Mary Evelyn Tucker: “Religion, Ecology, and the Future”

Episode 40
October 12, 2022

(Conversation Recorded on September 28, 2022.)

This week, religious scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker unpacks the entanglement of religion and ecology from an academic perspective. She and Nate discuss what the roots of environmental ethics in religions all over the world look like and how they’ve been evolving in the face of a climate and biodiversity crisis. Could we learn and leverage the uniting power of religion to help us organize and mobilize against impending global crises?

About Mary Evelyn Tucker

Mary Evelyn is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and the Environment as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies, with a specialty in Asian religions. She teaches in the joint MA program in Religion and Ecology and directs the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University. Her concern for the growing environmental crisis, especially in Asia, led her to co-organize a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, which were highly successful.

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

PDF Transcript

00:35 - Mary Evelyn’s Info + Works

02:33 - Forum on Religion and Ecology + online class

04:03 - Confucianism 

05:40 - Marlin Perkins, Mutual of Omaha Wildlife Kingdom

05:50 - Ecological teachings in Christianity

06:02 - Ayan Mahamoud + TGS Episode

06:08 - Islam environmental ethic

07:15 - There is an environmental commentary in all the world’s religions

07:42 - Genesis

08:23 - Paul Winter - Earth Mass

09:05 - Increasing prevalence of environmental justice

09:20 - Beginning of environmental justice rooted in christianity

10:44 - Wangari Maathai

14:30 - Population and the environmental movement

16:35 - Consumerism doesn’t satisfy true needs

17:06 - Pope Francis - LAUDATO SI’

17:16 - Bill McKibben

18:08 - Leonardo Boff

18:16 - Thomas Berry

18:55 - Amitav Ghosh

19:31 - Mary’s grandfather - Carlton J. H. Hayes

21:15 - Buddhist ecological and relationality Practice

21:44 - Joanna Macy

23:45 - Anthropocosmic

24:08 - Journey of the Universe

24:55 - Mao’s war on religion and Confucianism's resurgence

25:31 - Ecological civilization

25:45 - Belt and Road Initiative

26:48 - Tu Weiming

27:37 - The Green Patriarch in the Orthodox tradition - Bartholomew

28:35 - Tom Lovejoy

28:45 - EO Wilson

30:20 - Stephen Jay Gould

30:38 - The inequality of science and humanities in universities

32:10 - Brian Swimme

35:25 - Interfaith Rainforest Initiative

37:38 - United Religions Initiative, calls for UN movement

39:10 - EcoPeace Middle East

40:10 - Humans’ groupish nature

40:45 - In India the waters are considered sacred but the waters are polluted (Yamuna River)

44:36 - GreenFaith

45:18 - In times of anxiety people tend to move towards religion

45:30 - 85% of people in the world identify as religious

47:37 - On Trees: A Conversation With Peter Wohlleben, Jessica J. Lee, and Sumana Roy (Yale Webinar)

52:10 - Jane Goodall on chimpanzees having personalities and relations

52:26 - Suzanne Simard

53:12 - René Descartes

54:37 - Eco-anxiety

54:54 - Greta Thunberg

55:00 - Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Sunrise Movement

55:15 - Chaplaincy for how to deal with eco-anxiety

59:26 - Webb telescope images

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Ayan Mahamoud: “East Africa and the Poly-Crisis”