WHAT WE THINK

Climate Justice: Caring for the Planet and All Life

We believe that a world guided by a New Bottom Line is the most rational and spiritually grounded way to transform our relationship with the natural world.

A New Bottom Line calls us to evaluate every system — energy, transportation, agriculture, urban planning, and consumption — not by how much profit it generates or power it accumulates, but by how well it protects the life support systems of our planet and ensures that all living beings thrive.

The climate crisis impacts the most vulnerable and disempowered peoples and nations first and most powerfully. People of Color throughout the world are at the forefront of the movement for climate justice. Climate justice recognizes that environmental harm is inseparable from social and economic injustice. Protecting the planet is therefore a moral and spiritual obligation.

To solve the global environmental crisis, we must replace materialism and selfishness with a new global ethos of caring for each other and for the earth, challenging those who put private profit above the common good of all humanity. Human beings yearn to live in a world in which we are deeply appreciated, loved, cared for, respected, and treated as embodiments of the sacred. Yet we are complex, with competing and sometimes contradictory desires. We are painfully aware of the cruelty, hurtfulness, selfishness, and pain passed down through generations — not only from our families but also through institutions and social practices that often perpetuate harm.

We know that the changes we wish to see in the world require multiple levels of tikkun (the healing and transformation of our world) including psychological, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, economic, and political. This includes practices of restorative justice, which focus not only on preventing harm but also on repairing past damage, restoring relationships, and transforming systems so that all beings can thrive. It also includes Land Back practices, which honor Indigenous sovereignty and restore stewardship of lands and waters to the peoples to whom they were originally entrusted, repairing centuries of dispossession and ecological harm.

The current economic and political systems have created an unprecedented environmental crisis that threatens peoples’ lives and the life support system of the planet. As the crisis intensifies, the powerful often resist transformative change, instead rallying support for systems that undermine democracy, human rights, and equity.

We must move beyond passive concern to active engagement: reducing emissions, protecting ecosystems, restoring biodiversity, and advocating for policies and practices that prioritize ecological balance and collective well-being. Caring for the planet is an expression of love, awe, and reverence for the universe and the sacredness of life.

This New Bottom Line measures success not by profit, convenience, or short-term growth, but by the health of ecosystems, the resilience of communities, and the flourishing of all sentient beings.

We call this a New Bottom Line for Climate Justice — a world where humanity acts as responsible stewards of life, ensuring the Earth can sustain all who inhabit it, and where justice, dignity, and the sacredness of all life are honored.