The dharmic concept of ahimsa (“not to injure”) demands that we take personal and political action to protect the environment.
2015
Looking to the Qur’an in an Age of Climate Disaster
|
The Qur’an instructs us to live lightly on this earth. From Zanzibar to Indonesia, Islamic ethics are guiding new conservation efforts.
2015
A Bodhisattva’s Approach to Climate Activism
|
Bodhisattvas commit daily to an impossible task: the liberation of all living beings. What can climate activists learn from their active nonattachment?
2015
Prayer as if the Earth Really Matters
|
Climate prayer is powerful. Here’s how synagogues can breathe earth awareness into services and activists can make their actions prayerful.
2015
Reducing Auto Dependency and Sprawl: An Ecological Imperative
|
To reduce emissions, we must stop driving so much. One source of hope is the movement to transform dead suburban malls into walkable city centers.
2015
The Banality of Environmental Destruction
|
The things we will need to change to keep the earth safe are the very things closest to us, dearest to us, and most rooted in our traditions.
2015
Limiting Corporate Power and Cultivating Interdependence: A Strategic Plan for the Environment
|
The environmental movement is too fragmented. It’s time to integrate our struggles and recognize the spiritual dimension of our political work.
2015
Disaster and Disability: Social Inequality and the Uneven Effects of Climate Change
|
Environmental harm intensifies structural violence, so acting for justice in an age of climate change means fighting all forms of oppression.
2015
Hope Requires Fighting the Hope Industry
|
Corporations are feeding our denial. Climate change cannot be averted without also overhauling the global economy.
2015
Facing the Death of Nature: Environmental Memorials to Counter Despair
|
We must find ways to mourn lost species and care for dying ecosystems—doing so will enable us to face climate change with humility and hope.
2015
It’s Time to Get Serious About Saving the Planet from Destruction
|
We can replace the ethos of endless growth and conspicuous consumption with an approach to nature based on awe and wonder at the preciousness of the earth, love of all beings, and celebration of life.
2015
The Place of Hope in an Age of Climate Disaster
|
As the earth heats up, sea levels rise, and thousands of species face extinction, it’s easy to boomerang between denial and despair.
Articles
Esther Was Vegan Too: On Purim, Let’s Renew Our Struggle to End Factory Farming
|
From saving water, to helping animals, to decreasing our carbon footprint, the single most effective change we can make is to eat a more plant-based diet. Just as Esther took action to save the Jews, so we can take action to save animals and our planet from extermination.
Editorials & Actions
Environmental Crisis Puts Human Life on Earth at Risk
|
The ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution could provide the most effective way to block this environmental destructiveness. Please check it out at www.tikkun.org/esra
Environment
Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists
The view from the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory in the middle of the Amazon forest. Researchers say that of the nine processes needed to sustain life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels. Photograph: Reuters
Oliver Mi
Thursday 15 January 2015 14.00 EST
Humans are “eating away at our own life support systems” at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years by degrading land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the environment, new research has found. Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results.Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels – human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertiliser use.Researchers spent five years identifying these core components of a planet suitable for human life, using the long-term average state of each measure to provide a baseline for the analysis.They found that the changes of the last 60 years are unprecedented in the previous 10,000 years, a period in which the world has had a relatively stable climate and human civilisation has advanced significantly.Carbon dioxide levels, at 395.5 parts per million, are at historic highs, while loss of biosphere integrity is resulting in species becoming extinct at a rate more than 100 times faster than the previous norm.
2015
Debtors All: Facing, and Embracing, Our Ecological Indebtedness
|
In our ecological age, our most common narratives of debt, which conflate salvation with independence from debt, fail to capture the counterintuitive dynamics of our indebtedness to nature and to recognize that our real salvation is in an intelligent and deeply felt interdependence with natural systems.