Prior to the Enlightenment era, how was the human-climate relationship conceived? Focusing on the most recent epoch in which belief in an animate environment still widely prevailed, Climate Change and Original Sin argues that an ecologically inflected moral system assumed that humanity bore responsibility for climate corruption and volatility. The environmental problem initiated by original sin is not only that humans alienated themselves from nature but also that satanic powers invaded the world and corrupted its elements—particularly the air. Milton shared with contemporaries the...

Prior to the Enlightenment era, how was the human-climate relationship conceived? Focusing on the most recent epoch in which belief in an animate environment still widely prevailed, this book argues that an ecologically inflected moral system assumed that humanity bore responsibility for climate corruption and volatility.