David Gould has written this briefing paper as a follow up to the JRI webinar he presented with Paul Woods in July 2023 – the full paper can be downloaded as a pdf here. According to the UN Secretary General: “our planet is broken – humanity is waging a suicidal …
As Dr Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist at the US Nature Conservancy, stated in her Facebook page, on 23rd August, “It is easy to focus on the negative and feel defeated [on the climate crisis], especially when it seems to be coming for us from every angle. In a 2021 survey …
Hannah Gray meets the author and reviews The Joyful Environmentalist: In my role as an A Rocha volunteer speaker, I was invited to speak at an event in Halesworth, Suffolk in September. The Halesworth Climate Action Conference was a 3-day series of talks, workshops, art and eating, jointly hosted by …
Revd Dr John Reader (1953-2023) John Reader died on Sunday 1st October 2023 after a short illness. He was a husband, father, grandfather, country vicar, academic, philosopher, theologian, and was passionate about environmental issues. I am sure that there will be many appreciations of his life and work, and there …
Shelly Dennison reviews, “Seeing Differently. Franciscans and Creation,” by Simon Cocksedge, Samuel Double & Nicholas Alan Worssam. ‘Seeing Differently’ caught my eye whilst browsing in the bookshop at Greenbelt this year. The timing means that, rather appropriately, I read it during the ecumenical Season of Creation which ends on October …
JRI folk are often out and about speaking at churches and events, sometimes representing JRI and sometimes other organisations whose values and aims overlap with our own. We don’t often share these in the newsletter or on this site but a recent event Martin and Margot attended gives a sense …
Our Honorary Treasurer, Alison Holland, has announced that she is wishing to stand down as JRI this autumn. We are very grateful for her service and her willingness to support the transition to a new treasurer.. So the JRI Board is now searching for a new Honorary Treasurer. JRI has …
I was disappointed, indeed, dismayed, by a programme for Harvest on BBC, not long ago. It abounded in expressions of joy and gratitude, such as: “Come, ye joyful people, come, Raise the song of harvest-home! All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin, etc.” (Henry Alford, 1810-1871) And …
I read ‘The Forest Underground’ whilst on holiday in France during a heatwave, though the temperatures didn’t approach the baking heat of the Sahel, where this book is set. The content is half autobiography and half commentary on a specific approach to environmental restoration. It is a pleasure to read, …
Review by Martin Hodson I began reading Urban Jungle while on a research visit to my archaeological collaborators in Brussels. Their work has shown that in the Middle Ages in the centre of Brussels the people were growing cereals. Moreover there was a large river flowing through the centre which …
This series of five bible studies have been written for the John Ray Initiative in 2023 by Revd. Rich Clarkson, and is based on a popular earlier series of bible studies written by Dena Burne in 2002 (the latter have now been withdrawn). It draws on both theological and scientific …
