Environmental Crisis and Religion: An Analysis of Textual Source and Practices of Sikhism

Abstract

Environmental crisis particularly climate change is one of the serious problem of twenty-first century. A concerted effort in the post-1990s by all the countries of the world to deal with the problem under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol that relied on managerial and marketing techniques to address the issue of climate change. However, such an endeavor failed to yield the desired results. Subsequently, in 2015 an effort was made to address this problem through the enactment of the Paris Agreement that encourages individual governments to make the moral decision to establish their own goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The attribute of moral choice as the regulating principle for reducing carbon footprints opens up a scope for the researcher to explore the possible role of morality, ethics, and religion, which primarily deal with the individual’s inner conscience, to address the issue of climate change. The present paper is located within the above premises as it tries to comprehend and expound the perspective of Sikhism on ecological issues as an alternative institution to address the issue of climate change. The paper concludes that the ecological values which are found in Guru Nanak Dev’s teachings can awaken the conscience of individuals for reducing their respective carbon footprints if taught to the believers systematically since religion is a potent force in society that shape the behavior of individuals.