Mikaela Martinez Dettinger- Environmental Leadership and the 'new' idea of a community approach

 In my Environmental Leadership class this semester, there was a lot of crossover with this class. Some similar authors and ideas were referenced, but the biggest similarity I noticed was the idea of community and ecology being tied together. In Religion and Ecology, interactions with the environment always happened in a communal way. The rituals of the aboriginals, the community fostered by gardens in Eisenberg, even the rise fo the cereal grain in Tender Carnivore is linked to a rise in population. Because of this link, when my Leadership class culminated with the thought that community-based leadership is the best approach to the environment, I thought "well, duh". But in reality, not everyone makes that connection easily. Many people tend to think about climate change in terms of themselves and what effect it has on them rather than on their community or even on the human race as a whole. This leads to a far removal from even considering that the effects of our actions with the climate have consequences for extra-human beings. 

Environmental issues do need to be led with a community-based approach, but this is because we are all a community bound by our dependence on the earth! It should not be forgotten in the age of technological comforts and divisions that we, as the human race, share at least one major thing in common, we all live and depend on this planet. This is why the study of religion and ecology are so interconnected. Both religion and ecology depend on community and communal decisions and considerations.