Jerusalem interfaith nonprofit hopes Nas Daily clips will convert millions to eco-action
Featuring stories from multiple religions, 1-2 minute videos posted to six social media platforms bring Nuseir Yassin’s signature style to religion’s role on environmental activism
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
BAKU, Azerbaijan — A Jerusalem-based interfaith organization has commissioned 50 one to two-minute video clips showing religious action on climate change worldwide from the hugely popular Nas Daily Corporation, founded by Israeli Arab vlogger and entrepreneur Nuseir Yassin.
Partnering with the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of California, the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development hopes four million people will view the clips across six social media platforms under the tag “eco interfaith.” The clips are being produced through December by Nas Daily Studios, Yassin’s global social media agency.
The first 36 videos have garnered 1.5 million views, according to the center’s director, Rabbi Yonatan Neril.
The videos include Catholic, Evangelical, Anglican, Orthodox, Indigenous, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Jewish, Sikh and other voices.
Subjects range from an Indian man who has spent his life planting 25 million trees sacred to Hinduism and a Thai monk who is turning plastic bottles into fibers to make robes, to a rabbi who decided to go vegan on his wedding day.
Some clips will be filmed at the United Nations climate conference, COP29, taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, until November 22.
The videos can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and the interfaith center’s website.
“Compared with videos of your cat falling off a wall (which can easily go viral), videos on religion and ecology don’t usually have many views,” Neril told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of COP29. “But short videos are a key way people consume information today.”
He said around 85 percent of people on Earth affiliate with a religion, but most religious adherents would be hard-pressed to explain what their religion says about environmental sustainability.
“We are distilling into one-minute segments the highlights of religion and ecology across faiths, including indigenous traditions,” he said.
Neril will participate in the Faith Pavilion at COP for the second year.
Asked whether political differences affected cooperation, he said, “Because it’s clear that we need to save the earth, we can work together. The fact we share a common home that’s threatened means we can overcome our religious differences.”
At last year’s COP Faith Pavilion, the core team included Christians, Muslims and Jews, mainly from Middle Eastern countries, including people from Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.
“Over the past 13 months of war (between Israel and the terror organizations Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon), interfaith collaboration has been hard, but it’s continuing because of the climate crisis,” Neril said.
