A foundational resource for readers investigating religiously motivated environmentalism, this book provides both a global overview of the subject and a detailed discussion of key figures, concepts, organizations, events, and documents. Beginning in the late 1960s, a growing number of activists, scholars, and scientists asserted that traditional religions had been major contributors to the environmental crisis. In response, theologians, religious organizations, and religiously motivated activists became increasingly involved in environmental issues. At the same time, emerging nature-based belief systems emphasized values and lifestyles based in environmentalism. More recently, religiously motivated environmentalism has become a powerful force in shaping environmental policy and human action globally and has joined with secular environmentalism to address related issues. This book explores the background and current state of religious environmentalism. The book begins with an overview essay examining the history and context of religious environmentalism and its significance today. A chronology then profiles the most important events related to religious environmentalism. A section of more than 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries follows, with each entry providing objective information about people, places, events, movements, works, and other topics. The entries include cross-references and suggestions for further reading, and the book closes with a selected, annotated bibliography of major works. An introductory essay provides an overview of the origins and present-day significance of religious environmental activism A chronology features important events related to religion and the environment More than 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries provide objective, essential information about people, works, theories, movements, events, and other topics related to religious environmentalism Entries cite works for further reading and an annotated bibliography directs users to additional resources

The organized protection of animals and the necessity of meat in the human diet are grounded in an ideology of progress that had clearly emerged by the eighteenth century. Stone examines the changing status of animals, increased meat consumption, the nation-state's role in animal protection, and the emergence of non-governmental organizations dedicated to animal protection. This work emphasizes that animal protection and increased meat consumption occur with the expansion of world-level culture and that culture's ideology of progress. This world culture defines animal protection, including the alleviation of pain and suffering, as a necessary value and a goal of a progressive culture and its citizens. Yet, this same culture defines meat consumption, which is perceived as a dietary necessity and indicative of socio-economic development, as another characteristic of a progressive culture and its citizens. While this work examines the dual consumption and protection of animals, Stone also directs attention toward the human population growth and patterns of food production, distribution, and consumption.