There’s a segment at the end of “Don’t Look,” last year’s hugely popular Netflix movie about a comet hurtling toward Earth, when a group of people are having dinner together on the eve of the planet’s destruction. . As the television blares news of the impending impact and the walls begin to shake, a scientist, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, asks his wife, children, friends, and colleagues: “We really have everything, isn’t it. ?”
This scene is unique to Timothy Beal, a professor of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University who teaches a class on religion and ecology. Faced with certain death-by-comet (a thinly veiled metaphor for climate change), the characters have neither hope nor denial, but a heightened sense of gratitude. The scene is punctuated by a question that Beal has been pondering: Most modern religions promote the idea that humanity will continue forever. Do we treat the planet better if we think that our species’ time on it is limited?
Beal expands on this thought experiment in his new book, When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene, which came out in July. “This is not another ‘before it’s too late’ book,” he wrote on the first page. “It’s a ‘what if it’s too late?’ book. Probably not. But what if it is? What if we, along with many other plants and animals, have fifty years, or two hundred years, or maybe a few hundred years left?”
At first glance, this framing seems antithetical to anyone who cares about the climate. After all, the scientific consensus is that it is is the it is still possible to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, assuming we take strong and immediate action to transform our societies and economies. Doesn’t convincing yourself that the world is ending lead people to do the opposite – to throw up their hands and go on with their lives as usual?
Beal argues the opposite. Reducing emissions and conserving natural resources are all things we need to do anyway, he said to Grist, but it’s hard to get out of the systems (say, capitalism) that got us into this mess. first place. Accepting that human civilization has limits, he says, will challenge us to change our priorities, from the worship of acquisition and growth to the upliftment of the most marginalized in society.
“Most people, if they knew they had a year to live or two years to live, they wouldn’t be assholes,” Beal said.
Beal’s thesis draws heavily on the work of scholars such as cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose book The Denial of Death makes the case that people survive by refusing to accept their own mortality. The anthropocentric mythology of many religions, Beal writes, convinces people that society will go on forever, regardless of the damage we do to our habitat. Some Christians, for example, use a passage from the biblical book of Genesis that teaches humans to “subdue” the Earth and have “dominion” over other living creatures as proof that natural resources such as oil and trees are made to be mined to be abandoned. , without fear of consequences.
But just as religion got us into this mess, Beal believes it can get us out of it. He points out that other parts of the Bible place animals on an equal footing with humans, and place inherent value on the earth itself, rather than as a tool for human exploitation – an interpretation shared by some evangelical Christians who see “care for creation” as a sacred duty. Beal also argues that spiritually minded people should embrace “dark green religion,” belief systems that emphasize the ways humans are connected to all other living things.
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Again, this philosophical shift is meant to promote compassion, not hope. Beal envisions humanity adopting a “palliative” approach in the future, one modeled after the end-of-life care provided to terminally ill patients. By positing that the end is coming (as a result of our consumer values, no less), this palliative approach neatly shuts down policies that promise prosperity through unlimited growth. Even the climate solutions touted by Biden and the Democratic Party missed the mark in this case; he argues that they frame climate action in the language of job creation and economic benefits.
Similarly, Beal criticized the space-focused ambitions of billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. He echoes thinkers such as the feminist scholar Donna Haraway and the French philosopher Bruno Latour, who suggested in 2018 that solving the many political and social crises we face today must return “to the Earth” instead of retreating to escapist fantasies like building a civilization on Mars. .
Beal’s book may even rub a lot of people the wrong way — say, those who don’t accept his main premise (that it may be “too late” to stop climate change) or think that that worldview may prevent climate action. But for the more than 80 percent of Americans who say they believe in God (as well as people who may be spiritual but not religiously affiliated), it’s possible that his analysis will help them grapple with whether how their beliefs shape their perceptions of the environment.
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When Time is Short is the latest addition to a rich body of work in what eco-theologian Michael Dowd calls a “post-doom mentality” or sustainability scholar Jem Bendell calls “deep adaptation” – the idea that if you accept the inevitable, you can develop a real sense of empathy and a plan for how to respond positively. Pagan environmental activist John Halstead argues in his 2019 book, Another End of the World Possible, that we must abandon the excessive focus on growth and capitalism that is driving us to the brink of collapse. (A 2021 book of the same name, written by a trio of Belgian ecologists and environmental advocates, calls this approach “good collapse”).
But where Beal’s skill as a biblical scholar shines is in his analysis of scripture to show that early Christians were deeply connected to the Earth, and that modern-day interpretations are often at odds with the original. message of harmony and respect for nature. He writes that the Old Testament creation story about Adam being made from the earth – shared by Jews and Christians – has ancient roots; even the name “Adam” comes from the Hebrew word “ha’adamah,” which means humus or soil. Therefore, man is “dust inspired by God,” a reminder to believers that to dust they will return.
For better or worse, Beal’s message comes at a critical time. Climate concern is rising; as reports of droughts, fires, and floods dominate the news, climate change is no longer an abstract concept for many people, but a real and present threat. At the same time, politicians and corporations do not seem to be seriously interested in stopping the crisis from worsening or mitigating its effects; the chances of actually limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), as outlined in the Paris Agreement, are now essentially gone. In a study from last year, 56 percent of teenagers and young adults said they believed “mankind is doomed.”
Beal doesn’t try to downplay these facts or comfort readers with a message that it’s all going to be okay. “I do not believe that we can slow down enough to especially reverse the great anthropogenic acceleration in which we find ourselves,” he wrote in the book, “although I would be very happy to discover another way.”
When we are saddened by what we are losing, Beal writes, we can begin the act of doing something with the short time we have left. However, because of that fact, he recognized that not everyone can grieve in the same way. Beal’s book was written long ago Don’t Search came out, but it referenced another disaster movie — Lars von Trier’s 2011 film “Melancholia,” about two sisters struggling to cope in the days before an evil planet crashes into Earth. While one sister was “paralyzed by depression and anxiety,” another “gained a new sense of peace of mind peace and tranquility.” Religion, he argues, can provide a framework for action to alleviate unnecessary suffering as the world crumbles around us.
“It’s about being disoriented, about realizing how small you are,” Beal said. Accepting that we don’t matter, he suggests, is the most important thing we can do.
