Global Environment Outlook

Globally there are moves to shift institutions in society from investing in fossil fuel business, from another end there are significant efforts to establish protocols on disaster risk reduction and management while in education, efforts to build science with ethical consideration are emerging. We Jesuits are also on the move. 

Environment Outlook  is a report of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) that presents a brief overview of key environmental concerns, advocacies, events, policies, and discoveries in Asia Pacific. You can learn more about it here or download the whole report here. It is based on the different levels of responses and initiatives of Jesuits and collaborators in reconciling with creation, as seen in visits and levels of engagement with Jesuit provinces, institutes, and schools in Asia Pacific and beyond.

Last May, we held a meeting in Rome focused on communications that inspired and drove us to persue a further level of communication through Ecojesuit. The meeting was with leaders of the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network, and Social Apostolate coordinators.With Jesuit Networking in place to support collaboration and bottom-up innovations for the universal Mission within the Jesuits, there is now the challenge for us in the different conferences to know and knit our network as a “wirearchy.”

Though Copenhagen 2009 did not work we know we have to continue the climate change dialogue. The meeting in Bonn this month is providing some hope and setting the stage for Paris in 2015. The Millennium Development Goals are transforming to Sustainable Development Goals post-2015 and people, especially the youth, are contributing ideas to the “future we want.” We as Jesuit institutions and activities are seeking to support this.

We are seeking much broader dialogue on science and values and we realize the need to broaden our communication and networking mechanisms that further include the scientific community in this agenda. We are looking at World Water Week in Stockholm 2015 as a venue to promote this dialogue. How do we want to communicate?

Initially, there are three things where we can collaborate on:

1. Contribute to the development of the Global Environment Outlook.
2. Develop a platform for sharing stories of Jesuit institutions with ecology aspirations, we have over 600 at this stage and want you to add more once we launch this.
3. Build a calendar of events of emerging discussions, activities and dialogues on ecology.

Any questions or suggestions are most welcome.