On Social Capital and Healthy Communities - Part 2

Part 2 ended up becoming an article in the winter 2010 issue of GO Kimberley.  If you are interested in reading it, let me know and I will post it here.

Heading Home after Nashville

It's always exciting to see what people in other pockets of the world are up to, and the last 10 days of the road have not failed to deliver.  The highlight was being in Nashville for more training with Al Gore and The Climate Project, this time focused on new material from Our Choice, Gore’s recently published book on climate solutions.

Over 650 people from 26 countries and all walks of life participated in the training, all sharing a sense of real urgency around awareness and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of the big messages:
Humans clearly have the technology and know-how to stop catastrophic climate change, but we all (individually and collectively) need to act much more swiftly and aggressively to ensure a mostly healthy planet for our children and the generations to come.  Our window to turn things around is a decade at the very outside - with the next 4 to 5 years being CRITICAL.

China is rapidly becoming a world leader in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and low emission vehicles, and many of the top solar and wind companies in the world are Chinese.  In contrast, the US ands Canada lags significantly behind Europe and China when it comes to systematic uptake and adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Whether through "act" or "omission", this choice to "lag" definitely will cost Canada and US both economically and in being part of the solution.  As humans we are in this climate mess together, regardless of where we live...and if we can’t start steering the boat in a different direction, we’re all going over the waterfall together, so let's put our paddles in the water and commit to a new course!