God and Gaia: Science, Religion and Ethics on a Living Planet

Michael S Northcott

Research output: Book/ReportBook

Abstract

God and Gaia explores the overlap between traditional religious cosmologies and the scientific Gaia theory of James Lovelock. It argues that a Gaian approach to the ecological crisis involves rebalancing human and more-than-human influences on Earth by reviving the ecological agency of local and indigenous human communities, and of nonhuman beings.

Present-day human ecological influences on Earth have been growing at pace since the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, when modern humans adopted a machine cosmology in which humans are the sole intelligent agency. The resultant imbalance between human and Earthly agencies is degrading the species diversity of ecosystems, causing local climate changes, and threatens to destabilise the Earth as a System. Across eight chapters this ambitious text engages with traditional cosmologies from the Indian Vedas and classical Greece to Medieval Christianity, with case material from Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Great Britain. It discusses concepts such as deep time and ancestral time, the ethics of genetic engineering of foods and viruses, and holistic ecological management.

Calling for an ontological turn that honours the differential agency of other beings and draws on sacred traditions, Northcott argues that it is possible to repair the destabilising impacts of contemporary human activities on the Earth System and its constituent ecosystems. This book will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of the environmental humanities, history, cultural and religious studies.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherRoutledge
Number of pages282
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9781003110750
ISBN (Print)9780367627751, 9780367627744
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Dec 2022

Publication series

NameRoutledge Environmental Humanities
PublisherRoutledge

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