As an environmental educator, Elizabeth Bagley’s work has connected her with many corners of the world. Last month she attended a global climate change conference in Italy. And it all started when an unexpected name appeared in her inbox: Pope Leo XIV.
“My brother in law and his wife were visiting from Seattle at the time, and I ran out and showed them the email, and they said, ‘Is this for real?’” said Bagley. “And we all looked at it for a while. We looked at the email address, and we said, ‘Yeah, that’s a legitimate email address. It’s not a spam email.’”
The Raising Hope conference was organized by the Catholic Church’s Laudato Si’ Movement, which means “Care for Our Common Home” in Latin. It was inspired by a letter written by former Pope Francis calling for the development of international law to address climate change. The conference brings together climate scientists and activists with spiritual leaders of all faiths across the world to discuss how they can come together to protect the earth from the climate disasters.
Over the course of three days, Bagley attended a variety of panels, including an address from Pope Leo himself.
“And it was really heartening to hear someone who leads 1 billion with a B people around the world, to say, part of being a human on this planet is caring for our common home,” said Bagley. “It’s not a political issue. It’s absolutely something that as the people lucky enough to be here, that’s our obligation and our responsibility. And that was really, really moving to me.”
Bagley says she was inspired to see that, despite the attendees’ various backgrounds, they were able to find common ground on the urgent need for climate solutions. Bagley says she’s seen that before, in Sitka.
“We feel it with landslides across Southeast Alaska, right? We feel it with ocean acidification and other other climate driven changes. And I think we also work to find solutions,” said Bagley. “There’s so many different groups that are coming together to say, hey, what’s the future that we want? Because we can create it, right? Nobody told us what the next chapter of life on earth is going to be.”
Bagley was excited to connect with various spiritual leaders – something she doesn’t get to do often in her line of work as the Managing Director for a climate solutions nonprofit, Project Drawdown. Bagley says the conference highlighted that leading with common values is key when connecting with people on a topic as politically divisive as climate change.
“And I think that came through across the religious traditions that there is this theme of caring for our common home, regardless of what the doctrine of the different religious tradition says,” said Bagley. “And that was inspiring to see people who have different ways of interacting and supporting their communities realize that we all want to Care For Our Common Home, so regardless of which door we go through to get there, lets work together or get it done.”
Bagley came home from Italy with a sense of optimism, ready to apply Laudato Si’s lessons to her own work – helping connect people with climate solutions to protect their “Common Home.”
