Britain’s Hindus showed the highest levels of concern for the impacts of climate change, which led them to be the most active in various personal environmental actions, according to a new study by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL), United Kingdom.
The IIFL had commissioned a nationally representative survey of 2,396 UK adults examining the relationship between faith and environmentalism across religious groups, regions, and ages last year.
Jewish, Sikh and Buddhist perspectives were underrepresented in the survey and so could not be considered statistically significant. The final report, Stewardship: Exploring Faith and Sustainability, mainly looks at Hindu, Muslim and Christian attitudes towards the environment.
Some 64 per cent of Hindu respondents participated in rewilding, compared to 31 per cent of Muslim and 22 per cent of Christian respondents. They also led in changing consumer habits (78 per cent), donating to charities (63 per cent), and joining environmental groups (44 per cent). Hindu respondents were also most likely to consider environmentalism when voting.
“Our Hindu respondents (along with Buddhists) placed a greater emphasis than other faiths we sampled on directly experiencing the importance of environmentalism — affirming and engaging in it for its own sake — over doing so in obedience to religious commandments,” according to a statement by IIFL.
Hindus were more likely to emphasise the role of experience, conscience and interior over exterior motivations than respondents of other faiths.
“This means that Hindus are more likely to engage in environmentalism because they feel and know its value, rather than doing so through religious obligation. This ties in with the survey’s findings that Hindus were not primarily motivated by religious doctrine. The survey data revealed that Hindus were the least likely to feel obligated by their faith to care for the environment (80 per cent), compared to Christians (82 per cent) and Muslims (92 per cent),” the statement added.
According to IIFL, the reason behind more Hindu participation in environmental actions is that the faith views “the whole world as an ‘ecosystem’ in which all existence is intrinsically connected and thereby all things in the world are viewed as co-existing in essential interdependency”.
Hindus also believe that all objects in the world are open to being viewed as ‘spaces to worship God.’ It is not the object itself that is worshipped but God within the object. This offers a view of reality in which all is sacred and therefore to care for the environment is to worship God and serve all creation, for all creation is profoundly connected in the divine.
On the other hand, Christianity and Islam are based on the founding creed of monotheism. These beliefs “afforded less importance to the environment in part owed to an understanding of social justice that was less rooted in the well-being of the Earth”.
Between Christians and Muslims, the latter view climate change as one of the many ‘tests’ of this world, leading to a more ‘active’ approach to climate change. This is in contrast to Christians whose views were more likely to be shaped by beliefs about God’s omnipotence and second coming.
This could also be a reason why Christian respondents showed the highest levels of climate change denial. Thirty-one per cent agreed with the statement ‘I don’t believe the global climate is changing’. This contrasted starkly with exclusivist Muslim respondents at 17 per cent.
“A possible explanation for the higher levels of climate change denial within Christianity than in other faiths may lie in beliefs in the second coming of Christ. Christians may believe this event would protect humanity from the full impact of climate change. Our data suggests that other possible explanations include science scepticism and distrust of the media,” according to the statement.
Hindu, Muslim and Christian respondents consistently believed their faith requires them to care for the world. “This was most pronounced among exclusivist Muslim respondents (92%) and exclusivist Christian respondents (82%), showing a consistent belief across faiths that humanity has environmental responsibility,” as per the statement.