crc blog feed

There is nothing like the chorus of many voices coming together as one. There is no power more impactful than the unification of people all over the planet, in support of a very worthy cause. This Sunday, the 21st marks the largest worldwide mobilization for climate change in history. It’s called the People’s Climate March, and it has already received extensive media coverage, as well as massive amounts of support on an international scale.

I’ve just finished reading this article about a recent study conducted by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This particular article is very informative, in the sense that it uses very clear language and statistical evidence to effectively communicate the very real impact of rising CO2 levels, and the urgency to act immediately to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation.

 I recently came across this article, entitled Prophetic visions can rouse politicians from complacency to save the planet. It presents several concrete examples of how some of the current economically based arguments against environmentally proactive changes are being refuted. It also addresses the fact that many of the scientific ideas and attitudes against the human impacts on our changing climate are losing serious clout.

This interview by Jian Ghomeshi with Milton Glaser,  both about rebranding climate change and the role that design can play. How do you appeal to people to get them to act? "Climate change is too benign a term, it's not global warming that is the issue, we want to make people realize it is really global death. The real design question is how do you do this for nothing, how do you embed it into the culture"?

This video describes the labour conditions behind the Thai fishing industry, the biggest supplier of shrimp to four of the biggest retailers through CP. For me, it shows the importance of recognizing scale and limits to what we do, and what we buy.

The attached letter left to us by Gillian Bennett raises some very profound social issues we should be discussing as a society. Modern society is faced with many such challenges that we need our elected officials, civil society leaders, and business decision makers, to begin civic dialogues about the best ways to move forward.

As I continue to read and write for my forthcoming book, it reminds me of how many people are writing to inform us about all the ways we are influenced, some overt and others covert. This is a fascinating article on how architecture and design can include certain people and deliberately exclude others. Much of my research is on building social capital, network formation and the importance of diversity and inclusion.

Never has it been more important, with the age of the Internet and social media, to critically listen, read and think about our information sources. This video by Andrew Nikiforuk, tells his story about the pipeline story--the story the press doesn't cover (the underlying economics). He mentions two references you may find interesting, Terry Lyn Karl's the Paradox of Plenty and Harold Innis, The Staples Theory.

Trying to unplug for my holidays is proving difficult, watch this video.

Since I am on vacation, I thought I would share something completely different. There is something to be said for sheer magic, watch this Canadian.