Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for this very interesting and well-written paper. The topic is significant. And the personal experiences increase its persuasiveness.

In its present form, the article does not seem to have enough religious content to merit inclusion in Religions journal. The article does seem ready for publication in an ecology journal or an environmental journal.

If the author would like to publish the paper in Religions then I would suggest a couple of ways that the religion content might be increased:

1) Clarify with more case study examples (if possible) or more quotations from Buddhist writings what is eco-Buddhism.

2) Clarify with more specific examples from case studies or theological writings how eco-Buddhism (and/or other similar Asian religions) contrast with the "stewardship" model of Christianity (and/or Judaism and Islam).

3) Clarify more the counterargument. The thesis seems to be that there is a place for religious environmentalism, but that it is not sufficient. It would be helpful to have more presentation from any who would completely abandon religious ethics or who would rely solely upon religious ethics.

Thank you again for this outstanding writing and research. I trust that this worthy article will find its proper home, whether in another journal or in Religions.

 

Author Response

Comment 1. Clarify with more case study examples (if possible) or more quotations from Buddhist writings what is eco-Buddhism.

Response 1. Have clarified by adding some examples in brief in p. 5

Comment 2. Clarify with more specific examples from case studies or theological writings how eco-Buddhism (and/or other similar Asian religions) contrast with the "stewardship" model of Christianity (and/or Judaism and Islam).

Response 2. Have added a paragraph at the end of p. 3 and beginning of p.4

Comment 3. Clarify more the counterargument. The thesis seems to be that there is a place for religious environmentalism, but that it is not sufficient. It would be helpful to have more presentation from any who would completely abandon religious ethics or who would rely solely upon religious ethics.

Response 3. Have inserted a sentence in p. 6 but for reasons of space, did not expand,  for I develop the argument in p. 11 onwards.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

see posts

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comment 1. p. 5. “secular concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, receding water levels etc arise from a scientific understanding of the world which was not possible in ancient times” - Reviewer: ancients recognized these problems but did not articulate them in these terms.

Response 1. I understand where the problem lies and have added a phrase “in just the same” to clarify.

Comment 2. p. 5.  “Representations of Buddhism as ecological is not supported by actual practice either” - Reviewer: Religions are ecological - even if do not embrace ideals of ecologists.

Response 2. For clarity, changed it to “In practice too, Buddhist communities do not commonly conform to ecological representations of Buddhism”

Comment 3. p. 12 (page number changed due to revisions). “The different habitations within the Buddhist Himalaya make a uniform religion-based environmentalism difficult to sustain” – Reviewer: not just difficult to sustain but impossible.

Response 3. I changed difficult to sustain to “untenable”

Comment 4. p. 13. “transform us from being self-absorbed humans given to excessive consumerism” – Reviewer: what makes it excessive?

Response 4. Changed excessive consumerism to “capitalism-driven consumerism”

Comment 5. p. 14 (page number changed due to revisions) “a religious reformulation of the world – and in the model of the past – is an attractive but unpractical idea” – Reviewer: but not unattractive just because it is impractical.

Response 5. I agree with the thought but don’t think a change is warranted here.

Comment 6. p. 14. (page number changed due to revisions) “Ethnography pays attention to how ethical concepts are given life and then again, how life might be drained out of these concepts” - need greater attention to how life might be drained. Give examples.

Response 6. For reasons of space, I did not give examples, but inserted some words that clarify. “In other words, environmental ethics is an embodied and interactive process that manifests not in abstraction