The Root.ED Center
For Religion, Spirituality, Science and Sustainability
Project Overview
The climate crisis will force our collective cultural evolution, either through ill-planned, reactive measures or through an intentional paradigm shift informed by cultural and scientific literacy. Science alone cannot effectively address the crisis, which requires broad support to create new civilizational patterns, and even with new technological solutions, we may repeat our past mistakes if we have not interrogated the worldviews and values that have brought us here. The Root.ED Center for Religion, Spirituality, Science, and Sustainability aims to be a field-leading interdisciplinary educational hub for cultivating energized, humble, and hopeful climate leadership that asks, “What should humankind preserve from our past as we recognize with humility the blindspots that created climate change? What must we transform to survive and flourish in the short and long-term futures? How can religions such as Christianity, Islam, and indigenous lifeways motivate cultural transformation and lend meaning and hope?” Workshops will create cohorts of academics, practitioner experts, and community leaders drawn from diverse backgrounds to collaborate on research and projects shared widely to provide inspiration, resources, and strategies that build societal and ecological resilience.
Project Description
Transforming human civilization so that we not only survive the climate crisis, but also flourish with purpose, will require unprecedented global cooperation, widespread scientific and cultural/religious literacy, profound theological reflection, and enduring hope. The Root.ED Center for Religion, Spirituality, Science, and Sustainability aspires to become a hub for cultivating climate leadership dedicated to exploring and implementing the paradigm shifts necessary for facing the climate crisis resiliently, equitably, and meaningfully.
While the climate crisis is daunting, we take the approach that Local+Local+Local=Global, such that when we connect and energize the many individual efforts working towards a sustainable future, a global movement emerges that makes civilizational scale change possible. We bring diverse international climate leaders into a growing community that cultivates their leadership skills, supports them in their climate grief and anxiety, instills hope, amplifies their impacts, generates imaginative collaborative research and strategies, and communicates their insights with a public audience in order to educate, inspire, and embolden further change.
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This project will establish the Root.ED Center as a learning and leadership community generating field-leading research and public education that explores what we should preserve and transform from the past as we chart a resilient, equitable, and meaningful future.
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