A lecture by Robin Veldman (Texas A&M University), moderated by Obery M. Hendricks (Columbia).
Researchers who are interested in understanding how religion affects Americans’ attitudes toward climate change have typically conceptualized religious influence as emerging from within organized religious traditions. On this view, if religion affects Catholics’ climate attitudes at all, it will be through a specifically Catholic source such as Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ or though the influence of other Catholic parishioners. I suggest that this view may be missing a significant vector for religious influence on attitudes toward climate change: conservative media. Examining the transcripts of the top-rated Fox News program The Glenn Beck Program from 2009 to 2011, I explore how the eponymous host framed climate change in Christian nationalist terms as a threat to the Founding Father’s vision for America. I suggest that ostensibly secular media sources may be an under-researched mechanism by which religion is shaping climate attitudes, one that is worth exploring because of this religiosity’s ability to provide a sense of firm foundations in uncertain times.
Robin Veldman is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Texas A&M University. Her research examines how religious beliefs and cultural identities shape attitudes toward the climate and climate change, primarily in the United States. Her first book, The Gospel of Climate Skepticism (University of California Press, 2019), explores American evangelicals' attitudes toward climate change. She is currently working on a project exploring the intersection of Christian nationalism and anti-environmentalism.