Introduction

In September 2007 an unusual symposium took place in the icefields of the Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland. A group of about 200 priests, scientists, theologians and government officials met for a week in western Greenland under the auspices of the organisation Religion, Science and the Environment (RSE); a charitable foundation of the Eastern Orthodox Church. They were there to consider the changing environment in the Arctic and the ways in which humanity should respond. Religious leaders from the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths were represented, and the Pope delivered via video a personal message from the Vatican. The venue for the symposium – the outlet of the largest glacier in Greenland – was chosen for its powerful symbolism of the physical changes in climate and the risks associated with a rising sea level.

This is one example of a growing number of initiatives in which leaders of one or more of the world's established religious traditions are forming alliances – either across religious divides or between religious and scientific or secular associations – to call for action to halt the damage that human activities are doing to the natural world, including its climate. These statements, while acknowledging differences of approach and motive, often emphasise that ‘we are at one in our belief’ that humans must find a way to live more lightly on the Earth, and agree about the profound moral imperative to protect life on Earth.