Mary Evelyn Tucker: The Emerging Alliance of Religion & Ecology

The most renewable source of energy is “the dynamizing human energies” that fuel our movement of ecological renewal. Tucker’s passionate speech demonstrates this very energy, one that is rooted in a deep sense of wonder for creation. By leveraging the humanities, the ecological movement can tap into a sense of wonder that will fuel a truly vital re-awakening.

While scientific objectivity is crucial to the environmental debate, scientific reductionism sidelines the humanities, reducing the depth and vitality of the ecological movement. World religions, and in particular the Asian traditions of Buddhism, Confuscianism, Taoism and Hinduism, can bring a much broader community into the ecological conversation. Religion has been misrepresented by the media as a monotheistic tradition with a claim to the absolute truth; in reality all world religious traditions portray a dynamic, vital, organic, unfolding universe that needs to be protected for future generations. Furthermore, religion is not a static entity but actually a dynamic force that has throughout history responded to changing times, and is now responding to the increasingly pressing environmental crisis. Humans are a fundamental source of a truly vital, "renewable energy" that we must tap into in order to fuel the ecological movement.