When God Isn't Green
A World-Wide Journey to Places Where Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
In this lively, round-the-world trip, law professor and humorist Jay Wexler explores the intersection of religion and the environment.
Did you know that
• In Hong Kong and Singapore, Taoists burn paper money to appease “hungry ghosts,” filling the air with smoke and dangerous toxins?
• In Mumbai, Hindus carry twenty-foot-tall plaster of Paris idols of the elephant god Ganesh into the sea and leave them on the ocean floor to symbolize the impermanence of life, further polluting the scarce water resources of western India?
• In Taiwan, Buddhists practicing “mercy release” capture millions of small animals and release them into inappropriate habitats, killing many of the animals and destroying ecosystems?
• In Central America, palm frond sales to US customers for Palm Sunday celebrations have helped decimate the rain forests of Guatemala and southern Mexico?
• In New York, Miami, and other large US cities, Santeria followers sprinkle mercury in their apartments to fend off witches, poisoning those homes for years to come?
• In Israel, on Lag B’omer, a holiday commemorating a famous rabbi, Jews make so many bonfires that the smoke can be seen from space, and trips to the emergency room for asthma and other pulmonary conditions spike?
Law professor and humorist Jay Wexler travels the globe in order to understand the complexity of these problems and learn how society can best address them. He feasts on whale blubber in northern Alaska, bumps along in the back of a battered jeep in Guatemala, clambers down the crowded beaches of Mumbai, and learns how to pluck a dead eagle in Colorado, all to answer the question “Can religious practice and environmental protection coexist?”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Boston University law professor Wexler offers a highly entertaining and eye-opening look at situations where freedom of religion and environmental protection clash. From harvesting palms in Guatemala and Mexico for Palm Sunday to the massive burnings of joss in Singapore, Wexler portrays both sides of the debate as sympathetic and deserving of fair treatment. For example, should whaling (when practiced within reason) be allowed for the Inupiat people, for whom the Nalukataq whale hunt not only provides enormous quantities of resources but also serves as a powerful aspect of their religion? Wexler is often lighthearted in tone, but he conveys the gravity of harming either the environment or the vitality and vibrancy of a religious culture with uncritical legal regulation. Though he directs this work mainly toward governments and nongovernment organizations, religious and secular readers alike will find much to enjoy and appreciate in this fascinating travelogue of worldwide religious practice and the legal, economic, and social systems that make environmental protection difficult to enforce.
