Blog
Welcome to the new Yale Forum Blog!
We will be sharing a variety of original content including interviews, reviews, reports from the field, new and enhanced resources on the Forum website, content from our new video podcast series, FORE Spotlights, and much more.
Check back every Tuesday and Thursday for new content.
As many of our readers know, Mary Evelyn and John took an exciting journey to China this summer, where they spoke at numerous conferences, gave many talks related to Ecological Civilization, and showed screenings of our Emmy Award-winning documentary, Journey of the Universe. We followed their travels on our blog with Mary Evelyn and John Across China Part 1 and Part 2.
Mary Evelyn published an article on DeepChina about their experiences this summer and an article about “Building academic friendships with people...
The Autumn Equinox is this coming Sunday, and with it one of our most profound and reflective transition times of the year. I'm definitely one of those individuals who needs the turning of the seasons–the annual journey through growth, decay, death, and rebirth to feel whole and complete. So, I always eagerly read posts and articles about these transition times. Yet, at this particular turn of the wheel, I find them falling flat for me, their suggestions and rituals lacking. Balance, harmony, journaling, relfection, all very...
The Loka Initiative at University of Wisconsin Madison has recently launched a four course online program titled “Psychology of Deep Resilience.” It can be taken as a certificate program with a fee, but individuals can also audit each course free of charge. I find this a very exciting prospect, especially given Loka's exciting RITA (Resilience in the Anthropocene) Summit (see our review of that event, here) last year and the growing need for support and awareness around issues of eco-anxiety and grief.
From the...
On September 19-20, the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) will be holding a roundtable on Faith and Climate Change in Boston. Though the event is not open to the public, we wanted to share the information and make you aware of this exciting and important gathering. This is the second roundtable on these topics this year; the first was held in England this past May.
From the event brochure:
Climate change is an urgent – possibly existential – challenge to...
Today, we'd like to bring your attention to this recent article from Mary Evelyn Tucker: “Ecological Civilization: An emerging paradigm in China.” Upon her return from China, Mary Evelyn reflected deeply on all, and wrote this piece for DeepChina to illustrate the importance of Ecological Civilization for the future of the planet, as well as why it is not merely a government program in China, but a valuable framework being embraced at all levels of society.
From the article:
…we can...
This Fall and Winter The BTS Center in Portland, Maine will be holding an online program titled “Navigating Climate Spiritual Care: A Learning Community for chaplains, pastors, educators, lay leaders, and spiritual seekers.” The program runs from October to March, and meetings are held twice a month. The deadline for applications is September 15.
From the BTS site:
Spiritual care in this time of climate change — with so many social, emotional, and spiritual consequences resulting...
Our umbrella organization, the Yale Center for Environmental Justice (YCEJ), along with the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, holds a 12-week certificate program twice a year on Clean and Equitable Energy Development (CEED). This online program “provides you with the knowledge, frameworks, and skills needed to address challenges and advance opportunities toward an equitable clean energy transition.” The deadline for applications for the spring 2025 cohort is September 9.
From the program site:
Yale's new...
Today we'd like to highlight the movement for the Right to a Healthy Environment (R2HE).
This campaign started more than a decade ago with the work of John Knox, David Boyd, Dan Magraw, and the Center for International Enviromental Law (CIEL), and has grown into a coalition of over 1,500 civil society organizations, social movements and Indigenous groups (see the signatories here). In October 2021, this coalition of organizations advocated to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which approved “R2HE.” And...
Today, we'd like to turn back to our discussion of Syntropy – this year's blog theme – and some reflection on the human participation in our global ecosystem.
Undoubtedly, the easiest way to see Syntropy in action is in natural/wild, untampered-with ecosystems. Marine environments, forest, jungle, plains, if allowed to flourish on their own without interference (aka an entropic force), will inherently organize into Syntropy, where all members of the ecosystem contribute to the flourishing of the...
There were many gifts from my recent time with the ocean, the deep peace it brings so needed today. But what truly struck me most of all during my seaside reflection was the steadfast insistence of the tides. It's been a difficult few months, and I arrived by the water weary and tearful. And through the following days, I found moments of joy, peace, and lightness. Families around me argued and snapped, laughed and played. Late evenings, couples walked hand in hand and in the soft early morning sun, a dreamy few sifted through...