Pope Francis: 'sins against ecology' should be added to the teachings of the Catholic Church and ecocide should be categorised as a crime against peace.
Religious values are often consistent with conservation efforts. So it’s not surprising that a variety of religious organisations and conservationists are working together to help mitigate the devastating effects of global climate change, writes CURTIS ABRAHAM
An influential organisation of American Muslims announced at COP22 in Marrakesh that it will end investment in fossil fuels, and urged its partners to follow suit, writes Alex Kirby. The move adds to pressure on sovereign wealth and pension funds worth $19 trillion to follow suit to meet Paris Agreement targets.
The intimate connection between landscape and religion is at the center of Native American societies, writes Rosalyn R. LaPier, and a key reason why thousands of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples from around the world have traveled to the windswept prairies of North Dakota. There is no excuse for the ignorance and disrespect of corporations, and government.
The IUCN has mysteriously placed Homo sapiens outside its systems of thinking when defining the criteria for Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable Species, writes Willemijn Heideman: our collective inability to tackle our existential crises makes our survival on this planet a highly uncertain prospect.
Earlier this year, 13 climate activists were sentenced for aggravated trespass after blocking a runway at London’s Heathrow airport. For Kara Moses, the protest was part of her Buddhist practice of loving kindness to life and planet.
For John Muir, founder of America's national parks, immersion in nature was a blessing providing direct communion with divinity, writes Tim Flinders, and the cause of a spiritual awakening that inspired his life's work: to preserve wilderness and communicate the beauty, wonder and fragility of nature, sharing widely the source of his own enlightenment.
The 'war on drugs' is presented as a necessary battle against social evils, writes Benjamin Ramm. But from the Andes to the Caribbean, prohibition has criminalised both religious and cultural expression. And it's a war that is strictly for the global poor: people in Colorado can grow pot - so why not Colombians?
Pope Francis's famous encyclical on climate change is part of a broad global shift to environmental awareness among faith communities, writes Tim Gee. Christian churches and congregations are among those joining the fast growing fossil fuel divestment movement, switching to renewable energy, and reaching out to wider society to help protect our home planet, Earth.
An encounter with a Colombian shaman led Peter Bunyard on a spiritual journey into and beyond the living, breathing, transpiring Amazon rainforest, providing key insights into the essential role of the great tropical forests in the workings of Gaia. He emerged re-energised from his visions - and inspired to redouble his efforts to save our wondrous planet.
The ancient spiritual Indian practice of yoga has been colonized, writes Susanna Barkataki - appropriated into a commercially-driven 'body beautiful' culture. True practitioners must reclaim its true purpose and stage their own ahimsa, or nonviolent revolution of the mind, body and spirit.
The world has become intolerable for people everywhere, and for Earth herself, says Pope Francis. Profound, transformative change leading to social and economic justice is now an absolute necessity and something we must all fight for. We must also act to safeguard the Earth herself, our common home.
We must beware an 'environmental' agenda that excludes the human dimension, Pope Francis writes in his recent Encyclical: the poor are least to blame for the ecological and climate crises, yet they are its primary victims. Humanity must make enduring decisions about the world we and our children will share.
Jeju, South Korea's 'island of peace' is the site of an extraordinary people's struggle against the construction of a new billion-dollar naval base destined to support the US's military posturing towards China and North Korea, writes Medea Benjamin. And even now, after eight years of peaceful resistance, the campaigning spirit is burning strong and bright.
Pope Francis's vision of mankind living in joyful harmony with God's creation has challenged the great powers of the modern world, writes Hugh Warwick - and made the Catholic Church a revolutionary force of love and compassion, empowering movements for social and environmental justice everywhere.
The Encyclical published today by Pope Francis represents a profound religious and philosophical challenge to the mainstream narratives of our times, writes Steffen Böhm, and a major confrontation with the great corporate, economic and political powers, as it spells out the potential of a new world order rooted in love, compassion, and care for the natural world.
The Pope has urged Catholics around the world to sign a new faith-inspired petition calling on world leaders to limit global warming to 1.5C, shortly after declaring that there is 'clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act' on climate change.
Some things are beyond measure and beyond price, writes Charles Eisenstein. No amount of money is enough to compensate for the loss of the sacred or the essential - and to pretend that it is, is to capitulate to the very mentality that is driving the destruction of the biosphere.
Is it 'morally reprehensible' to arbitrarily decapitate roadside flowers? Yes it is, writes Martin Spray - at least in Switzerland. And now we know that plants have both senses and physiology, why not awareness and emotions too? Even legal standing to have their rights defended in court - at least if they are trees?
Radical hope is not just about determination and courage in the face of darkness, writes Paul Hoggett - it is also about love and a re-finding all that is benign in the world. And this is the spirit we need to muster to confront the serious challenges that lie before us - in the Paris climate talks and beyond.
Pope Francis's forthcoming statement on climate change could just revitalise progress towards significant emissions cuts, writes Jonathon Porritt. But more than that, it will open up the space for a wider spirituality to guide our thinking, and campaigning, on climate and other key global challenges.
In his search for alternatives to consumerism and industrialism, Jules Pretty travelled around the world to find surviving nature-based cultures. In this extract from his book 'The Edge of Extinction', he tells of the Tuva people of the Siberian steppe - proud of their traditions and closeness to the land, but very much part of the modern world - strictly on their own terms.
