A Garrison Institute Webinar Series on Culture, Ethics, and Earth’s Living Systems
By Stephen Posner, PhD
What would it take to align human development with the flourishing of Earth’s living systems?
In 2026, the Garrison Institute’s Pathways to Planetary Health initiative and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology continued their global dialogue series on Ecological Civilization in China, turning attention to how environmental motivations, cultural renewal, philosophical tradition, and practical application are converging in meaningful ways.
The five-part series, Roots of Renewal: Ecological Civilization in China and the Confluence of Tradition and Modernity, explored Ecological Civilization as a policy framework, but also entangled with deep cultural and ethical questions. How do traditions such as Confucianism and Daoism meet the pressures of rapid modernization? And how might Ecological Civilization in China become a pathway toward a more life-affirming future?
Building from the 2025 series, Cultivating Ecological Civilization: Wisdom, Practice, and Systems Change, Stephen Posner and Mary Evelyn Tucker hosted these dialogues together to focus on China’s deep living traditions and practices for ecological renewal.
Highlights from the 2026 Roots of Renewal Series
Forum 1: Conservation in China for Ecological Civilization
February 18, 2026
The opening Forum began on the ground, with conservation scientist and environmental anthropologist Gao Yufang, PhD, exploring what Ecological Civilization means in practice for wildlife, communities, and landscapes across China. Drawing especially from his work on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan region, Gao framed conservation as a nexus of ecology, culture, livelihoods, governance, and ethics.
Rather than treating conservation as only a scientific or technical challenge, Gao emphasized coexistence as being in relationship: between people and wildlife, local knowledge and modern science, and cultural values and institutional decision-making. His examples, including work with snow leopards, brown bears, Buddhist communities, Indigenous traditions, and local ecological knowledge, showed how conservation succeeds when it is rooted in trust, humility, and long-term relationships. The conversation invited participants to consider what becomes possible when conservation is understood as practical care and cultural transformation.
Forum 2: Ecological Civilization: Thirty Years of Work in China
March 4, 2026
The second Forum took the long view, featuring Zhihe Wang, PhD, and Meijun Fan, PhD, co-leaders of the Institute for Postmodern Development of China and longtime contributors to the Center for Process Studies’ China Project. Their reflections traced how Ecological Civilization emerged over several decades from philosophical and academic conversations into public policy, education, civic imagination, and grassroots practice.
Wang and Fan described constructive postmodernism and process philosophy as bridges between China and the West, and between philosophical insight and institutional life. They explored how process thought, with its emphasis on relationality and interdependence, helped offer an alternative to mechanistic and materialist worldviews.
The session also highlighted practical expressions of Ecological Civilization, including community-supported agriculture, ecological villages, education programs, rural transformation, and organizations experimenting with more regenerative patterns of work, food, ownership, and community life. Ecological Civilization appeared here as both a philosophical movement and a lived social experiment – including the way businesses are managed.
Forum 3: Reading the Chinese Classics for Self-Transformation and Social Reform
March 18, 2026
The third Forum turned to Confucian traditions of reading, learning, and moral formation. Daniel K. Gardner, PhD, a leading scholar of Confucian and Neo-Confucian traditions, explored how Chinese classics have historically functioned not merely as texts to read, but as practices for cultivating character, responsibility, and social engagement.
Gardner introduced key themes in Confucian thought, including ren or humaneness, li or proper conduct, the importance of teachers, and the role of self-cultivation in shaping public life. The conversation examined how Confucianism connects inner development with social reform, emphasizing culture and moral formation as essential to durable change.
The dialogue also considered Neo-Confucian cosmology, empathy across traditions, and the relevance of Confucian education today. The session raised a vital question for Ecological Civilization: How do we form persons and publics capable of living responsibly within a larger community of life?
Forum 4: Daoism and Ecological Civilization
April 14, 2026
The fourth Forum explored Daoism as a living philosophical and ethical tradition with relevance for ecological life today. Chen Xia, PhD, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences offered a rich account of Daoist thought in relation to planetary boundaries, climate change, biodiversity loss, and the urgent need for a post-carbon society.
Chen described Daoism as a tradition centered on the Dao—the way, or the formless natural flow and source of the universe that can be experienced but not fully defined. She emphasized Three Treasures as guides to living, core values of compassion, frugality or moderation, and humility or not seeking to be the first. These values, she argued, offer conceptual and spiritual resources for confronting today’s widespread consumerism, domination, and alienation from the natural world.
The conversation with Peter Senge and Mary Evelyn Tucker explored the complementarity of Daoism and Confucianism, the challenge of reviving ancient wisdom within modern industrial society, and the possibility that humans might become “healers” or stewards of Earth systems rather than self-proclaimed masters of nature. Daoism, in this conversation, helped reframe Ecological Civilization as a way of living in alignment with the deeper patterns of life.
Forum 5: A New Ecological Civilization Hub for Learning, Teaching, and Action
April 29, 2026
The final Forum introduced a new Ecological Civilization online hub being developed by the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Featuring Simeiqi He, PhD, and Andrew MacIver, PhD, the session explored how digital infrastructure can make a complex field more accessible and immersive rather than only descriptive.
Simeiqi described the website as an opening toward a flourishing future that does not negate the past, but instead invites deeper engagement with historical memory, cultural wisdom, and creative transformation. Andrew offered a guided tour of the site’s emerging architecture: an immersive interactive homepage inspired by Song Dynasty landscape painting, thematic pages on areas such as education, food, health, heritage, tools, and tradition, and ArcGIS story maps that bring together scholarship, visual media, place-based examples, and community contributions. The Forum presented the hub as a dynamic virtual community for learning across cultures and generations.
Key Recurrent Themes
Several themes ran throughout the 2026 virtual forum series.
First was the importance of relationship. Whether in conservation practice, philosophical dialogue, classical learning, or digital community-building, Ecological Civilization emerged as a relational project. It asks how humans relate to wildlife, watersheds, ancestors, ancient cultural traditions, institutions, future generations, and the living Earth.
Second was the need to bridge inner and outer change. The series repeatedly returned to the practice of cultivation: of perception, empathy, humility, attention, and responsibility. These virtues and capacities can be cultivated through personal daily practice and community accountability. They are essential ingredients for people and cultures capable of sustaining wise action toward Ecological Civilization.
Third was the creative renewal of tradition. The speakers did not present Confucianism, Daoism, process philosophy, or cultural heritage as fixed relics. Instead, traditions appeared as living rivers: evolving, contested, reinterpreted, and newly relevant in the face of shared and urgent global ecological challenges.
Finally, the series underscored the importance of dialogue across difference. In a time of geopolitical tension and ecological urgency, these Forums created space for learning between China and the West, science and spirituality, policy and practice, past and future.
Looking Ahead: Ecological Civilization as a Living Invitation
The 2026 Roots of Renewal series offered no simple blueprint. Instead, it illuminated Ecological Civilization as a living invitation to reimagine progress.
Through this series, the Garrison Institute and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology continued to nurture a global conversation at the intersection of wisdom, practice, and systems change.
Ecological Civilization, as explored here, is both an ancient aspiration and an emerging possibility—one that asks us to deeply consider cultural and ethical foundations for action, and ultimately transform how we see, learn, govern, and belong.
In this way, what we build will naturally honor the interdependence of all people and the living planet.
About the Hosts
Stephen Posner, PhD: Senior Fellow for Planetary Health with the Garrison Institute, affiliate with the University of Vermont, and public scholar of planetary health and relational systems change.
Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD: Co-Director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and global expert on cultural and religious values for broadened environmental ethics.
About the Speakers
Gao Yufang, PhD: Conservation scientist, environmental anthropologist, and NatGeo Explorer focused on human–wildlife coexistence, cultural values, and conservation practice in China, especially on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan region.
Zhihe Wang, PhD: Director of the Institute for Postmodern Development of China and co-director of the China Project at the Center for Process Studies, known for advancing constructive postmodern thought and Ecological Civilization in China.
Meijun Fan, PhD: Program Director of the Institute for Postmodern Development of China and co-director of the China Project, working at the intersection of Chinese aesthetics, process philosophy, education, and ecological transition.
Daniel K. Gardner, PhD: Dwight W. Morrow Professor Emeritus of History and Environment at Smith College and a leading scholar of Confucian and Neo-Confucian traditions, especially Zhu Xi and classical interpretations.
Chen Xia, PhD: Research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences whose work focuses on Chinese philosophy and religions, especially Daoism, ethics, and ecological thought.
Peter Senge, PhD: Senior Lecturer in leadership and sustainability at MIT, co-founder of the Center for Systems Awareness, and pioneer in systems thinking and organizational learning.
Simeiqi He, PhD: Research scholar with the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology whose work bridges ecological ethics, technology, religious social thought, and cross-cultural exchange for ecological civilization.
Andrew MacIver, PhD: Research scholar with the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and anthropological archaeologist exploring how Chinese history, cultural heritage, and deep-time perspectives can inspire ecological civilization.
