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A few months ago we were told to start thinking about our dissertation – the 10,000-word research project that would be the biggest piece of work we would submit at university.
I study geography at the University of Sussex, which isn’t a popular subject for Jewish students here; there are two of us in my year of over 100 students. Yet I’ve always been interested in it, and particularly so when it comes to climate change as it is such a topical and constantly debated issue.
Media, experience in extreme weather events and religion have all had a massive influence on people’s perceptions. However Christianity was the only religion discussed during lectures on the topic. There was no mention of Judaism or any other religion.
After reading around the subject, I found my lecturer’s sole focus on Christianity was replicated in the majority of literature in the social sciences, which either seemed to focus on the Christian case study, occasionally using Judaism as a side note to support an argument, or talk about Judeo-Christians as though they can all be grouped into one category.
Being a Jewish student, I noticed a major gap in the literature, no one was exploring how Judaism and its traditions have influenced how Jews today perceive and act against climate change. Nor had any of the literature I had read looked at the differences in perceptions between Jewish movements, age groups or religiosity. This gap in research became the main focus of my dissertation.
Scholars writing at the end of the last century suggested that Reform Jewish movements were more interested in protecting the environment and combating climate change than Orthodox movements.
Some scholars also found that religious people feel that only God is in control of the weather and the climate and therefore climate change would be something unaffected by humans.
I am interested in investigating whether perceptions within Judaism have changed. So far my interviews have revealed that Jewish people from all movements see climate change as a problem and believe that humans have affected it, but this is only the beginning of my research.
Amy Leckerman is a third-year student at University of Sussex and would be interested in hearing from readers on their views on climate change, email editorial@thejc.com if you would like to fill in one of her surveys.