climatechange

An Up-date from Nancy Margulies

In October I will be hosting a World Café group of people who facilitate The Climate Project for Al Gore's organization. As a followup to viewing An Inconvenient Truth groups around the country could experience Climate Change Cafes. The event in October will be the initial exploration into this possibility.

I have also introduced the World Café to students at the Presidio School of Management and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. These two "Green MBA" programs focus on changing business for good -- bringing social justice and sustainability into the heart of business.

Please write to us and share your experiences with Climate Change Café and other variations on the World Café that serve the issue of environmental and social sustainability. Thanks! - Nancy

Announcing A Learning Journey to New Orleans

How Communities Respond to Change and Catastrophe
A Learning Journey to New Orleans

New Orleans, June 12 – 15

Led by Margaret (Meg) Wheatley with Nancy Margulies

Margaret (Meg) Wheatley will lead a very special learning inquiry into the neighborhoods of New Orleans most affected by Hurricane Katrina. She will facilitate conversations with leaders of a number of community-based organizations and efforts that have brought about real change through creative approaches, high levels of community engagement and sheer perseverance since the storm.

Nancy Margulies will join Meg Wheatley in leading the journey. She has worked with non-profits and universities in New Orleans to assist with recovery efforts and has partnered with Meg for many years as both a co-facilitator and a visual recorder. Nancy’s unique visual work will document the journey.

If you are a community leader, developer or planner, the manager of a non-profit or for-profit organization, a disaster planner, or someone looking for better ways to develop leadership in today’s world, don’t miss this unique opportunity.

Climate Change in Japan

Sitting next to Japanese colleagues for dinner at the 2007 Pegasus Systems Thinking conference last week, I learned that Riichiro Oda, from Change Agent Inc. had hosted seven World Cafés in Japan this year, the most recent being one on Climate Change! I asked him to send us more of the story, and am looking forward to sharing it with you when I hear back from him.

Climate Change Café

Imagine inviting your friends and community to respond to this reality:

The average American generates 55,000 pounds of CO2 annually, whereas typical Swedes emit only about 15,000 pounds of CO2 while maintaining an equal standard of living.

The CONVENIENT TRUTH is that YOU CAN MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE with a few changes!

Climate change is very much a local issue with global reach. The causes of global warming come in large part from everyday activities where individual actions account for almost 50 percent of a community's emissions. A one-degree rise in average temperature can result in extreme temperature-related disasters.

The following is an invitation for those in the Bay Area, and for those elsewhere, it is a sample of what you can offer in your community at home or work.

Elizabet Sahtouris Workshop

The Weekend of September 21-23, 2007 Elizabet Sahtouris, one of the most interesting and well-informed people you will ever meet, is going to be at Esalen in Big Sur California, giving a workshop entitled Cool Solutions for a Hot Age.

Make your reservation here.

Sahtouris, an evolution biologist and futurist, is also a world-renowned speaker and consultant.

I have found that conversations with her are enormously rewarding and inspiring.

She explains, "While humanity has cut its teeth on a dozen or more Ice Ages, it has never before faced a Hot Age. Everything about human life will change as the climatic disruptions advance. By learning to see living systems in evolution, we can learn nature's secrets of successfully coping with climate changes of the past.

11th Hour - New Film

The 11th Hour, a Leonardo DiCaprio film to be released in August, is not a portrait of a planet in crisis as much as an offering of hope and solutions. The film includes insights from over fifty of the world's most prominent thinkers and activists, including reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The 11th Hour ends with a call for restorative action through reshaping human activity.

Art by Nancy Margulies 

Findhorn Conference: Going Carbon neutral

Saturday 22nd March, 2008 (7 days): Findhorn Foundation Easter Conference

The Findhorn community was recently found to have the lowest ecological footprint ever measured in the industrialised world - just half the UK national average. 


The week begins by encouraging us to open to our creativity. Joanna Macy will lead a two-day exploration of deep ecology while Richard Olivier will lead a one-day workshop on Green Leadership using the themes in Shakespeare's As You Like It. We then transition in the second half of the week to look at the many positive responses that are already emerging from communities around the world.

Good News

Jerry Brown writes us with the encouraging news "Republican Governor Charlie Crist is hosting a Global Climate Change Summit on July 12-13, with CA Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger as a keynote speaker.  This is encouraging since CA has passed the most aggressive controls on CO2 in the nation, calling for a 25% reduction by 2020, and Crist is looking to CA as a model."

Here's more news on Global Warming from today's Science section of The New York Times... including a link to archives on Global Warming articles from the last year.

Learn Dialogue, World Café, Open Space: July 9-11

Wise Action That Lasts on July 9-11, 2007

"Engaging Communities & Organizations for Wise Actions That Lasts: How to Host, Convene, Design and Facilitate Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues", will take place at Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island, British Columbia (20 minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay;
30-minute bus ride from Vancouver). 

Welcome!

Welcome to the Global Climate Change blog, hosted by Nancy Margulies and Amy Lenzo of the World Café.

At this time in human history we need each other more than ever to address the challenges and make the changes that can reverse the present environmental trends. Global climate change can refer to the political, social and cultural “climate” as well, all of which need to be addressed if we are to shift the way we live on this planet.

Share your thoughts with us; we'll post them and together we can make a difference!  You can click on the word "comments" below any post to respond to the ideas shared within it.