In light of the recent Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA, we are releasing Henry Kuo's Canopy Forum article “Teaching the Virtues of Climate Responsibility.”

In his article, Kuo weighs the effectiveness of climate pacts which are more generalized against the focused power of grassroots movements.

“The various difficulties confronting institutional proposals to reverse climate change suggest that a strategy which foregrounds grassroots movements and religious organizations may offer more promising results,” writes Kuo, “because such movements personalize the climate crisis, making it a concrete matter that demands individual responsibility.”

Kuo advocates for a climate responsibility enacted “from below” rather than “from above,” emphasizing the necessity for religious insitutions to organize climate action. The Summa Theologiae  of Thomas Aquinas could prove a helpful resource for churches seeking to mobilize for the climate. “St. Thomas’s philosophy of law focuses on the ways in which law forms individual moral consciousness,” Kuo argues, and “is helpful in thinking through the legislative and political difficulties behind universal climate action agreements.”

Read the original article on Canopy Forum.

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