Collective Imagination: A Hopeful Force at the Center of Climate Justice

Climate Justice Week was the first of its kind at Harvard Divinity School. The week presented a mosaic of wisdom from across the divinity school. Led by a coalition of 11 partner offices, Climate Justice Week exemplified the power of collective imagination.

While Climate Justice Week took place on campus, Jackson, Mississippi, my hometown, experienced an environmental emergency. The city was without trash service. “What do you mean?” I asked my mom on a phone call before facilitating Friday’s keynote conversation. “I mean that the trash is piling up on the streets again.” She replied. “No one has picked up the trash for days and we’re not hopeful.” Jackson’s trash crisis comes months after the city made national news for a water crisis that kept 150,000 residents, including my parents and loved ones, from safe drinking water. The city issues a boil-water notice almost every other day. 

As we engage in discussions around climate justice at Harvard University, one of the most powerful institutions on the planet, many of the communities that our students call home are experiencing the realities of systemic racism and environmental injustice. The issues plaguing my community in Jackson, the Blackest city in America, illustrate why the conversations at the center of Climate Justice Week are critical. HDS community members are looking for spaces to process, witness and leave activated and inspired to engage in solution work locally.

A key takeaway from the week is that climate justice is racial justice, and that the climate crisis is a spiritual crisis. The work we are doing at HDS is examining the root causes of the contaminated water, the red skies, and the drying lakes. We are creating spiritual interventions to push for change and highlight that planetary health and spiritual wellbeing are deeply interconnected. 

Students at the Climate Justice as Racial Justice panel urged us to examine the ways that settler colonialism, military occupation, chattel slavery, and extractivism have created this crisis, by commodifying and disconnecting us from the land.  

Author Rebecca Solnit reminded us that it’s not too late and that the way things were is not how they’re going to be. In Rebecca’s words, “to hope is to know that joy can appear in the midst of crisis, and that a crisis is a crossroads.” 

Filmmaker and cultural activist Angelo Baca reminded us to approach this work with integration of mind, body, and heart—to be brave and tell our stories with the fullness of who we are. Angelo reminded us that we are guests on Native land and steered us towards the wisdom of Indigenous communities who are leading the movement for environmental justice. 

Friday’s conversation with RPL’s Religious Literacy and the Professions fellows Teresa Cavazos Cohn, Cynthia Wilson, the Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, and Sarabinh Levy-Brightman, highlighted the need for greater religious literacy in secular spaces, especially in conversations around policy solutions and interventions. Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart reminded us that we must lead with care and seek wild integration in spaces where it might not fit. 

The Rev. Matt Ichihashi Potts, Rev. Vernon Walker and Terry Tempest Williams shared their experiences working in spiritual and religious communities to highlight the ethical implications of climate change. Rev. Walker shared pragmatic ways of nurturing interdependence in the face of disaster. Professor Potts explored the relationship between hope and courage. Terry Tempest Williams urged us to use storytelling as a tool for justice-building and repair. 

In all of these conversations, a hopeful force is at the center, and that is collective imagination. Together, we imagine a more connected world—where we belong not only to each other, but to every species. 

This time, the state of the earth, the crises we face, ask more of us. Acknowledging our impact on the earth demands that we contend with bigger questions like: what is our role on this earth? How do we care for each other during increasingly challenging times? How do we live well, live sustainably, treat the land and its species as sacred? How do we find strength and courage to walk forward with an open heart in the face of devastation? 

Climate Justice Week allowed us to explore these questions and their potential answers. Climate action is often discussed through a lens of policy, science, and infrastructure, especially here at Harvard. At HDS, we must continue to raise up the ethical, religious and spiritual implications of the realities we face. We must continue asking these deeper questions and make real tangible commitments to support environmental justice work, beginning with strengthening our connections to local tribes, who are the original stewards of the land where our school sits. I walk away from Climate Justice Week with courage, knowing that harder times will come, but together, hand in hand, we will walk boldly and bravely into the better world that is possible.

by Anna Del Castillo, MDiv ‘21 and Climate Justice Week lead organizer