Keeping Faith in Climate

Part of the Common Home, Common Ground Webinar Series

Event Link Here

These webinars are part of our Common Home, Common Ground series. We’ve brought together all the aspects of our public engagement to bring you a really exciting series of interactive and free to access webinars, from May to July 2020. We wanted to create a space where people can come together, or continue, to have climate conversations from home.
Webinar Series 5: Keeping Faith in the Climate
Climate change raises important moral questions about who we are in relation to the earth and in relation to others. Faith is a crucial lens through which many people seek to answer these questions. What can we learn from different faith traditions in how we approach the problem of climate change? What are faiths groups – which together account for the largest civil-society organisations globally – already doing? Join us for a week of webinars examining these questions and more.

We’ll update this page as more speakers are announced, you can also keep up to date by following us on twitter @HopeFTFuture

Monday 13th July, 4-5pm – Grief and Hope – What spiritual practices can we cultivate in response to the climate crisis?
The climate crisis is an example of ‘slow violence’, and it is incredibly difficult to both comprehend and process. Join this hour-long panellist discussion and Q&A to explore the role spiritual practices might have in our navigation of the climate crisis.
Andy Lester is Head of Conservation for the Christian environmental organisation A Rocha UK. Andy has degrees in Global Economics and Rural Ecology; and writes and broadcasts frequently on biodiversity, climate and community. He lives with his four boys and South African wife near Southampton UK.
Avnish Thakrar is a businessman and climate change activist. He volunteers with The Bhumi Project, an environmental organisation using ancient Hindu wisdom to inspire the Hindu community to tackle climate change.
Sevim Kalyoncu serves as the Executive Director of Green Muslims, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization working to help connect the American Muslim community with nature and climate action. She speaks at local mosques, leads nature hikes, and puts together outdoor classes through Green Muslims’ Our Deen (Faith) is Green! youth education program.
Tuesday 14th July, 4-5pm – Opportunities for Collaboration Through Faith-based Conservation and Climate Action
Faith-based conservation forges links between identity, interest and place. Join this hour-long panellist discussion and Q&A to explore examples of faith-based conservation and the opportunities it represents.
Dekila Chungyalpa – Director of the Loka Initiative, Centre for Healthy Minds and Healthy Minds Innovation
Shonil Bhagwat – Lecturer in Geography, Open University
Simon Marsh MBE is Head of Nature Protection, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Simon is a chartered town planner and leads a team of legal, casework and policy experts. He was awarded the MBE in recognition of his work as a member of the National Planning Policy Framework practitioners’ advisory group.Simon is also a lay preacher and a member of St Neots’ Evangelical Church, Cambridgeshire. In 2012 his sabbatical project for the RSPB investigated the role of faith communities in saving nature.
Wednesday 15th July, 4-5pm – Theology of the Earth: A Discussion between the Abrahamic Faiths
How should we understand who we are?

The climate crisis has been connected to a Judeo Christian culture which is both utilitarian and materialistic. Join this hour-long panellist discussion on how theology should inform our thinking in our approach to creation and our part in it.
Hannah Malcolm is a writer and activist based in Manchester, where she set up one of Christian Climate Action’s first regional groups. She is training to be a priest in the Church of England and is writing a PhD on a theological reading of climate and ecological grief.
Dr Hava Tirosh-Samuelson is a Regents Professor of History, Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. A Jewish intellectual historian, Tirosh-Samuelson writes on Jewish philosophy and mysticism; religion, science and technology; and Judaism and ecology.
Shahin Ashraf MBE is the Head of the Global Advocacy Department for Islamic Relief Worldwide and has conducted a wide range of policy research projects in a number of countries, including the strategic document on the Climate Change Advocacy Framework. Shahin leads on many of the Global discussions on Gender, faith and Climate Change particularly having recently led on the strategic dialogue on Islam and Climate change initiative with several coalition organisations.
Thursday 16th July, 4-5pm – How can you journey with your MP to COP26?
The UK is set to host the UN climate talks early in 2021. This hour-long session will provide an overview of why COP26 is so critical, and act as a comprehensive guide to how you can work with your MP to help make it a success.
Rachel Mander is the Faith Outreach Officer at Hope for the Future. She is currently finishing a report on the role of democratic engagement by UK faith communities in mitigating climate change. Her concern about climate change started at university where friends at church connected environmental activism very strongly with their faith, and has continued ever since.