Blair Nelsen ’19 MAR is using her Yale Divinity School education to achieve environmental goals through spirituality.
“From a protection or advocacy standpoint, water is one of the easiest points at which we can perceive ecological sin,” says Nelsen, who serves as executive director for Waterspirit, a center for ecology and theology. “We all know that three days without water and we’re gone, right? So, violations against it become an instance of crystal-clear moral wrongdoing.”
Nelsen is using the tools of religious organizations to support her climate goals, including by creating an online Climate Pastoral Care course to teach ministers, priests, chaplains, and Sunday school teachers about climate psychology and mental health.
“Churches are used to finding complicated hope in situations of adversity. They are used to helping people through anxiety and grief,” she says.
Nelsen also represented her organization at the United Nations Water Conference, where she advocated for the UN’s sustainable development goals of universal access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene.
“If there is anything divine about climate change,” she says, “perhaps it is the dawning awareness of our own interconnectedness.”