Mary Evelyn Tucker is co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, where she teaches in the joint MA program between the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Divinity School. Her concern for the growing environmental crisis led her to organize with John Grim a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology. They are series editors for the ten resulting volumes distributed by Harvard University Press and co-authors of Ecology and Religion (Island Press, 2014). With Brian Swimme she wrote Journey of the Universe (Yale, 2011) and is the executive director of the Emmy award-winning film that aired on PBS. She served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee and was a member of the Earth Charter International Council.

Featured Writings and Talks

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Mary Evelyn Tucker on...

The role of collective action:

"The individual sphere is, I think, being almost suffocated by hyper-consumption and hyper-individualism. We yearn to be part of something larger, and called to something larger."

Moral call:

"There is a complex multi-faceted moral call at this moment in human history that needs to draw on other cultures, other religions, other peoples and races and so on, to build what I would call a multicultural, but planetary civilization, for the future. I think we can do that."

A burgeoning environmental ethics:

"We're in this exciting moment of expansion of an ethical and moral sensibility that's grounded in the science that gives us that sense of the intricacy of ecosystems."

What we can learn from Confucianism:

"The idea of Confucianism is, even the [Chinese] character for the individuals is 'an individual in relationship' to others. And the idea, even for public service, is you're doing this for the common good. It's a completely different way of being human in the world."

The limits of technology:

"I think technology as a solution alone is a misplaced notion, but especially without a precautionary principle. What are the implications for these technologies that we're releasing?"

Addressing:

"We are going through some historical moment that is unique, let's just say, and very pressing, and very confusing. And I think we need, probably, plural moral visions to come through this, for sure. We need that from scientists. We need it from entrepreneurs. We need it from people in urban communities, and so on."

Religion and environmentalism:

"So, the huge movement of Laudato si, "care for our common home" [the pope's encyclical on climate change] is to say, people and planets are integrated and that clearly we have to have environmental justice at the core of this. Those who are suffering from climate change in coastal communities and elsewhere are the most vulnerable, people who haven't created the problem but are suffering from it."

The arts: