The relation between religions in the light of the environmental crisis

The starting point of this lecture are the talks S.H.Nasr gave in 1996 in Chicago (The Rockefeller Lectures), in which he predicted for the first time the current world environmental crisis. These lectures were later published in the book Man and Nature. His main thesis is that the current environmental crisis is not simply the result of bad engineering or bad planning, but is in reality the manifestation of a spiritual and religious crisis.Nasr emphasises the role religion must play in understanding the present environmental crisis and summarises the viewpoints of the world’s four main religious tendencies: the primal religions : North American Indians,  Australian Aborigines; Confucianism and Taoism; Hinduism and Buddhism; and the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In light of the ongoing destruction of the natural world, Nasr states that religions must assume an obligation to halt excessive consumerism and to establish inter-religious dialogue, given that the majority of the world’s peoples are still religious.