During the recent Liberation Theology Workshop: Doing Climate Justice (October 22-24, 2020), Dr. Sebastian Salaske (University of Osnabrück) delivered a presentation on how acknowledging, agreeing upon, and adhering to limits can “do climate justice” and, what is more, have truly liberating effects.

Salaske suggests that while it’s important to bring back a discussion about limits, we must realize that instead of reducing the quality of life, a sufficiency-oriented perspective could in fact have liberating effects. In his presentation, Salaske draws on two theories from the field of interdisciplinary sustainability research which explicitly look at such limits. The first is “consumption corridors”, described by Antonietta Di Giulio and Doris Fuchs. This theory attempts to integrate the good life and justice in sustainable development between the bounds of minimum human requirements and maximum environmental thresholds. The second theory, developed by Niko Paech, entails thinking of sustainable development as a program for economic reduction and necessarily coupled with sharing and self-production. Both these approaches, coupled with the theological insights of Jon Sobrino and Pope Francis, hold great promise for engendering a civilization of shared austerity that, counterintuitively, results in a liberation of both people and planet.

Salaske is Academic Assistant for Dogmatics and Fundamental Theology at the Institute for Catholic Theology of the University of Osnabrück, Germany.

You are provided with the opportunity to witness his presentation by means of a video