From the Dean’s Desk

When 195 international parties adopted the Paris Agreement on December 12, 2015, some of us thought that we were turning a corner in climate change. Unfortunately, the Agreement has provoked a serious backlash by parties with a vested interest in fossil fuels. The latest UN summit on climate change in Belém, Brazil, just last month, had more representatives from fossil fuel advocates than representatives from the parties who adopted the Paris Agreement.

The debate is not simply over the effect of CO2 on the environment, it is a reflection of a deeper epistemological debate over whether data matters or whether we should simply follow the ipse dixits of those in power. There is a fundamental irony here: the same principles of physics that enabled the development of automobiles, industry, and power plants are the principles that are warning us of the dire consequences of the global temperature rising above the 1.5 or 2.0 degrees Celsius threshold beyond preindustrial levels. The levels of disinformation and misinformation disseminated by groups interested in avoiding major shifts are shocking. The environmental crisis is an issue that confronts every human being and every living organism on earth. We deny or ignore it at our own peril.

It will not be a surprise that as people of faith we are deeply concerned about this issue. It is one of the greatest threats confronting us today. We are concerned not only because of the epistemological issue of ignoring data, but for theological reasons. Undergirded by the conviction that God is the creator of all, ecotheology understands that human beings are part of creation and are morally responsible to God for the way that we treat creation. Unlike the charge leveled by Lynn White in a now-famous essay that Western Christianity’s view of humanity’s place in creation lay at the origins of our ecological crisis,[1] ecotheology sees human beings as members of creation rather than masters of creation. For this reason, we have worked assiduously to develop a strength in ecotheology at Yale Divinity School in three different venues.

First, we have three academic programs that offer certification in the study of religion and ecology. The first of these is a joint-degree program with the School of the Environment, the largest of seven joint-degree programs that we have. We are fortunate to be a part of a university that has an entire school devoted to the study of the environment. It is no accident that two faculty from that school have essays in this issue of Reflections. The second is our own Master of Arts in Religion degree in Religion and Ecology, a program that we developed for those who did not want to commit to a joint degree but were deeply interested in the issue from a theological perspective. The third and the newest program is a certificate in Religion and the Environment that is intended to allow M.Div. students to develop a competence in this area. I do not know of any divinity school or seminary that offers three distinct programs in this field. In this way we are sui generis.

We have done several things to provide resources for these programs. We hired an environmental ethicist, Ryan Darr, whose essay appears first in this issue. We also asked every faculty member to integrate environmental concerns into their courses or to develop a course if their area touches on ecological issues. It is entirely appropriate that four of the following essays/interviews are with our faculty—and these four do not begin to include all involved in this effort. We want to offer academic credentials in ecotheology, but we also want it to permeate our entire curriculum. Our library has joined the effort and has made collecting materials in this area a priority.

The second way in which we have made a serious effort to make sustainability a vital concern for YDS is through co-curricular activities and policies. Our students have played a central role in developing co-curricular activities. Students from YDS and from the School of the Environment have partnered to run a graduate student conference every spring focusing on the environment. It routinely draws a hundred or more graduate students from across the U.S. We have also had a group of YDS students lead the work at the Div Farm. They do so independently but in conversation with the Yale Farm down the hill from us. The students who run the Div Farm are dedicated to growing food for themselves and others via natural means. I applaud them and the organizers of the joint conference. I also applaud the efforts of Nate Stucky who led the effort to establish the Farminary at Princeton Theological Seminary while he was a Ph.D. student there (see the article by him in this issue).

We have also introduced policy shifts for the School that have supported sustainability. Aside from the obvious adjustments that include a move away from paper to electronic data, recycling efforts, and adopting new standards for sustainable events, we initiated a carbon tax on faculty and staff travel a number of years ago. We use a simple formula of charging a faculty’s research account $50 for every domestic trip and $100 for every foreign trip via air travel. We charge a staff’s departmental unit the same fees. We save these funds and use them to purchase something that will assist sustainability efforts at the School. The first items that we bought were drinking fountains that had bottle-filling stations in an effort to reduce reliance on single-use plastic bottles. We also purchased a flat screen for the Refectory that provides information on food sources, i.e., which foods are organic and which are grown locally. Yale Dining has been an important partner in this effort.

The third way by which we have emphasized sustainability is the Living Village. This includes Carol Bauer Hall, with its 50 student residents, and 4.5 acres of newly landscaped terrain that features 100,000 newly planted, indigenous trees and plants. It comes as a surprise to many people to learn that 38 percent of the CO2 emitted into our atmosphere comes from buildings. The release of carbon is not limited to tail pipes and coal power plants; it is far more pervasive than we might suppose.

We want to set a new standard for residential buildings on college and university campuses. To do this, we are seeking full Living Building certification for the Living Village, a process that will take us through the spring of 2027. If we are successful, the Living Village will be the largest residential Living Building on any university campus in the world. The concept was developed by Jason McLennan, who has an article in this issue. If you are interested in a student response, read the article by Sheena Lefaye Crews. 

The basic idea of a Living Building is captured in the symbol of a flower which must take everything it needs from the place where it grows and gives something back to the soil from which it sprang when it dies. In this sense, a Living Building is regenerative and far exceeds LEED building standards by making a positive contribution to the area where it stands. How so? Let me offer four observations that will illustrate.

First, a Living Building must produce at least 105 percent of the energy that it consumes. The Living Village will produce ca. 120 percent of the energy it needs. The energy is all photovoltaic: it is produced through a roof with solar tiles and a solar canopy with solar panels over the back parking area. The roof of Bauer Hall was designed so that it has almost all southern exposure with a little eastern and western exposure, but no northern exposure. This is due to our northern latitude: the sun is in the south in the winter. The excess energy will help power the existing Quad of the Divinity School, lowering both our electric bill for the Quad and our carbon tax to Yale.

Second, the shape of the roof is also important for one of our three water systems. We are capturing all of the rain and snow melt from the roof and storing it in two 10,000 gallon reservoirs/tanks. After it is purified, it will be used for laundry, sprinkler irrigation, and the water feature in the plaza of Bauer Hall. We have a second system that captures all of the grey/black water through laundry, showers, sinks (for grey water) and toilets (for black water), purifies it, and reuses it for toilets and drip irrigation. 

We were originally going to build a potable water system, but learned that the Whitney Water Treatment facility—ca. two miles to our north—uses a process for purifying water similar to the one required by the International Living Future Institute (the body that certifies Living Buildings, abbreviated ILFI). We appealed to ILFI to let us purchase our potable water from the Whitney Water Treatment facility and were approved with three stipulations. We had to offset the amount of water we used by lowering the demand for water from New Haven (not Yale). We purchased and donated 90 shower heads that have a gallon and a half flow of water per minute—the standard at Yale and in Bauer Hall—to a local non-profit that shelters unhoused people. We thus lowered their water bill and met condition number one. We also had to purchase some land that would be set aside for environmental purposes. We helped the Regional Water Authority purchase land near one of their reservoirs near Madison, CT, to meet condition number two. The last stipulation was that we serve as an advocate for sustainability in our region. We are working with ILFI to coordinate our efforts with the larger efforts of Yale through the Yale Planetary Solutions Project to meet condition number three.

Some have wondered whether this effort for water is all worth it. Let me offer two brief responses. One of the major problems facing our region is storm drainage runoff: we now have storms that dump more water on us than our systems can handle, creating potential health risks. The land of Yale is typically capable of absorbing two inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period; the Living Village can absorb five times as much rain, or ten inches, in the same time period. Again, some wonder why all water is not better handled by a central authority. While this may be ideal, there are thousands of homes and businesses in Connecticut that have wells and septic systems. If we can find ways of improving individualized systems, it will help the water system.

Third, the materials used for the Living Village must all pass a rigorous test. We could not use anything known to pose a threat to any form of life. This has had an impact on how every future building will be built at Yale in two ways. The Living Building has a long red list of banned materials; Yale has now adopted a red list of its own. While the Yale list is much shorter than the Living Building list, it now has a list! 

Similarly, the Living Village is largely a wooden structure. For every ton of steel beams produced, nearly two tons of CO2 are released; wood on the other hand stores carbon. The majority of the beams in Bauer Hall are cross-laminated timber beams (CLTs). These beams have alternating rows of wood secured together with their grains at 90-degree angles. The floors are also all wood except for the ground floor and the first floor on the east wing. It was fascinating to watch as large cranes lifted slabs of wood for each floor (6½ inches thick) rather than concrete slabs. The wood was Forest Service Council-certified, which means that the trees grew in a forest that was replanted and harvested by people paid a living wage. The milled lumber had to be directly shipped to the site. Yale has now adopted CLT wood beams in as many buildings as possible, another way that the Living Village has influenced future construction at Yale.

Fourth, the Living Village is both beautiful and promotes the welfare of all life. The design is biophilic (“life-loving”). Bauer Hall has a wide, single-loaded corridor with rooms on one side rather than six-foot hallways with rooms on both sides as most apartments, dormitories, and hotels have. This allows for one full side to be windows—triple-paned windows with bird-protecting etchings in recognition of our commitment to all life. Similarly, every room has a large window with the same triple-paned glass and bird etchings. Further, we had to cut down a number of trees that surrounded the parking lot where we built Bauer Hall (we reversed the Joni Mitchell’s line: “they paved paradise/And put up a parking lot”). We had the red oaks taken to a local mill and then to a local furniture manufacturer who built the wood furniture in Bauer Hall. We tried to think about life—all life.

Some have questioned whether the cost is worth it. Rough estimates are that the building will pay for itself in around twenty years. Since Yale builds for 100 years, this seems like a good investment. We are also aware that we are on the front end of this effort. Costs will come down. I remember the first time that I saw a flat screen television: it was relatively small and cost $15,000. I thought that I would never buy one; now they are widely available in much bigger sizes with better technology at a fraction of the cost. While Living Buildings will not come down the way that flat screen televisions have, the cost will come down as the demand for sustainable materials rises.

Humanity faces an acute crisis. It is not only a political and technological crisis, but an ethical and theological/religious crisis. Are we members of creation who are morally responsible for how we treat our fellow creatures, or are we masters who may act with impunity towards nature? Ultimately the survival of life as we know it is at stake. This is why we have undertaken the steps above and why I urge you to read the articles that follow.