Energy and Society

These slides are intended to help students develop a justice-based lens for analysis of the relationship between energy and society. In particular, they explore the concepts of environmental justice and climate justice, drawing on the case of the No Dakota Access Pipeline movement by the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies. These slides were created by a sociologist to serve as an introductory set of slides for an environmental studies course on energy and society. They would also be well suited for a class period dedicated to themes of environmental justice and climate justice, especially for how these relate to energy extraction. To illuminate the social justice implications of energy extraction and resulting climate change, the slides include brief examples from the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe, who are climate refugees from Louisiana; women resisting mountain top removal coal mining in Appalachia; and Nez Perce experiences losing traditional food sources because of climate change. These slides include an 8-minute video on Standing Rock and 15-minute discussion-based activity.

Enhancing ecological consciousness through liturgical acts of doxology and lament

The last few decades have been a time of growing interest and concern about our environment. The extinction of plant and animal species, the pollution of our water supply and the depletion of critical resources have generated a new consciousness about our biosphere. The liturgy of the church must seriously engage with the ecological perspective, and the entire life, worship and praxis of the church should include an ecological dimension and vision. Two very powerful elements in enhancing worshippers� ecological consciousness are praise or doxology and the important counterpart of doxology, namely song and prayer of lament as well as confession of guilt. This means that believers celebrate the inalienable beauty and dignity of all living kind and bear witness to God�s manifold creation. Believers are also to bear witness to creation�s groaning as the ground suffers from deforestation, mountain-top removal, toxic dumping and rising temperatures. Comfort and new possibilities for rectifying the ecological crisis may develop from grief and lament. The liturgical witness will be that God�s newness will break the cycles of self-destruction and make new life possible.