Co-sponsored by the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative at the Garrison Institute and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
Intergenerational Learning: Youth, Elders, and the Continuity of Wisdom
We will explore the value of mentorship and model intergenerational dialogue that spans timeframes and contexts. We will warmly invite perspectives from across various life stages to inform ecological identity and moral literacy, sustain cultural regeneration, and consider the longer-range past and future in order to understand our place in the present.
Key questions:
- How can intergenerational learning foster a deeper commitment to planetary health?
- How can younger generations be supported in cultivating ecological awareness and ethical responsibility?
- How can we reimagine education to integrate relational worldviews, contemplative practices, and compassionate learning systems?
- How can we integrate what we’ve been learning into practical possibilities? What does cultivation for personal, social, and institutional change look like?
TIMING
We will conduct this live Forum on Zoom at 7:00 p.m. ET on Thursday November 5, 2025. After registering, you will receive a Zoom link to join the session.
SPEAKERS
Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD, co-directs the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, which examines cultural and religious values for broadened environmental ethics. This arose from a series of 10 conferences at Harvard on world religions and ecology that she organized with John Grim. She has published several books on Confucianism including The Philosophy of Qi. She co-edited Confucianism and Ecology (Harvard) and two volumes with Tu Weiming on Confucian Spirituality. She is the co-author of Journey of the Universe with Brian Thomas Swimme and the executive producer of the Emmy Award winning Journey film. This was inspired by Thomas Berry whose books she edited and whose biography she wrote with John Grim.They have been traveling in China since 1985 studying Ecological Civilization.
Peter Senge, PhD, is Co-Founder of the Center for Systems Awareness and Senior Lecturer in Leadership & Sustainability at MIT. Peter has been at the forefront of organizational learning since publishing his classic text, The Fifth Discipline, which provided theories and methods to foster aspiration, develop reflective conversation, and understand complexity in service of shaping learning-oriented organization cultures. Throughout his career, Peter asks “how do we create the conditions for people to work together at their best, cultivating the innate systems intelligence that is our birthright but is all but lost in modern culture?”
Stephen Posner, PhD, is Director of the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative at the Garrison Institute. He has published over 50 technical and non-technical articles on sustainability science, leverage points for change, and methods for assessment of social and ecological systems. Stephen applies science integrated with contemplative practices to help align human systems with nature. He builds understanding across cultures and sectors and serves as a trusted advisor. Stephen was given a copy of the I Ching in his mid 20s and has practiced Qigong and Tai Chi for only 5 years.
Binbin Wang, PhD, is Research Professor and Founder of Climate Future Global Innovation Lab (C Force Lab) at the Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Peking University. She has tracked the UNFCCC process since 2009 and was selected as Yale World Fellow in 2023. She is the author of China’s Green Transition on Climate Change Communication and Governance, nominated by Springer Nature as the 2022 New China Development Awards. She is now accelerating bottom-up action and joint efforts from China to the world for the global net-zero transition.
Zongxu (Hazim) Xie is the first and only Miao (Hmong) representative from China selected as a UN Indigenous Fellow. He co-initiated Vision 2061, promoting Chinese ecological civilization and Miao traditional wisdom on global platforms – including dialogues with UN Secretary-General António Guterres at COP 29. The Miao brand he founded serves as a local implementation model for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Cultivating Ecological Civilization: Wisdom, Practice, and Systems Change
A Global Speaker Series
Join us for our global speaker series that seeks to explore and activate the concept of Ecological Civilization – a guiding philosophy and policy framework for how a nation can balance human development, social development, and environmental stewardship.
These online dialogues with thought leaders in the field will focus on China’s model as a case study of integrating cultural, spiritual, political, economic, and ecological dimensions when technological solutions alone are proving insufficient for addressing the deeper roots of our planetary predicaments.
We will reflect on how insights from China’s aspirations, experiments, and serious efforts to address their own internal challenges might inspire grounded and integrative approaches to Ecological Civilization in Western contexts.
Hosted by Stephen Posner, PhD, Director of our Pathways to Planetary Health initiative; Mary Evelyn Tucker, Co-Director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology; Peter Senge, Co-Founder of the Center for Systems Awareness and Senior Lecturer in Leadership & Sustainability at MIT; and esteemed guests Zhu Yan, Yao Xinhong, Binbin Wang, and Hazim Xie.
This series builds from an initial conversation among Mary Evelyn, Peter, and Stephen in spring 2025 focused on The Ecological Turn: Bridging Wisdom from Contemplative Traditions with Ecological Ways of Life.
We will conduct these LIVE forums on Zoom from 7:00 – 8:15pm ET on
August 28
November 5
Please contact us for questions and inquiries at events@garrisoninstitute.org.
If you are experiencing issues with our check-out cart loading, please click here to complete your transaction. We apologize for the inconvenience.