoke on a Christian perspective on the environment at a 'multi-faith climate change event' organised by Cambridge Carbon Footprint on 8 February 2015.

KLICE is signatory for Lausanne Movement's 'Call to Action'

KLICE agreed to be an institutional signatory for the Lausanne Global Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel: Call to Action. Further details on this are available on the Lausanne Movement website here.

'Big Society - Bigger Nature?': October 1, 2011

60 people attended this conference on civil society, big society and the ecological crisis, organised by Dr Peter Scott, director of the Lincoln Theological Institute, University of Manchester. The event was co-sponsored by KLICE and two other organisations. Jonathan Chaplin gave a lecture entitled 'Can "nature" tell us how big society should be?'

Sustainability in Crisis, Cambridge, September 2011

This major conference was the culmination of a 3-year project jointly with the Faraday Institute. Aimed at practitioners, academics and policy-makers, 'Sustainability in Crisis' was an interdisciplinary, international, and inter-faith conference on the contribution of Christianity and other major world faiths to diagnosing and addressing issues of sustainability in consumption, production and governance.
Speakers included:

• Andy Atkins - executive director, Friends of the Earth UK
• Paul Chambers - senior official, Department of Energy and Climate Change
• Juliet Davenport - CEO of Good Energy
• Paul Ekins - UCL Energy Institute
• Fazlun Khald - Islamic Foundation for Ecological and Environmental Sciences
• Bill McKibben - leading US environmental writer and campaigner (350.org)
• Ann Pettifor - executive director, Advocacy International

Audios of the sessions are in our Resources section (below).

Visit the conference blog for pre-conference reflections and post-conference follow-up.

Media coverage: here and here and here and here.

Read Guardian posting on 'Earth Day' by project staff member Colin Bell.

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Resources

Publications

• Colin Bell, Robert White, eds., Creation Care and the Gospel: Reconsidering the Mission of the Church (Hendrickson, 2016). Published 31 May.
• Colin Bell, Jonathan Chaplin, Robert White, eds., Living Lightly, Living Faithfully (Faraday Institute 2013).
• Jonathan Moo and Robert White, Hope in an Age of Despair (IVP 2013).
• Nick Spencer and Robert White, Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living (SPCK 2007).
• Robert S. White, ed., Creation in Crisis: Christian Perspectives on Sustainability (SPCK, 2009), (contains chapters by KLICE Advisory Council members Robert White and Brian Heap, and by Hilary Marlow and Jonathan Moo).

Audio/Video

Audios of the Sustainability in Crisis Conference sessions can be found starting from this page on the Faraday Institute website.

Ethics in Brief

KLICE Comment

• Laudato Si' and its impact on the environmental debate - Colin Bell
• 'Is Halal Meat Ethical?' - Philip Sampson
• 'It isn’t going away – we’re just looking away'.- Jonathan Chaplin
• 'The horsemeat 'scandal' is the tip of a very ugly iceberg' - Matthew Barton
• 'Is there still hope for the climate?' - Colin Bell
• Faith and sustainability - Colin Bell

Media

• Sustainability in Crisis blog.

Research

'Hope for Creation' Project

KLICE is a partner in an ambitious three-year project on environmental theology and ethics, in partnership with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge.  For more information see the Projects page.

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Recommended Reading

• How not to do Environmental Theology: Matthew Fox and Creation Spirituality - David Keen

Books

• Hilary Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Grove Booklets

• Martin J Hodson and Margot R Hodson, The Ethics of Climate Scepticism, E177 (April 2015). 
  There is an overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of human-induced global warming. And yet popular perception continues to be sceptical. What are the motivations behind such scepticism? How can we engage with it? And what is the role of Christian individuals and communities in the debate about climate change?
• Paul Ede, Urban Eco-mission: Healing the Land in the Post-industrial City, E169 (April 2013).
  This fascinating study presents both theological-ethical reflection and practical learning about the community-based transformation of derelict and vacant land, and how this can in turn be deeply transformative for those who participate.
• Robert D Sluka, Hope for the Ocean: Marine Conservation, Poverty Alleviation and Blessing the Nations, E165 (April 2012).
  This study looks at the setting up of marine protection areas (MPAs) as an example of good stewardship, and how it might exemplify the theological concerns of sabbath, justice and humility.
• Margot Hodson, Uncovering Isaiah's Environmental Ethics, E161 (April 2011).
  The book of Isaiah is rich in natural imagery and would seem ideally suited to provide a source for an environmental ethic; but how do we use these images, given that they were metaphors for theological ideas? 

Links

For articles:

• Studies in Christian Ethics
• Journal of Religious Ethics
• International Journal of Public Theology
• Grove Booklets

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For the latest newsletter from KLICE - Sibylline Leaves - see here. 

The latest edition of Ethics in Conversation is also now available. In this issue, Rev. Dr Craig Bartholomew (Director of KLICE) explores the subject of Christian Higher Education - see here. 

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