In texts, films, paintings and speeches, New Deal policymakers and allied intellectuals deployed biblical language and images to evoke contrition for environmental "sins." The sins of the fathers, namely the exploitative land use on the part of settlers and agro-capitalists, were now being visited on the Depression generation in the catastrophes not only of wind-born soil erosion (as in the Dust Bowl) but also the more extensive threat of gullying and water-born erosion. New Deal uses of the Bible, we argue, were not an instrumental conceit designed to manipulate hearts and minds. Rather, New Deal environmental thought, even at its seemingly most technocratic, was profoundly embedded within Christian imaginaries of sin and redemption. Scientific and religious modes of authority merged with the offices of state. As such, the soil Jeremiad is one illustration of both the need for and potential benefit of thickening "inter-field" religious and environmental methodologies-a potential we explore in this essay. In historicizing the soil Jeremiad, we also offer an example of how we might better understand the importance of religion for the history of the environmental movement beyond stories from activists' biographies and move toward a religious-environmental history of the public sphere itself.

Abstract In texts, films, paintings and speeches, New Deal policymakers and allied intellectuals deployed biblical language and images to evoke contrition for environmental “sins.” The sins of the fathers, namely the exploitative land use on the part of settlers and agro-capitalists, were now being visited on the Depression generation in the catastrophes not only of wind-born soil erosion (as in the Dust Bowl) but also the more extensive threat of gullying and water-born erosion. New Deal uses of the Bible, we argue, were not an instrumental conceit designed to manipulate hearts and minds. Rather, New Deal environmental thought, even at its seemingly most technocratic, was profoundly embedded within Christian imaginaries of sin and redemption. Scientific and religious modes of authority merged with the offices of state. As such, the soil Jeremiad is one illustration of both the need for and potential benefit of thickening “inter-field” religious and environmental methodologies—a potential we explore in this essay. In historicizing the soil Jeremiad, we also offer an example of how we might better understand the importance of religion for the history of the environmental movement beyond stories from activists’ biographies and move toward a religious-environmental history of the public sphere itself.

Throughout the "Age of Aid" (1944-1989)4 development has been seen as essentially economic in nature. Increasingly, however, it has become apparent that it is economic only in its consequences. It is something else - entitlements, democratization...social capital - that makes development possible. A different paradigm is therefore needed, and we begin by sketching that by way of the various "experiments" - nationalization, privatization and communitization - with Nepal's forests over the past half-century. Nationalization and privatization turned out to be abysmal failures; communitization a great, and continuing, success. We relate all this to the differing patterns of interaction between four fundamental forms of social solidarity - individualism (eg markets), hierarchy (eg governments and aid donors), egalitarianism (eg activist groups) and fatalism (eg carriers of the "double burden": poverty and social exclusion) - and go on to show that only when each is (a) able to make its "voice" heard and (b) is following its dharma5 (acting according to its distinctive morality rather than undermining it) do we get development. REDD+6, we then show, using examples of its implementation in Africa, is unremittingly hierarchical and does not satisfy these two conditions. We conclude with some suggestions for remedying these policy defects.

ABSTRACT The conditions for development that we have set out in our Part 1 – each solidarity able to make its contribution and each then acting according to its distinctive dharma – were markedly absent in the case of the Finnish-funded Bara Forest Management Plan. We here go on to show that REDD+ is essentially a re-run of that privatization fiasco. Being the creation of actors from just one solidarity (in this case, the hierarchical one), REDD+ is over-elegant and has excluded the voices and concerns of those who uphold the other three solidarities: the individualist, the egalitarian and the fatalist. There are two ways of remedying this: we can restore the dharma (by progressively clumsifying REDD+, as has been happening to some extent) or we can simply discard it and start again, in the right (i.e., clumsy and multi-voice) place this time. Since REDD+ is nested within the similarly over-elegant UNFCCC climate change policy frame, we recommend the latter of these alternatives.

Throughout the Age of Aid (1944-1989) development has been seen as essentially economic in nature. Increasingly, however, it has become apparent that it is economic only in its consequences. It is something else – entitlements, democratization ... social capital – that makes development possible. A different paradigm is therefore needed, and we begin by sketching that by way of the various “experiments” – nationalization, privatization and communitization – with Nepal’s forests over the past half-century. Nationalization and privatization turned out to be abysmal failures; communitization a great, and continuing, success. We relate all this to differing patterns of interaction between four fundamental forms of social solidarity – individualism (e.g., markets), hierarchy (e.g. governments and aid donors), egalitarianism (e.g. activist groups) and fatalism (e.g. carriers of the “double burden”: poverty and social exclusion). Only when each is (a) able to make its contribution and (b) is following its dharma (acting according to its distinctive morality rather than undermining it) do we get development.

Increasing resilience has become the favoured approach in efforts to curb the impact of disasters. It is central to the United Nations' International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction and to its Sustainable Development Goals, and it is now championed by most of the nations and civil society organisations working with hazards. But who decides what resilience looks like? We explore this question through the Nepali phrase ke garne? (what to do?). Often seen as an expression of fatalism, its true meaning is pretty much the opposite: resilience in the face of adversity. Drawing on the theory of plural rationality, we show how the proponents of Disaster Risk Reduction in Nepal, in making the invalid fatalist assumption, are bent on bestowing resilience on a social and cultural system that unbeknown to them is already, of its very nature, resilient: unnecessary at best; positively harmful at worst. This is not to say that they should not intervene; only that they need to first understand what it is that they are intervening in. And central to that understanding is the indigenous knowledge – in the case of landslides, the ethnogeomorphology – of those they have mistakenly assumed to be fatalistic.

In his article, ‘Social constructionism and climate science denial’, Hansson claims to present empirical evidence that the cultural theory developed by Dame Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky and ourselves (among others) leads to (climate) science denial. In this reply, we show that there is no validity to these claims. First, we show that Hansson’s empirical evidence that cultural theory has led to climate science denial falls apart under closer inspection. Contrary to Hansson’s claims, cultural theory has made significant contributions to understanding and addressing climate change. Second, we discuss various features of Douglas’ cultural theory that differentiate it from other constructivist approaches and make it compatible with the scientific method. Thus, we also demonstrate that cultural theory cannot be accused of epistemic relativism.

The importance of applying the systems approach to cities and urban policies is illustrated using the circular economy. Cities are laboratories for innovation and have the entrepreneurial impetus and links to citizens to generate the social, environmental, and economic benefits of innovation and experimentation. Many cities are implementing circular economy strategies to maintain a healthy and regenerative economy, while promoting environmental sustainability and liveability. City infrastructures have to be re‑engineered and re-operated to rectify environmental "bads", for example degraded water. If cities are to be forces of good for the environment, the traditional systems approach may not suffice. Conventional policy analysis contains four precepts that should be reversed. Do not: insist on a single and agreed definition of the problem; distinguish facts from values; set up a single metric for comparing and assessing options; optimise around the most promising option.

This chapter looks at several interpretive models that help to define and explains the equity debates about responses to climate change. It discusses equity issues in climate discourses, distributional principles and allocational issues, procedural fairness, and the relationship of equity issues to social solidarity. A two-dimensional map of human values provides a tool for bringing equity issues into integrated assessment. The chapter deals with suggestions for ways to incorporate equity concerns into integrated assessment. The assumption that decision-makers are responsive to prices underlies the economic modules of all integrated assessment models. Efficiency, unlike equity, is inherent in the very idea of integrated assessment. Historical responsibility as an equity principle has strong support in the literature and politically in developing countries, but there are also valid counter-arguments. Issues of equity in climate change serve to highlight the central importance of the concept of social solidarity to understanding the social and political discourses about climate.