Roots of Renewal
- Rick Bonetti
- May 9
- 3 min read
Since February 2026, the Garrison Institute (as part of their Pathways to Planetary Health initiative) and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology have been co-sponsoring a webinar series: Roots of Renewal: Ecological Civilization in China and the Confluence of Tradition and Modernity. The final forum will be on May 14, 2026. Register here.
Each Forum has featured a guest speaker in dialogue with Mary Evelyn Tucker and moderator Stephen Posner, and invited participants into conversations that connect ideas to practice and values to systems change.
What is an Ecological Civilization?
'Ecological Civilization' refers to an evolving cultural, ethical, ecological, and policy vision that asks: "What would it take to align human development with the flourishing of Earth’s living systems?"
"Rather than treating ecological civilization as primarily technical, this series examines how social change is shaped by the relationship between tradition and modernity: where inherited worldviews and cultural traditions meet rapid development, and where inner cultivation and public institutions must be reimagined together."
Across the series, they moved from on-the-ground conservation and thirty years of Ecological Civilization work in China, to Daoism and classical reading as pathways for self-transformation and social reform—culminating in the launch of a new Yale Forum Ecological Civilization website designed as a living resource for learning, teaching, and transformation.
Questions about Ecological Civilization
The Forums have considered questions such as:
What recurring themes from the speaker series help illuminate the deeper cultural, ethical, and spiritual foundations of Ecological Civilization in China?
Where do unanswered questions remain about how self-cultivation and social change together can genuinely support development toward Ecological Civilization?
What opportunities and obstacles lie ahead for developing more ecologically aware cultures that give care to people, communities, and the living Earth – in China, the U.S., and other contexts throughout the world?
Why is it important to consider the past and how we got here as part of the discussion of where we are now and the ecological civilization we would like to move towards for the future?
Here are links to the five prior forums:
February 18, 2026 - Gao Yufang — Conservation in China for Ecological Civilization
March 4, 2026 - Zhihe Wang & Meijun Fan — Ecological Civilization: Thirty Years of Work in China
March 18, 2026 - Daniel K. Gardner — Reading the Chinese Classics for Self-Transformation and Social Reform
April 14, 2026 - Chen Xia — Daoism and Ecological Civilization
April 29, 2026 - Simeiqi He & Andrew MacIver — A New Ecological Civilization Hub for Learning, Teaching, and Action
Here are links to summaries of the 2025 dialogues:
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.
Stephen Posner, PhD, is Senior Fellow for Planetary Health at the Garrison Institute and Global Affiliate with the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont. Stephen integrates science with contemplative practices to build understanding across cultures, align human systems with nature, and promote cross-sector collaboration. He has published over 50 technical and non-technical articles on sustainability science and leverage points for systems change. He currently leads initiatives related to nature assessment and ecological stewardship.
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