"Conversation is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice in concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we approach new territories of thought." Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice
The story of Weather Reports—one of the most expansive event series in HDS's history—is a story of collective imagination. When asked about the origin, Terry Tempest Williams, HDS's writer-in-residence who curated the project, points to the power of community and conversation: "The Weather Reports series borrowed from an old tradition, one the Divinity School knows best: how the sacredness of storytelling connects and inspires us." This keen understanding of how to wield words as a force for good brought the Weather Reports series to fruition.
Natural Connections
Invited by Dean Hempton, Tempest Williams joined the HDS community as the School's writer-in-residence in 2017. The position was created to emphasize the role humanities and ethics can (and should) play when navigating the climate crisis. While science, technology, and policy are necessary to address environmental issues, these fields have yet to mobilize the change needed to avert existential threats.
In her first few years at HDS, Tempest Williams noticed several threads of climate issues emerging across Harvard. Students were desperate to give more attention to climate grief, friends and alumni of the School were showing more interest in the ethics of sustainability, and leaders across the University were looking to explore an array of intersecting topics. Noticing a growing need to make space for these conversations, she began asking trusted friends and colleagues about what the Divinity School could do to help.
"One of the first discussions was with the Center for the Study of World Religions, led by Charlie Stang," Tempest Williams remembers. "The very nature of the CSWR is about community, diversity, and shared knowledge, so there was a natural connection there. And then, Sam Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance, and I started asking during weekly teas at the Center for the Environment: 'How can we bring the sciences and religion together within the framework of the humanities and storytelling? How do we tell better stories about planetary health and spiritual life?'" These connections led to the creation of The Constellation Project, a cross-University effort dedicated to exploring deep questions about humanity's relationship with nature across different academic fields.
Another big question built even more momentum. "The teaching and learning aspect of Weather Reports really started with Diane Moore, the director of Religion and Public Life, who called me to ask: 'Do you want to team teach a class on climate change? We agreed this was not only a good idea, but necessary, and met every week for three months to create the Climate of Uncertainty curriculum, which we first taught in the Fall 2020 semester with 18 students."
Continued conversations with Janet Gyatso, associate dean for faculty and academic affairs, other colleagues, and students across the School brought the need for more dedicated attention to climate change into clearer focus. But how this would happen was still a question. A new paradigm was needed to explore the crisis from a spiritual perspective that could ignite moral imagination in the face of destruction.
From Uncertainty to Urgency
In the summer of 2021, Tempest Williams returned to Utah and was stunned by what she saw: "20,000 acres in our community were on fire. The mountains were burning. We were engulfed in smoke. The sun was like a cigarette burning through fog. We were in the middle of a megadrought, not seen, scientists informed us, for over 1,200 years. The Great Salt Lake was disappearing. The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, 70,000 acres of wetlands that usually sparkle and sing, was a sunbaked playa. No birdsong, no birds. When my husband and I went to see how the refuge was faring, all we saw was a double-crested cormorant with its wings spread standing on a salt-encrusted fence post. It looked like a black crucifix against the salt flats. And, I'll be honest with you, I was in despair."
In a moment of deep vulnerability, she shares, "And on those days, the ones where I don't even know how to get up in the morning, I am aware of the limits of my own imagination. But imaginations shared create collaboration, and collaboration creates community, and in community, anything is possible. So, I reached out to my community. For three months, I wrote very long letters to the people I loved the most and asked them the question: 'What's the weather report where you live?' And that's how the series really began to grow."
Tempest Williams brought this idea of a curated series of conversations with her back to HDS. With the new resources on campus—such as updated technical capabilities and a fireplace on the Swartz Hall patio suited for outdoor gatherings—the potential to have weekly live-streamed events for the public (with follow-up fire-side salons for students) became a reality.
Expanded Reach and New Offerings
Weather Reports launched in September 2021, and the School's new resources did more than expand the audience, which reached more than 3,000 participants throughout the series. These conversations also created connections with brilliant people from around the world. From Bernadette Oemientieff calling in to talk about sacred land protection from Gwich'in territory in the Arctic to Wanjira Mathai amplifying her mother Wangari Maathai's story of resistance from Kenya and sharing what the Green Belt Movement was bringing to the climate crisis today, the series helped champion voices often marginalized in climate discussions. And the new building, new technology, and new shift to online events all helped one small idea develop into one of the most creative programs HDS has ever led.
The series engaged artists, activists, and scholars from a vast array of backgrounds, perspectives, and professions with conversations that were unscripted, poignant, and raw. "How might we recast this time as one of meaning rather than despair? How do arts and activism combine to let us see possibility instead of pessimism? Where do we find the strength to fully face all that is breaking our hearts?" These are just a few of the questions that guided each exchange of ideas.
The conversations delved into different elements and approaches to talking about climate. Filmmaker Lucy Walker discussed documenting the destruction of wildfires on the west coast. Poet Victoria Chang offered her thoughts on how poetry can both illuminate and embrace grief. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert imagined what a "good Anthropocene" might look like. Novelists Chloe Aridjis and Kim Stanley Robinson discussed writing as a form of resistance and a source of optimism, respectively. Writer Michael Pollan expounded on expanding consciousness. Climate activist Morgan Curtis, MDiv'24, and transdisciplinary artist bronte velez emphasized the importance of understanding intersectional issues such as race and privilege and creating communities of care rather than conflict. And several members of the HDS community, including Janet Gyatso, Stephanie Paulsell, and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, offered insights on compassion for all creatures and the ethics of sustainability.
In tandem with the public series, Professor Moore taught the Weather Reports Seminar: Conversations in a Climate of Uncertainty. This course offered students another opportunity to explore different ways to address environmental concerns. The reading list was inspired by the guest speakers, and students were encouraged to pursue creative projects geared toward public awareness for their final.
Tempest Williams also held informal fireside salons to create an open space for students to connect more personally after each public event. Gathering around the fireplace outside Swartz Hall, students delved further into what they had learned, bearing witness to their own grief alongside the grief shared by some of the guest speakers. Witness inspired engagement as students discussed and devised their plans for how to promote and protect a livable future for the planet. A community of trust developed, friendships were forged, and projects emerged that were transformative. These gatherings fostered some of the most moving examples of meaning making throughout the series.
The Epistemology of Emotions and Lessons Learned
When asked about the power of these conversations, large and small, Tempest Williams offers her insights like the writer and teacher that she is—by way of a metaphor: "Harvard has a tendency to look at the world through microscopes or telescopes, but perhaps what we need is to think about looking at the world through a kaleidoscope, where a turn of the wrist can bring an entirely different perspective into view."
With such tendencies of a high-profile research institution in mind, Tempest Williams acknowledges that the whole Weather Reports concept was a risk. "This work is hard anywhere, but especially so at a place like Harvard, where we don't privilege emotion. We privilege facts and evidence, but that goes back to my original concern. Politics have divided us. Science has not moved us. Logical and linear thinking has not yet solved the problem of climate change, and with Weather Reports, I knew we had to try something different. We needed to bear witness to the devastation before us in real time with real people and hear from those on the front lines of climate collapse, people who know something beyond the bounds of overly sanitized intellect. This work has to deal with emotion, grief, terror, love, imagination ... And we have to honor the fact that storytelling has its own power and its own intelligence."
The tremendous interest in the Weather Reports series has laid bare the growing need for time and space to intentionally be in community with one another. Bridging cultural and religious divides is not merely an aspiration but a survival mechanism. With voices ranging from The New York Times bestselling authors to new students trying to make sense of an in-progress catastrophe, Tempest Williams observed one lesson that emerged throughout the series—there is something deeper than hope: "What climate change has taught me, and what I hope it teaches our students, is that we can face crises with the shield of vulnerability and the sword of uncertainty. And all that is required to make a difference is to love this world fiercely in the present tense to protect the future."
—by Amie Montemurro
Weather Reports: At a Glance
In fall 2021, Harvard Divinity School writer-in-residence and noted conservationist Terry Tempest Williams hosted a series of discussions, "Weather Reports: The Climate of Now." Covering the spiritual, social, political, and environmental impacts of worldwide climate disruption, Tempest Williams interviewed writers, poets, researchers, filmmakers, and activists on the front lines of the climate crisis. The series explored how we might recast this moment in time as a moment of meaning rather than despair, asking how the arts and acts of imagination allow us to see the glittering edges of uncertainty as places of possibility instead of breaking points. Bearing witness became acts of conscience and consciousness. Held both online and in person, each evening began with a ceremonial tea-pouring to gather the community in an atmosphere of trust and intimacy.
Topics and conversation partners included:
- A Burning Testament to Climate Collapse with Lucy Walker, filmmaker
- The Climate of Sacred Land Protection with Bernadette Demientieff, Gwich'in activist
- The Climate of Relationships and lntersectionality with Morgan Curtis, MDiv '24, climate activist, and bronte velez, Black-Latinx transdisciplinary artist
- The Climate of Compassion for all Beings with Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at HDS
- The Climate of Grief with Victoria Chang, poet
- The Climate of Consciousness with Michael Pollan, writer, Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer and Professor of the Practice of Non-Fiction at FAS
- The Climate of Resistance with Chloe Aridjis, novelist and organizer for Writers Rebel, and Wanjira Mathai, regional director for Africa at the World Resources Institute
- The Climate of Attention with Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker staff writer
- The Climate of the Future with Kim Stanley Robinson, novelist
- The Climate of Community with Brian Kirbis & Su Yimu, Theasophie
To read more about Weather Reports, see the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of Harvard Divinity Bulletin. View the recordings online.