What Happens When Religion Conflicts With Environmental Health?

FEATURING JAY WEXLER – According to Rising Up host, Sonali Kolhatkar, “As a child, when I visited my home country of India, I sometimes got to witness the amazing Hindu religious spectacles that unfolded on the streets of Mumbai. One of the most striking was the last day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, where masses of people would carry giant idols of the Hindu elephant-headed god, Ganesh, and march to the sea and submerge the idols as a symbolic gesture. I always wondered what happened to the idols in the days and weeks following…”

Jay Wexler is a Professor at Boston University School of Law, where he has taught Environmental Law and Church-State Law since 2001. He is the author of When God Isn’t Green: A World-Wide Journey to Places Where Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide.

**This segment was originally broadcast on May 17, 2016.