In the aftermath of the recent 2018 Parliament of World’s Religions in Toronto, Ontario, Grove Harris reflected on work with women, faith, and eco-justice. Dr. Vandana Shiva was a major speaker for the climate change plenary and a wealth of other sessions. Her expertise and energetic, prophetic, scientific voice moved the Parliament’s climate justice work forward.
Environmental Crisis
Climate Change: Community Organising for the Earth
GreenFaith is an interfaith coalition that inspires, educates, organizes, and mobilizes people of diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds for environmental action around the world. After 23 years in existence, it became clear to our team we needed many more people involved in order to solve the grave environmental crisis before us. We needed people actively engaging with their communities and decision-making bodies about humanity’s relationship with the Earth. It was with this in mind that GreenFaith started exploring opportunities for congregation-based community organizing.
Embedding Environmental Action in the Islamic Faith
In September 2018, the Bahu Trust in Birmingham, United Kingdom, won ‘Best Green Initiative’ at the British Beacon Mosque Awards. The Bahu Trust represents 22 mosques around the country. Kamran Shezad, sustainability advisor to The Bahu Trust and a member of its congregation, explains the motivation behind moving towards a sustainable model and Bahu Trust’s efforts within both the Muslim and interfaith community.
Climate Change: Ordaining Trees to Save Them
At a time when Pope Francis is calling upon religious leaders to step up as environmental advocates, Thai Buddhist monks are answering the call. Through rituals like tree ordinations, monks are integrating Buddhist principles into the environmental movement in order to garner support from their followers and encourage sustainable practices.
Although Buddhism is typically a religion famed for its detachment from society, ecology monks believe that their religion is inherently tied to nature. With such an immense amount of influence in villages throughout Thailand, Buddhist monks are utilizing their position to add a unique moral dimension to the environmental movement. However, rituals alone are not enough.
Climate Change – Talanoa: Dialogue for Action
It’s safe to say that prior to November 2017, few Americans – and relatively few people outside the Pacific Islands – had heard of “Talanoa.” Over the past 12 months, however, Talanoa has become central to the ongoing process of United Nations global climate negotiations, and word is starting to get out that this particular framework for dialogue can be effective even when other models have failed. Talanoa’s unique approach of building empathy and common understanding allows participants to share areas of common concern and common aspirations, which in turn opens pathways for identifying steps for future action.
Where is the Heart in the Climate Justice Movement? Where is the Music?
What are our songlines in this time of climate chaos – the songs that call us to battle and navigate us to peace, the chants that bind us together, the lyrics our great grandchildren will still utter, if not our own names? The Climate Justice movement in the US is largely missing this culture, missing the song leaders.
GreenSpirit: Where Green and Sacred Meet
The radical vision of GreenSpirit brings together the rigour of science, the creativity of artistic expression, the passion of social action and the core wisdom that exists within the spiritual traditions of all ages. Attracting those of many faith traditions and none, GreenSpirit is a network of individuals who believe that human life has both an ecological and a spiritual dimension.
Faiths for Earth: The Call for Ecological Transformation
It’s not a great time for climate watchers. Last week we read that the increase in greenhouse gas will be 2.7% for 2018, compared with 1.6% for 2017, and no increase the three years before that. The particles in these emissions, such as CO2, are minuscule, and yet the combined weight of this year’s emissions adds up to more than 100,000 times the weight of Empire State Building. The models indicate that, at this rate of increase, some rather dire consequences that were expected for the decade beginning in 2040 will now arrive in the 2030s. That’s 12 years away.
Faith and Water: Thinking, Acting, and Living for a Healthy Future
The cycle of life is intricately linked to water. From our first nine months swimming in a womb to our ashes being immersed in a sacred river or scattered across the ocean, from the essential nectar we drink to that which turns apple seeds into apple trees, water is an integral part of our very existence. However, unlike oxygen, which silently, invisibly, maintains the breath in our lungs and the beating of our heart, water is a visible, tangible presence and one with which we interact – directly and indirectly – throughout the minutes of our day and the days of our lives.
