ABSTRACT
Energy overconsumption contributes not only to climate-damaging emissions but also to a whole range of environmental problems. This chapter examines the theme not from the common economic, technical, or political perspectives, but rather in a broad sphere where not only the social and ecological but also the cultural and subjective dimensions of believer’s energy use become visible. It describes as a combination of the anthropology of religion and ecological phenomenology. "Energy as gift" leads to an ecologically sound and communitarian householding; "energy as commodity" leads to the marketing and reification of creation's elementary goods, which then become tools for dominance. Thus, one must ask to what degree economic conditions do justice to the notion that energy represents a gift that can only be transformed into energy by managing its ecological constituencies with human technology. Economists show clearly the impossibility of continuous growth, which is often measured with imprecise instruments, such as the Gross National Income.
