Kat Myers is a PhD Candidate on Religious and Environmental Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The Divinity School conducted an interview with her to honor Earth Month.

What does your work focus on? 

I work in the field of environmental ethics. Specifically, I am concerned with the human suffering that accompanies displacement caused by global climate change. In my dissertation, I consider how an ethics of compassion can shape our response to such displacement. Discussions about how to respond to these and related issues are often stymied by debates over responsibility for past harms. Compassion enables us to sidestep such debates by focusing solely on reducing present suffering and preventing it in the future. Moreover, an ethics of compassion directs our attention to those most vulnerable to the deleterious effects of climate change and directly contends with the uncompensable losses they face.

What inspires you and your work?

When I witness the immense suffering in the world, I wonder how could I spend my time working on anything else. Climate change in particular is a source of unprecedented suffering, the greatest burdens of which are and will be experienced by those who are already especially vulnerable to deprivations. The haunting and timely question that therefore motivates my work is: how should we respond to this grotesque spectacle?

How does the study of religion intersect or inform the study of environmental issues – or vice versa (how does thinking about the environment intersect or inform your study of religion?

In my work, I consider how various religious and para-religious communities meliorate suffering caused by climate change displacement. I explore the rich tapestry of ways in which they enact compassion by providing people with fellowship, support, and other resources. This reduces social isolation and provides a bulwark against despair. I pay particular attention to the ways in which local activists and communities address the suffering of society’s most vulnerable members. By considering how such communities have foregrounded compassion in the past, we can better understand how to cultivate compassion in our response to climate change in the future.