Faith for Earth Councillors Recognition II Indian Saints and Org Awarded II World Environment Day

Transcript

[Music] [Music] right now the most urgent environmental problem facing humanity is a climate crisis that we have created climate change is not only an increase of the earth temperature or a few centimeters in sea level rise climate change will end life as we know it so this whole atmosphere that is getting affected which will have far reaching consequences on the human life and human health and on planetary life is is of a big big concern we are at a stage that we cannot afford but deal with the complexity of these issues the biggest environmental problem is humanity's sense of separation from the natural world and that if and when we can start to truly feel our interdependent connection with the world around us with all of nature with creation that we will be leaps and bounds ahead of where we currently are in solving the climate crisis [Music] most of the environmental problems are connected with each other so if i say climate crisis climate crisis has connection to biodiversity it has connection to waste it has connection to everything so the most important thing that i feel we need to address right now is the way we are consuming and producing in this planet the only planet earth [Music] okay little bit more we have only one earth and i'm sure i will not live uh but these plastics that are out there will definitely exist even after all of us have gone [Music] in some other places i know people had to hug the trees in order not to allow the authorities to cut them the united nations environment program and united religions initiative along with its partners is bringing together these two forces for the betterment of mankind the faith for earth counselors is a very unique program there are some really exciting things happening in conversations between religion and science right now i know that many of us would argue that religion and science are not so different and there are others who feel like they are quite different [Music] religion and science in fact science is the basis of all understanding of our crisis either it is climate change or biodiversity loss or pollution scientific evidence provides us with the knowledge of how this change is taking place how this crisis is happening and what effect it is having on human health and on human life and that knowledge which science brings to us that empirical evidence that it brings to us is very very important for the faith-based organizations to use it in simpler terms to convey that message to the followers in their religion and in their faith-based organizations therefore we have come up with a global strategy to address ecosystem restoration by preventing restoring and regenerating ecosystems to supplement this strategy we came up with a strategy for the engagement of faith leaders and faith organizations and the restoration efforts in india if you go by data in 2011 census there are around 20 million temples there are around 3 million mosques there are around 1 million gurudwaras and millions of millions of people going to these places every day if you are going to count gurus the number of saints in this country it is more than 10 million so you understand if you are connected with a religion and following the scriptures they can be a motivator for everything when faith and science combine together and collaborate we can have fact we can have belief we have direction and we have action what more do we need for a transformative world first step is to make a conscious effort to tell them you are in danger we are disturbing the ecosystem like a machine we don't think about so faith leaders can first rope in the thought of disturbing this balance and the ecosystem of earth because slogans can only work when people have a conscious understanding of a problem and it is this knowledge that then in turn helps our government leaders make choices at a higher level still and all of that trickles down [Music] in our india office along with yuri our partner we brought together various faith-based organizations and i'm very happy to say that all the faith-based organizations from all the religions that came on the table were very very enthusiastic about it and very forthcoming in adopting as a result of that enthusiasm we have now started this earth counselor project today which we would culminate in the world environment day by bringing these councillors together after capacity building program and then launch individual activities around environmental mitigation in collaboration with various faith-based organizations so i think india is going to take a leadership role in this divorce india is already a great example of coexistence among religions launching the faith for earth initiative in india as the first country outside the global sphere and at a national scale guarantees creating great success stories to tell i believe india can be a leading country to demonstrate the real and most appropriate connection between humans and their nature and together as citizens of this earth we have such an integral job to do in making sure that there can be justice and health and vitality for all beings everywhere