Would more young members stick with the faith if the LDS Church went all-in against climate change?

Save the church by saving the Earth?

More than three-fourths of Latter-day Saints say they revere nature and feel a responsibility to protect it. Classes on Earth stewardship at church-owned Brigham Young University are filling up as young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wrestle with the dangers caused by climate change and feel inexorably prompted to act. To do something.

At the same time, many millennial and Generation Z believers, critical of some policies, are leaving the Utah-based faith and putting their idealism elsewhere.

What if the church solved both problems by going all-in on protecting the planet, proposing concrete plans to be adopted in every region? Would being involved in an urgent global effort — much as the food storage mandates prepared members for lean times — give more young people a reason to stay?

If there were a chance to engage “on climate restoration,” says BYU ecology professor Ben Abbott, “no doubt there are many Latter-day Saint youths who would continue to find a place in the faith — despite their doubts.”

A conservation program that could turn Latter-day Saint doctrine into meaningful actions at the ward (congregational), stake (regional), area and country level, he says, would “forge relationships across political divides and help unite the body of the church.”

The church could capitalize on the energy of missionaries as well as create partnerships between young men and young women (it wouldn’t require priesthood to participate).

That would be, Abbott says, “a watershed moment.”

‘If the prophet approved it, members would get on board’

Post-pandemic young Latter-day Saints have given higher priority to social issues like race, sexuality and gender than to climate issues, says Jared Meek, a 32-year-old graduate student at Columbia University.

And lots of them are leaving over these issues, says Meek, a BYU alum who is studying environmental botany. But there are definitely millennials concerned about the environment.

“I’m not sure it would be enough to offset their issues with the church’s LGBTQ stance,” he says. “Many feel the church is not as welcoming as it should be, but the church is doing a lot to try to fix that.”

If the church started doing more nationally and globally on the environment, Meek says, “it could possibly retain some of those younger members.”

And it would be easy to build on what the church is already doing.

Every ward and stake could have a “sustainability” or “stewardship” coordinator — much like a person called to oversee welfare, family history or ward missionaries. They could assign members to weekly or monthly projects.

A position as part of the structure would strengthen the efforts immensely, Meek says, “but it should all be done locally.”

If you live in a farming community in eastern Wyoming, he says, your sustainability needs would be different than in Uganda or Venezuela.

Meek serves as a board member of Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship, a nonprofit organization striving “to honor God by learning and living Latter-day Saint principles of creation care.”

The group has 12 chapters — seven in the U.S. and five abroad, Meek says, and the priorities vary for each.

Some years ago, the Columbia student didn’t have a church “calling,” so he went to his Latter-day Saint bishop in New York and offered to serve as the ward environmental specialist, a position he invented to seek out and rally members to local projects.

His bishop was, he says, “cool” with it.

Too many Latter-day Saints see Earth stewardship as a “liberal” enterprise, “but caring for the land isn’t political,” he says. “If the prophet approved it, members would get on board.”

From political to spiritual

In a 2023 PRRI survey, the vast majority of Latter-day Saints (84%) agreed that “living up to God’s given role as stewards is extremely or very important.” It was the highest of all the faiths polled.

Yet the survey showed they are among the least concerned about the climate crisis (just 10%). Close to half (44%) placed the blame for it on natural phenomena, and 8% said there is no solid evidence climate change is happening in the first place.

Those results come even as senior apostle Dallin H. Oaks, next in line to lead the worldwide faith, has identified the perils of climate change, warning in a 2017 speech that “seacoast cities are concerned with the rising level of the ocean, which will bring ocean tides to their doorsteps or over their thresholds” and that “global warming is also affecting agriculture and wildlife.”

So, why the disconnect between creation care and climate change?

Jenica Sedgwick is the church’s sustainability manager, a position that was created about two years ago and operates under the Presiding Bishopric, which oversees the faith’s extensive financial, real estate, investment and charitable endeavors.

Sedgwick knows all about the importance of language and framing.

It is her job, she says, to help coordinate the church’s efforts across different departments, developing strategic operations, and encouraging collaboration among 21 area offices.

At an environmentalism conference in Brazil last year, Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé spelled out the global faith’s sustainability priorities:

• Increase energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources.

• Conserve water through waterwise landscape design, smart technology use and water management plans. The church announced a historic donation of 20,000 acre-feet of water in 2023 in an effort to save the shrinking Great Salt Lake.

• Avoid material waste through reduction, reuse and recycling; packaging solutions; and building methods. The church has switched to 100% recycled plastic for its sacrament (Communion) cups. Caussé has noted this change “will reduce overall carbon emissions compared to our current cups and even paper cups.”

• Improve air quality and reduce emissions caused by transportation methods, such as improving the fuel efficiency of the church’s global vehicle fleet.

• Practice sustainable design, development and construction of buildings. The church unveiled “green” meetinghouses in Farmington and Eagle Mountain a decade ago — a prototype for future buildings — that sported solar panels, xeriscaped landscaping and designated parking for electric cars.

• Adopt sustainable farming and ranching practices in operations around the globe. The church’s massive Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch in northern Utah, for example, has developed an innovative system of rotational grazing.

To help coordinate these efforts, Sedgwick gathers and manages tons of information from these regions, she says, working to develop “a global view of what’s happening for environmental sustainability within the church, which is really exciting.”

She also works with the church’s communication department to find tools to “share the doctrine,” she says, “which is deep and wonderful and truly can be inspirational.”

At the macro level

The first step is to get the word out that “we believe in a God who created this world and loves us. It’s beautiful and we’re meant to take care of it,” Sedgwick says. “And, oh, by the way, being a steward means being accountable to how we could treat it.”

Earth stewardship, she says, “should become an integral component of our discipleship.”

Like the survey results, Latter-day Saints say they care about creation, but they are not as involved in working against climate change as many others. That could be because “climate change” rhetoric is often seen through a political lens.

Members like Sedgwick who want to raise awareness about it, she says, may need to avoid that language, drawing instead on Latter-day Saint doctrine and scripture.

Paraphrasing a 2022 General Conference speech by Caussé, she says members need to take responsibility for the environment.

“Beyond it being a political or scientific necessity,” Sedgwick says, “this should become an integral component of our discipleship.”

Walking the walk

The challenges facing today’s young people are complex, says Marie-Laure Oscarson, stewardship adviser in her Provo ward, and she doubts that any one action would — by itself — “reverse” some of the church exodus trends of recent years.

Still, she argues that Earth stewardship “is a principle that is backed by rich, unique doctrine that touches on issues that the younger generation clearly cares about more than older generations.”

The power of locally driven projects that get members (young and old) out working with others to improve their communities and the environments in which they live, Oscarson says, “is untapped.

Creation caring “connects us with God, who has given us these beautiful gifts,” she says, “and with others since our actions never affect just ourselves.”

Oscarson hesitates to make recommendations for the whole church but believes her community could benefit “from the heightened awareness that comes from engaged service,” she says. “There is real power in getting our members out in natural spaces in ways that invite reflection and gratitude for the gifts we have all been given.”

Isabella Errigo, a BYU alum who is studying aquatic biodiversity at Cornell University, remains skeptical that assigning young members tasks to address sustainability would keep them in the fold.

“Maybe if the church went all-in, making callings that were around sustainability, and then reducing the church’s own impact,” Errigo says, “a small portion of people would consider staying rather than leaving.”

Young Latter-day Saints face so many issues as they imagine the future, she says, “but they have to care about climate change.”

The church would have to “pull out all the stops,” the grad student says. “Without the local and international scale, it wouldn’t be effective.”

Even so, Errigo believes the church has the capacity to do that — perhaps sending a strong message from the governing First Presidency — and it would be a hopeful possibility.

A ‘collective action problem’

To Ben Abbott, the BYU ecology professor, concrete initiatives are “an essential part of being a Latter-day Saint in the 21st century.”

He can imagine more members walking to church and families being assigned to clean up trash on riverbanks, plant trees to provide shade from the heat or xeriscape their yards.

After all, members once helped build their own meetinghouses and still take weekly assignments to clean their chapels, work at Welfare Square and visit hospitals.

The church could create “a whole structure of service opportunities in the community and beyond,” Abbott says, “which would really complement rather than contradict the church’s other priorities.”

As a bonus, meaningful activities “to beautify and restore ecosystems.” he says, “would build a lot of goodwill with neighbors.”

The two great commandments of Christianity are to love God and one’s neighbors, the BYU professor says. “We can’t do either of those without caring for God’s creations.”

The need to sustain the Earth is “a collective action problem,” Abbott says. “This is the only way to move forward.”

And what altruistic young Latter-day Saint, he wonders, wouldn’t want to be part of that?

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