When Nature Replaces God

King Charles, Climate Piety, and the New Paganism

King Charles III has a vision. No, not that of his brother banged up for sex crimes against minors, neither that of Megaflop Meghan being the first black, white and female president of the new Republic. Instead, Charles’ environmentally friendly vision will be screened on fossil fuel dependent, major waste contributor and alleged exploiter of migrant workers, Amazon Prime next month.

In ‘Finding Harmony: a King’s Vision’ Charles delivers a simple message; that humanity needs to restore the balance between man and nature if it hopes to solve climate change and many of the other problems facing the world today.

“It all boils down to the fact that we are actually nature ourselves” he says in the closing moments of the documentary “we are a part of it, not apart from it, which is really how things are being presented for so long,’’

The King is not wrong to highlight the importance of establishing a harmonious relationship with nature, to emphasise working with nature and not against nature, but he is wrong to imply that there is no qualitative difference between the natural world and humans. The problem is that when God is removed entirely from the picture, environmental discourse swings wildly between two errors: Domination, where nature is treated as raw material for exploitation; and Deification, where nature is elevated into a moral authority or ‘God’ in her own right.