The Intersectional Environmentalist Book Study
Occurred on five Tuesdays, October 18 - November 15, 2022
We encourage you to purchase The Intersectional Environmentalist from your own locally-owned bookstore or Print: A Bookstore, located just up the street from our BTS Center offices.
As we grapple with the causes, conditions, and consequences of climate change, we must acknowledge that ecological justice work cannot exist in isolation. It is, rather, part of an intersecting matrix of oppressions, including race, gender, sexuality, and class. The consequences of climate change fall more heavily on groups already experiencing oppression of one or more kinds.
In The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People and Planet, author Leah Thomas explores the ways in which climate change affects different groups disproportionately and offers ideas and actions toward a more inclusive vision of ecological justice.
We welcomed you to join us as we delved into the important questions, challenges, and opportunities of an intersectional ecological lens through a book study on The Intersectional Environmentalist. Co-facilitated over the course of five sessions by Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, rev. abby mohaupt, and Rev. Nicole Diroff, this book study offered opportunities for:
- Sharing insights, questions and stories that emerge from each chapter of the book
- Interfaith conversation on how to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people & planet
- Presentations on the nuances of environmental racism from a public health perspective, and
- Discussion of opportunity for direct action within participants' local contexts
Portland, Maine Poet Laureate, Maya Williams, crafted this poem inspired by The Intersectional Environmentalist for The BTS Center.
Meet our Facilitators
Co-Hosts
GreenFaith
GreenFaith is an organization dedicated to building a worldwide, multi-faith climate and environmental movement. Guided by the values of being rooted in spirituality, inclusive by nature, moved by compassion, passionate for justice, responsible in practice, and bold for good, GreenFaith envisions a world transformed, in which humanity in all its diversity has developed a shared reverence for life on Earth. With partners and Circles spread throughout the globe, GreenFaith is working to build resilient, caring communities and economies that meet everyone’s needs and protect the planet.
The BTS Center
With roots dating back to 1814, The BTS Center is a private foundation in Portland, Maine, building on the legacy of the former Bangor Theological Seminary. Today The BTS Center seeks to catalyze spiritual imagination, with enduring wisdom, for transformative faith leadership. Guided by the vision of human hearts renewed, justice established, and creation restored, The BTS Center offers theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual formation, including workshops and retreats, learning cohorts, public conversations, and projects of applied research, all focused around spiritual leadership in a climate-changed world.
