Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/archive/page/16/)
While climate change will negatively impact all of us, people of color and low-income communities will be hit the hardest and have the fewest resources to adapt to the challenges, such as extreme weather and poor air quality, that climate change will bring. Yet, these communities are often underrepresented, if not left out completely.
Will the political world finally rally, acting fast and decisively enough to save a tolerable planet for our descendants? This is an unprecedented moral challenge.
Today the Gregorian calendar, including the seven-day week, is so intrinsic and essential to the global economy that few ever reflect on how it is a human created contrivance that imposes these cycles on the natural world (note, for instance, weekly patterns of human work and associated pollution).
To create a present and a future which is Earth-honoring and just to all marginalized and outcast beings, those of us who identify as Hindus must act as wise and determined servants in re-discovering the ecologically-sound wisdom embedded in our collective human history and experience.
As Sikhs, we are called upon to treat all of humankind as brothers and sisters … and to take action against the gross injustices suffered by our brethren. This means that we must ensure that they do not bear the burden of climate change alone.
The online exclusives below are freely accessible articles that are part of an ongoing special series associated with Tikkun’s Spring 2015 print issue, The Place of Hope in an Age of Climate Disaster. Many of our most provocative articles on this topic appeared in that print issue, which is only accessible to subscribers. Subscribe now to read the subscriber-only print articles on the web (explore the table of contents to see what you’re missing!). If you appreciate the free web-only articles below, please do enable us to keep up this important work by becoming a print subscriber or offering a donation. Diversity is the Lifeline for the Future of the Climate Movement
by Mijin Cha
Hinduism and Honoring Creation
by Chris Fici
Social Justice, the Environment, and Sikhs
by Sumeet Kaur
Let’s Establish the New Moon and Full Moon as Holidays of Earth Preservation
by Ron Feldman
Hope in the Age of Climate Consequences
by Kate Davies
What Does Sustainability Feel Like?
Jesus was a Jew, so Jesus’s Bible was the Hebrew Bible. Churchgoers are missing out if they never encounter more than the Psalms.
To what extent is a lack of hope to blame for our inaction on the climate?
“Stewardship” is a tired old idea. Let’s stop talking about duty and start talking about the sacredness of creation! The light of Christ is in all beings.
The dharmic concept of ahimsa (“not to injure”) demands that we take personal and political action to protect the environment.
The Qur’an instructs us to live lightly on this earth. From Zanzibar to Indonesia, Islamic ethics are guiding new conservation efforts.
Bodhisattvas commit daily to an impossible task: the liberation of all living beings. What can climate activists learn from their active nonattachment?
Climate prayer is powerful. Here’s how synagogues can breathe earth awareness into services and activists can make their actions prayerful.
by Kitcher, Lewis and Cohn-Sherbok, Kownacki and Snyder, Morinis, Shapiro, Loy, Walsch, and Mangabeira
Speaking OUT: Queer Youth in Focus
by Rachelle Lee Smith, Graeme Taylor, and Candace Gingrich
PM Press, 2014
Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion
Edited by Ryan Conrad
AK Press, 2014
As state after state approves gay marriage, it can be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the most pressing issues for LGBTQ people have been “solved.” Taken together, these two books offer an illuminating reality check. Speaking OUT, a photo essay that pairs photographic portraits with handwritten reflections from youth who identify as queer, offers a glimpse of the wide range of experiences that comprise life for queer youth today. Some teens express a sense of deep joy about the loving support they received from their entire community upon coming out (“the response was 100 percent supportive—100 percent!” exclaims contributor Graeme Taylor), attesting to the meaningful shifts that have taken place culturally within the last half-century. But others describe experiences of physical assault, rejection, and discrimination, attesting to the continued lived realities of homophobia and transphobia in the current era. Ryan Conrad’s anthology, meanwhile, offers a hard-edged political analysis of the many forms of oppression that mainstream efforts such as the marriage equality campaign will never solve.