---

‘We need a supernatural being to punish eco-sinners’
According to reports from the British Science Association Festival, taking place this week in Guildford, England, Lord May, president of the association, urged religious leaders to take a frontline role in convincing people to combat climate change. Apparently, speaking just before he made his presidential address, Lord May asserted that ‘religion had historically played a major role in policing social behaviour through the notion of a supernatural “enforcer”, a system that could help unify communities to tackle environmental challenges’ (1).

According to a second news report, Lord May suggested ‘religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again’. ‘A supernatural punisher may be part of the solution’, he continued (2). A third news report quoted Lord May as claiming that ‘punishment was much more effective if it came from “some all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful deity that controls the world”, rather than from an individual person’ (3)....