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  Book Launch: Qur’anic Ecology and Resonances with Laudato Si’

  "The Laudato Si' Research Institute and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Faith for Earth Initiative cordially invite you to attend this online book launch for An Introduction to Qur’anic Ecology and Resonances with Laudato Si’, by Farhana Mayer. The launch will consist of an introduction to the text by Farhana Mayer, followed by responses from scholars and practitioners including Revd Prof. Joshtrom Kureethadam (Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Pontifical Salesian University), Prof. Ibrahim Özdemir (Uskudar University; member of drafting team for Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth) and Dr. Iyad Abu Moghli (UNEP, Faith for Earth). There will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end. This event will take place online [on October 19, 2023 from 1pm to 2:15 EST]. After you have registered, we will be in touch with the link to join."
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  Faith Lifestyles to Beat Plastic Pollution

  "Dr. Iyad Abumoghli and Sarah Berg, Acting Director for the Center for Climate Justice and Faith at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, discuss the ways in which faith communities are uniquely positioned to combat the climate crisis. This GTUx Lecture will specifically focus on actions that can be taken to combat plastic pollution — an area in which faith-based organizations are positioned to be significant catalyzers through educating, activating and inspiring their communities; developing capacity for sustainable practices; advocating policymakers and mobilizing the private sector; and collaborating with their community partners to advance change."
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  Faith for Earth Initiative

  "Promoting faith leadership, faith-based organizations and communities as custodians of far-reaching, value-based perspectives on environmental sustainability. Religion and spirituality hold tremendous wisdom for the protection and conservation of our earth, inspiring both religious and secular actors to advocate for stronger political will and lead by example. Find out why faith and environment matters. A three-pronged approach drives this Initiative: Strengthening partnership with faith-based organization’s leadership for policy impact; Greening faith-based organization’s investments, operations and assets; and Establishing an accessible knowledge-based support system using faith scripts and scientific evidence."
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  Faith Action on UN Sustainable Development Goals: Database

  "UNEP adopts innovative communication as a driving force for empowered environmental advocacy. For the first time, a database dedicated to the collection of projects and activities demonstrate how faith, indigenous and local communities contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals."
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  3000-year-old solutions to modern problems | Lyla June | TEDxKC

  "In this profoundly hopeful talk, Diné musician, scholar, and cultural historian Lyla June outlines a series of timeless human success stories focusing on Native American food and land management techniques and strategies. Lyla June is an Indigenous musician, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her dynamic, multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective and ecological healing. She blends studies in Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. Her current doctoral research focuses on Indigenous food systems revitalization. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community."
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  Sustainability Photo Contest

  This RESTORExchange photo contest is being brought back from the pre-COVID era, and with an added collaboration with the Sustainability Institute. It's based around the question "What does sustainability look like?" This can include sustainability in environmental justice, technology, energy, lifestyle and wellbeing, society and culture, economy and politics, and any other context where you see sustainability in action. We want to see your perspectives and show all the different places that sustainability is practiced! Winning photos will be decided by a panel of judges (yet to be determined), and the top four photos will win a prize! First place will receive $400, second place will receive $300, third place will receive $200, and an honorable mention will receive $100. Submissions will be accepted through March 15, 2023.
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  Faith and Business Leaders can Unite to Address the Climate Crisis

  This blog talks about the commonality of effects that both big industrial businesses and religious groups can have on the environment. While the business side can focus more on the financial side of climate change, the religious groups can advocate for environmental change, and they both have big potential to influence how people can view the environment. Shilpita Mathews, the writer of the blog, is an environmental economist that focuses of climate adaption but is also apart of a Christian charity that talks about climate change. She believes that this can be an opportunity to build connections with the two groups and find a solution for this major problem.
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  Religion and social values for sustainability

  "Discourse on social values as they relate to environmental and sustainability issues has almost exclusively been conducted in a secular intellectual context. However, with a renewed emphasis on culture as defining and shaping links between people and nature, there has been an increasing level of scholarly attention to the role of religion and spirituality in defining and understanding social values. In this article we explore the intersection of religion and social values for sustainability. First, we consider this nexus as it has been explored in existing scholarship. We acknowledge a body of research that has suggested that many religions are broadly associated with self-transcendent values. However, the degree to which they are translated into pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour varies according to context. Second, we argue that while there is much potential support for human values for sustainability within religious traditions, it is essential that religion is seen as a complex, multi-scalar and multi-dimensional institutional phenomena. Consequently, analysis of the relationship between religion and social values must account for the context of narratives, histories and practices. Third, using this lens, we show how religious perspectives can contribute to operationalising theories of systemic change for sustainability. Finally, we outline key principles for further sustainability research seeking to advance knowledge on the relationship between religion and social values."
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  Water Conservation, Recycling Among Church’s Sustainability Endeavors

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has various initiatives in place to become better stewards of the environment. Some of these initiatives include reducing water consumption, recycling, implementing solar panel use, and reducing emissions at their various church facilities. They are also committed to Great Salt Lake conservation efforts.
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  World Resources Institute

  Founded in 1982 by Gus Speth in Washington, D.C., World Resources Institute (WRI) has staff around the world using research- and evidence-based approaches in an effort to mobilize partnerships for the protection and restoration of the environment. They aim to help create resilient and sustainable communities, with a focus on the production and usage of food and energy, as well as the planning and building of cities. "WRI’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. Our mission and values guide all the work we do." (WRI Mission and Values)
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  10 things you can do to reduce climate change

  "Changes in normal levels of heat, cold, rain, and wind are known as climate change. Using fossil fuels such as crude oil, natural gas, or coal affects our climate. That’s because burning these fuels disturbs the balance of greenhouse gases in our earth’s atmosphere. Follow one or more of the tips in the article to reduce climate change."
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  This minister turned urban farmer is reconnecting the city's South Side with agriculture

  Minister Aaron K. Hopkins developed the organization South Side Family Farms with the goal of uniting his community on the South Side of Columbus, Ohio through sustainable agriculture. His dedication to teaching people about how to sustain themselves combined with his faith has allowed Minister Hopkins to make an incredible impact on his community.
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  Religion and Environment Photo

  This image was taken in Westerville, OH. While going on a walk I ran into this spot and thought it was nice how so much nature is [near]by and we live urban area. That image meant a lot because it['s] often a place I enjoy going and every year during Earth Day the community gathers and cleans up and [tries] to look out for the earth.
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  Pohoda Music Festival

  "Pohoda is a music and arts festival with an international acclaim, where alternative, indie, electronica, world music, & punk meet classical; alongside literature, dance, visual art, film, and theatre." First organized in 1997, this festival takes place in Slovakia each summer. It is renowned for its social and ecological consciousness and promotion of community and sustainability. Pohoda received the Green Operations Award in 2017. Multi-cultural and environmentally friendly, Pohoda has set high operation standards for its festival counterparts.
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  The Wisdom of Birch, Oak, and Yew

  This book explores the relationships that people can develop with trees, especially birch, oak, and yew from a Neo-Druid perspective. It invites readers to change their perspective by taking on the point of view of a tree in order to consider their own lives. Billington emphasizes the importance of what we can learn from trees and our role as a part of nature.
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  Between Go and Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change

  This book takes a look at climate change and how environmentalists have tried to get government support, as well as how faith-based communities try to fill in the gap and take action themselves. Specifically, this book focuses on how Evangelicalism can affect the environmentalist's and government officials' agendas.
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  Lawns Into Meadows: Growing Regenerative Landscape

  This book is about how to transform your lawn to a meadow. It explains how to creat a meadow with the yard you currently have. Owen tells stories of his own experiences with meadows and shares these anecdotes as lessons for a newcomer. “If more of us go ahead and plant meadows, they’ll have a much easier time finding their way back.” (Page 5)
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  Ologies: Critical Ecology (SOCIAL SYSTEMS + ENVIRONMENT) with Suzanne Pierre

  "How do societal structures affect the planet? Why should we get to know our neighbors? What’s the ecological price we pay for … stuff? Yep, there’s an -ology for that. We chat with the founder of Critical Ecology: biogeochemist, National Geographic Explorer, researcher and plant nerd, Dr. Suzanne Pierre. Dr. Pierre’s Critical Ecology Lab is involved with research on the biomes of former plantations, air pollution, agricultural runoff, and even asking questions about wildfire science and the prison system. She explains how the Big Picture can always zoom out and be a little bigger. Before you know it, you’ll see Critical Ecology everywhere you go."
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  How Religion Influences Our Relationship with the Environment

  This article focuses on how religion affects behavior associated with the environment. The authors compare the actions of nations who are more religious versus those who aren't, and how those actions differ. They conducted a study that compares the two, and goes into detail of how many resources are used when living in one of these countries.
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  Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) - Sustainable Investments Report

  This report details how the UUA is addressing climate change through their investments following their 2014 Business Resolution on Fossil Fuel divestment, targeted at the UU Common Endowment Fund (UUCEF). It provides general information about climate change via information on global and US emissions as well as the IPCC’s warnings. It provides an overview of their portfolio, a portfolio analysis, and their progress towards divesting from CU200 companies, which are the top 100 public coal and top 100 public gas companies ranked by their potential carbon emissions content of their reported reserves. This report also contains their investor priorities and shareholder advocacy plans and efforts along with key partnerships in their fossil fuel divestment efforts.
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  WWOOF: Christian nonprofit residential ministry perched atop the Ozark Mountains

  “Perched atop the Ozark Mountains on 101 acres of forest, pasture, rocky bluffs, and old logging trails, we are a rustic Christian nonprofit residential ministry in need of help with the development of planning stages of a 30 acre campus with proposed cabins for housing, a reception lodge, Creator’s Workshop, dining hall, stables, organic garden, vineyard, fruit grove, petting farm, and saw mill. In short, we are a ministry that leans toward sustainability. We are a ranch, not an income-producing farm.”
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  COP 27 Week 2

  "In this second week of the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) the reports keep coming in." The rest of this resource explains and provides links to several reports and statements from this Conference.
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  COP 27 Underway

  "This week, Egypt is hosting the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27). One thing is clear. Climate reparations is the key issue for this meeting. A paper already presented argues that developing countries will need $2T a year in climate funding. UN Secretary General António Guterres told the assembly that humanity its on a 'highway to climate hell.' Many other world leaders also spoke."
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  Preparing for COP 27

  "This week, Egypt will host the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27), with a view to building on previous successes and paving the way for future ambition to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change. The latest UN report says that climate plans remain insufficient and more ambitious action is needed now. Indeed, the science is disturbing. Most countries are falling short of their commitments. The world is on the brink of irreversible climate breakdown. And there’s a reason for the increasing number of desperate migrants on the borders of countries in the northern hemisphere. Climate change has already increased global inequality. Countries in the tropics have already lost 6% of their GDP and are on track to lose 27% by 2030. A study published last week shows how climate change will have he biggest impact on the world’s poorest, most vulnerable people. And medical journals around the world have joined in printing the same editorial: not meeting the 1.5 degree limit on climate change will cause catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse."
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  Plastic Pollution is Even Worse than We Thought

  "It’s too late, our bodies are already full of micro and nanoplastics...What can be done about this? We all need to join the movement to rid the earth, and now ourselves, of single use plastic and to reduce our use of all plastic involved in food storage. The first thing to do is to inform yourself, your family and neighbors of the dangers by reading and sharing the articles linked here."