Science and Spirituality: An Ethical Stocktake Dialogue to Inspire COP30

Why do we deny or ignore what both science and other ways of knowing teach us about the climate crisis? How can we learn from spiritual traditions and practices to live in balance with nature?

Join the Center for Earth Ethics and Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology online on Wednesday, November 5, at 1 p.m. (ET) for “Science and Spirituality: An Ethical Stocktake Dialogue to Inspire COP30.” Part of the Global Ethical Stocktake—an initiative of the COP30 presidency led by Minister of the Environment and Climate of Brazil, Marina Silva—this dialogue will inform the GES report for COP30 and amplify the newly released Living Earth Community website.

Key Questions

The Global Ethical Stocktake seeks answers to five strategic questions. Each dialogue must address at least one of them:

1. Why, even when aware of the risks, do we deny or ignore what science and traditional knowledge tell us about the climate crisis?
2. Why do we maintain models of production and consumption that harm the most vulnerable and contradict the goals of Mission 1.5°C?
3. What can be done to ensure that wealthy countries accelerate their transitions and contribute financially to the most vulnerable?
4. What cultural or spiritual traditions and practices from your community teach how to live in balance with nature?
5. How can we mobilize more people, leaders, businesses, and nations to support fair and ethical change? What values can inspire this mission?

Host:

Karenna Gore | Executive Director of Center for Earth Ethics 

Moderator: 

Mary Evelyn Tucker | Co-Director of Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Living Earth Community

Participants:

Ursula Goodenough | Professor Emerita of biology at Washington University in St. Louis; Author of “Sacred Depths of Nature.”

Melanie Harris | Professor of Black feminist thought and womanist theology at Wake Forest School of Divinity; Director of Food Health and Ecological Well-Being Program 

Mirian Vilela | Executive Director of Earth Charter International Secretariat, Executive Director of the Center for Education for Sustainable Development at University for Peace

Steve Kolmes | Editor of Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development; Professor Emeritus of environmental studies at University of Portland 

Lyla June Johnston | Musician, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages