Episodes

We started our series with an exploration of how religious doctrine and belief became deeply entwined with both colonialism and the petroleum industry. We followed the stories of contemporary Americans whose religious beliefs -- and beliefs about climate -- shape their determination to stop pipelines and restore local ecosystems. But what about our future? We spoke with the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond about climate justice, and her hopes for a new vision where care for our neighbors and care for ...

There is a very long relationship between the Anishinaabe people and manoomin (sometimes known as 'wild rice' in English). The tribe received a prophecy to travel west from the Atlantic Coast to the Great Lakes region-- they would know they had arrived in the right place when they found food that grows on the water. Manoomin is both a culinary staple and a spiritual and cultural one. In December of 2018, the White Earth Nation passed a resolution declaring, “Manoomin, or wild rice, within the Wh...

We'll be back with more episodes from our season on climate in the coming weeks. Until then, we're returning to our archive for an episode we recorded back in 2021 that feels especially relevant this week. Each year, Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks, parades, and barbecues. Celebrating July Fourth is part of what some scholars identify as America’s civil religion. And like any religion, civil religion is built in part upon foundational myths and symbols that Americans, regar...

In 2014, Virginia’s Dominion Energy announced it would be building a new pipeline intended to carry fracked methane from West Virginia to a storage facility in North Carolina. The planned route brought the pipeline right through Virginia’s rural Buckingham County, with a compressor station proposed near a historic Black church and cemetery in the small community of Union Hill. Despite Dominion’s assurances that the pipeline and compressor station would be safe, a group of locals grew concerned ...

Millions of Americans are traveling hundreds of miles for a chance to witness 2024’s total solar eclipse. As many eyes turn towards this rare event, we’re turning our attention to another wonder, one we sometimes take for granted: the night sky. Humans have a relationship with the moon and stars stretching back for millennia. Observing the night sky has given us practical things, like calendars and ways to navigate; but they also give us a sense of awe and wonder that can't be replicated. We’re ...

As the climate crisis on Earth worsens, some Americans — including the world’s richest man, Elon Musk — have begun to think about a plan (and planet) B. They dream of escaping an increasing polluted Earth in favor of creating an advanced society on our nearest neighbor, Mars. To investigate the roots of our fascination with Mars, we headed to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona with our colleague Kelsey Johnson. Lowell has been the site of all sorts of important discoveries about our univer...

In 2021, the Biden administration laid out a goal of conserving 30% of the United States’ land and seas by 2030. That number comes from a UN agreement that urges member countries to protect at least a third of their land and marine environments from human development in order to promote biodiversity and fight climate change. But historically, environmental conservation in the United States was less about preserving ecosystems and biodiversity and more about creating a relationship between humans...

Brigham Young lead his followers west in 1846, fleeing religious persecution. Young was looking for a place that his fellow Americans would consider too inhospitable to follow -- a place that would transform believers into a new people, where they could "blossom as the rose." But it was also clear as much as the desert would transform the church, the church would have to transform the desert. Only hours after scouts arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, they built a dam and irrigated a field of potat...

Energy vortexes and the climate crisis collide in Sedona, Arizona, where New Age practitioners are drawn to a stunning but swiftly changing landscape. We spoke with scholar Susannah Crockford about her own time spent in Sedona, and the tension between a movement that may love the landscape but prioritizes individual healing over collective action. And our hosts headed to Sedona to experience first hand how New Age practices acknowledge a rapidly changing landscape. On this season of Sacred & Pro...

On this season of Sacred & Profane, we explore how religions have shaped the climate crisis -- and how they offer ways to imagine a different future. In the United States, Christianity and oil have been entangled since the industry's beginning. Our guest Darren Dochuk says Pennsylvania's oil fields gave rise to "two gospels of crude;" competing versions of Christianity that would have a profound effect on politics in the U.S. and around the world. But both versions viewed the prosperity oil brou...

On this season of Sacred & Profane, we explore how religions have shaped the climate crisis -- and how they offer ways to imagine a different future. Scholars and climate activists increasingly point to European colonization of the Americas as a kind of tipping point in not only human history, but climate history as well. Colonialism created a legal and cultural framework that prioritized private ownership of land and resources, giving rise to extractive industries that have weakened and destroy...