Cloud Climbers: Declarations through Images and Words for a Just and Ecologically Sustainable Peace

Faced with the ‘globalisation of violence’ against humans and the wider Earth community, a key question of our time is: Where can humanity turn for inspiration? Voices in international law, the UN system, labour and social movements, intellectual circles, religious and ethical traditions are calling for a shift from ‘Just War’ to ‘Just Peace’. At the heart of this book is a wider call, for a ‘Just and Ecologically Sustainable Peace’. This book reflects the conviction that the arts, literature, activism and scholarly research can together contribute to the kinds of cultural shift requisite for a peace that flows from and extends to human relations with the natural world. Six artworks by peace artist William Kelly and five commissioned poems in response to those works, form the framework of the book. Interspersed with poems are creative prose and short thematic essays (of 1000-1200 words) from selected Indigenous, ecological, feminist and religious scholars and activists.