"Whatever your gifts are, those are needed."
This April, Harvard Divinity School students, faculty, and staff organized the first-ever Climate Justice Week, an initiative to honor Earth Month by proactively tackling the urgency of the climate crisis.
The goal of the week was to provide HDS and the Harvard community with opportunities to build connections, activate their passion around environmental justice, and understand the critical role that religion, spirituality, and the Divinity School play in the conversation around climate.
The week comprised 10 events—opening and closing with ceremony and communal ritual, and featuring a photography exhibit by Dan Wells, MDiv '22, an open mic night, and conversations with students, faculty, RPL Fellows, and guest activists. Each day's activities were intended to encourage people to be changed by the experience and develop experiential forms of engagement in all sessions.
Below, you'll find selected photos from the week's conversations and activities, along with short audio reflections and insights from students, organizers, and participants.
♦♦♦
Community Ritual of Song and Resistance
The opening ceremony for the HDS Climate Justice Week grounded the community through ritual as the HDS community came together for a week dedicated to the work of climate justice. Photo: Caroline Cataldo
"I attended the opening ceremony on the Monday launching the event. And there, Maya, one of the co-organizers had led us in a candle lighting service, and there we sat and meditated with our flame ... And having looked at my flame for quite some time, there was an image in my head that I can never get out, and it still lasts with me to this day about what it means to look at our flame and know that our flame will never go out, despite all the horror that we see in the world."—john clayton gehman, MTS '24 (Transcript available)
Climate Justice as Racial Justice: Student Panel
This panel presented an opportunity to learn about—and from—the critical work being done by HDS students to advance justice through analysis, reflection, and action at the intersection of race and climate. Student panelists: Phil Scholer, MTS '24; Tracey Robertson Carter, HDS special student; Nathan Samayo, MDiv '23; Eve Woldemikael, MDiv '24; moderated by Aliyah Collins, MDiv '23. Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies, offered an opening address. Photo: Caroline Cataldo
"I think that because the students at the Divinity School come from such diverse and multifaceted backgrounds and experiences before they came to HDS, it means that it's an incredible place to talk about intersectionality, especially when it comes to talking about intersectionality in liberatory and justice-oriented contexts and conversations."—Destiny Magnett, MTS '24 (Transcript available)
Climate Common Read: Fire Salon
HDS community members participated in an outdoor fireside chat with Writer-in-Residence Terry Tempest Williams, facilitator Maya Pace, MTS ‘23, and writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit on the book Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, co-edited by Solnit and Thelma Young-Lutunatabua. Photo: Caroline Cataldo
"Stories Are Cages, Stories Are Wings—So What Stories Do We Tell About Climate?"
Rebecca Solnit joined Terry Tempest Williams in a conversation at Harvard Memorial Church on the power of storytelling as it relates to climate change. Photo: Caroline Cataldo
"For previous generations to realize what is at stake for my generation and all the grief, horror, and fear that we're facing, it means a lot to be not only in space and time together, but also in transgenerational solidarity. It was an honor to open this event and hear the wisdom across the generations."—john clayton gehman, MTS '24 (Transcript available); Photo: Caroline Cataldo
Art and Activism Workshop with Angelo Baca
Stories and storytelling are tools we can all use to confront the challenges of climate change. Angelo Baca, a cultural activist, scholar, and filmmaker, led participants through a 90-minute workshop on the power of art in activism. Photo: Danielle Daphne Ang
"One of the very simple things that you can do is support indigenous efforts to protect lands, waters, plants, animals. It doesn't really take that much, and you can do it through any means, whether it's creatively, financially, artistically, intellectually. Whatever your gifts are, those are needed. Because this is the time when you were put here to be with the rest of us."—Angelo Baca, Assistant Professor, Rhode Island School of Design (Transcript available)
Religious Literacy and Climate Justice
Religion and Public Life fellows with expertise in policy, environmental science, Native and Indigenous rights, and education discussed the ways religious and spiritual literacy can enhance policy and scientific efforts to understand the drivers of climate collapse and advance climate justice. From left: RPL Government Fellow the Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, RPL Native and Indigenous Rights Fellow Cynthia Wilson, RPL Climate Justice Fellow Teresa Cavazos Cohn, and RPL Education Fellow Sarabinh Levy-Brightman. Photo: Caroline Cataldo
"If we are really thinking about climate justice through the lens of changing hearts and minds and changing the behavior, the kind of individualism and extraction that currently orients our world, then we must talk about the spiritual and social resources at our fingertips to shift that and is thinking about those realms with depth and profoundness. And I think continuing to explore what it means for us to use spiritual resources to shift our behavior will be essential for our future."—Maya Pace, MTS '23 (Transcript available)
Trash Audit
After a three-year break, HDS conducted its annual trash audit. The School has held the distinction of "most accurate" trash disposal at Harvard University, as well as having held more audits than any other School. Rob Gogan, Harvard’s recycling and waste manager who retired in October 2020, helped lead the audit with Leslie MacPherson, chair of the HDS Green Team. Climate Justice Week attendees also participated. Photo: Danielle Daphne Ang
Examining the Religious and Spiritual Implications of Climate Change
What role does religion play in the movement for climate justice? How can religious communities serve as sites of organizing and activism? Panelists discussed these questions through the lenses of religious literacy, climate grief, climate ministry, and practices to guide communities through the perils of climate catastrophe.
Panelists were: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence; Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, MDiv '08, PhD '13; the Rev. Vernon K. Walker, Program Director of Communities Responding to Extreme Weather; and Anna Del Castillo, MDiv '21, Climate Justice Researcher for Religion and Public Life. Photo: Danielle Daphne Ang
"I found the keynote conversation of climate justice week to be really impactful. Rev. Vernon K. Walker talked about building coalition, and the fact that it really just comes down to treating your neighbor right, and as we focus on our commonality, we recognize a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 'We are all tied in the inescapable garment of mutuality. And what affects one directly affects us all indirectly.'"—Natalie Cherie Campbell, MTS '18, and RPL communications specialist (Transcript available)
Where Do We Go from Here?
"The first-ever HDS Climate Week was absolutely transformational. It was an honor and privilege to center the environment through the perspectives of so many of those in our HDS community. It really shows the diversity of our community when it comes to environmental connections."—Aliyah Collins, MDiv '23 (Transcript available)
—by Natalie Cherie Campbell, MTS '18, and Jonathan Beasley