Ruining our atmosphere is not only scandalous, it's bad for business. All the more reason to join the People's Climate March on Sept. 21 in New York City, timed to overlay a landmark gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

Quaker activist Jay O'Hara plans on being there. He teamed up with Ken Ward last year and blocked the delivery of 40,000 tons of coal to New England's largest coal-burning power plant for a day. He's scheduled to tell his story at the Noank Baptist Church on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m.

The march comes as two chimes ring above the white noise of mounting scientific evidence for a human-induced ecological calamity, each from occasionally clashing orchestras. The first rings from the world of stock options and portfolios. A study was published by the bipartisan "Risky Business Project," whose co-chairs hardly conjure images of radical vegans: former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who served under President George W. Bush; and Tom Steyer, a retired hedge fund manager.

Robert Rubin, President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and a "risk team" member, explained the project's conclusions in a Washington Post op-ed: Some frame the climate debate as "a trade-off between environmental protection and economic prosperity," with carbon reduction poised as the spiteful job killer. "That's precisely the wrong way to look at it," he said. "The real question should be: What is the cost of inaction?"

Rubin's answer: Immense. By 2050, for example, between $48 billion and $68 billion worth of Louisiana and Florida property will lie below sea level - which doesn't exactly pave the path for robust real estate values and a healthy tax base, to say the least.

I applaud Rubin and his colleagues, but I'm tuned in to the second orchestra, the one that plays in the field of spirituality and morality, often out-of-tune with Wall Street. Its chime rings: We're shriveling our soul while dooming the GNP. All major monotheistic faiths assert that God vested the Earth into our care. We sing with the psalmist: "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers" (Psalm 124:1).

Eastern religions, while viewing existence through a different conception of deity, also elevate creation care as a sacred task. Buddhist leaders jointly proclaimed: "The scientific consensus is overwhelming: human activity is triggering environmental breakdown on a planetary scale."

Many religious leaders agree with Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople: "Climate change is much more than an issue of environmental protection. Insofar as it is human-induced, it is a profoundly moral and spiritual problem," and Pope Francis: "Safeguard Creation, because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!" The Central Conference of American Rabbis called for "strong action" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while dozens of Evangelical Christian leaders proclaimed: "The need to act now is urgent."

Perhaps it's time to ponder the thoughts of Jacques Ellul, a French theologian and sociologist, who wrote after World War II. He said industrialism's technical religion spawned a "civilization of means." He elaborated: "In the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends." Values now hinge on a cruel form of utilitarianism. Everything is measured by its volume, efficiency, and marketability - with spirituality and morality dismissed as vague, irrelevant ideals.

We've lengthened our lives but hollowed our spirits while stranding ourselves in a morass of coal and oil - means for heat, fast travel, and fun.

But perhaps we'll find hope in the morass: Coming to grips with climate change may force us to re-awaken our spiritual and moral natures, returning us to a greater vision of ourselves and our place in creation.

So I dream. Otherwise, death knells may replace the chimes.

Charles Redfern is the interim pastor of the Quaker Hill Baptist Church in Waterford and a board member of the Inter-religious Eco-Justice Network.