Satyagraha: Gandhi's "Truth Force" in the Age of Climate Change

As Gandhi’s Legacy is Revisited, Environmental and Thought Leaders Ask, Can Gandhian Methods Help Us Combat Climate Change?

Sunday, April 13, 7p.m.

Free and open to the public

 

A Public Forum at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine Featuring Gandhi’s Grandson, Philip Glass, other Thought and Movement Leaders

Gandhi's example inspired the 20th century's most effective social change movements. Can it now inspire us to confront and transform climate change? This is the question before environmentalists, social change and thought leaders gathering from around the world at this major public forum.

The event, organized by the non-profit Garrison Institute in cooperation with the Cathedral, is free and open to the public.

Presenters will include:

• Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne,founder of Sri Lanka's Gandhian Sarvodaya movement, who will also speak at the Cathedral’s vespers service April 13 6pm
• Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi's biographer and grandson
• Philip Glass composer of the opera, Satyagraha, of which he will perform excerpts at the April 13 event
• Paul Hawken, environmental leader, creator of wiserearth.org and author of Blessed Unrest
• The Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski, Dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
• Odetta, one of the most celebrated figures in American music
• Jonathan F. P. Rose, co-founder, Garrison Institute
• Sulak Sivaraksa, founder of the Gandhian Thailand Spirit in Education movement

In interactive discussion, reflection and  music, the event will explore Gandhi's concept of satyagraha or "truth force" as a non-violent method of social change, its American lineage connected with Thoreau's civil disobedience, Emerson's self-reliance, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s agape, and the current relevance of this tradition as we confront climate change and other deep environmental problems.