The Author
Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action, and Climate Change.
Stephen Jurovics, Ph.D.
Stephen Jurovics, PhD
Stephen A. Jurovics holds BS and MS degrees from Columbia University and a PhD in Engineering from the University of Southern California. He has had about 20 technical papers published over the years and given numerous presentations at professional conferences. Aspects of climate change mitigation have been the focus of his engineering work for more than two decades.
The existential threat posed by climate change and a belief that the faith community could motivate people to push for mitigating actions led him, out of spiritual curiosity, to research the environmental teachings in the Bible, particularly exploring whether they contained instructions relevant to contemporary issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, preserving biological diversity, recycling, and sustainability. The abundance of applicable teachings and a desire to demonstrate that the faith community has a solid biblical basis for addressing the climate change crisis motivated him to write Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action, and Climate Change (Morehouse Publishing, an imprint of Church Publishing, 2016) . The United Methodist Women selected Hospitable Planet for its 2018 reading program and “Education for Ministry,” a program of the Episcopal Church, selected Hospitable Planet as their common reading text in 2021 for their roughly 6,500 participants.
Endorsements
Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action, and Climate Change seeks to fill the gap in religious and secular texts by providing both a compelling biblical case for action on climate change and by identifying substantive measures to mitigate climate change and how to achieve their implementation.
Churches can massively reduce their impact on God’s good earth if they understand the Bible’s mandate to care for creation and develop practical skills to decrease their energy use. This book hits the target directly on both counts.
Stephen Jurovics’ book is an important work of witness: faith and connection to God should lead us to save and heal our planet from a looming environmental catastrophe. Based primarily on the Five Books of Moses, sacred to both Christians and Jews, this book is written with passion, wisdom, and intelligence. The author’s sensitivity enables him to speak movingly to people of faith, offering a handbook on the Bible’s greatest mandate for mortal existence – to choose life for the earth (which is the Lord’s) and all its inhabitants.
As a pastor for 30 years, a psychologist, and a civil rights activist for 55 years I am convinced that Hospitable Planet has provided a powerful objective strategy for why we all must work together (i.e. science, faith, business, politicians, community folks) to ensure that climate change, global warming, and environmental justice are the civil rights issues for this century. Read this book. Share its message. Now – get involved!! We can and must make the difference!!
Take action – it starts with you.
“The book seeks to enroll a hitherto under-represented, though large and influential, portion of the U.S. population in addressing climate change: committed American Christians, of all denominations. If members of this faith community not yet involved in mitigating climate change began demanding a forceful response, I believe it would bring the country to the tipping point of full engagement. If America engages, most of the world community not yet committed will follow and a de-fusing of the climate change crisis will be underway.” – Excerpt from the Overview of Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action and Climate Change