Climate Emergency

Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change

Edited by Arjen E.J. Wals and Peter Blaze Corcoran. Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2012. 550 pages. (€) 69.00 (hardback) ISBN: 978-90-8686-203-0. I reviewed this massive book for the Journal of Education for Sustainable Development in 2012 and set it in the context of a prescient album by the Indie Group ILiKETRAiNS: “And we regret theContinue reading “Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change”

A LIFE ON OUR PLANET

I was invited to a virtual event last Sunday by WWK-UK to hear from Sir David Attenborough about his new film on Netflix. A Life on our Planet is a feature-length documentary which tells the story of life on Earth and the ecological changes of the last century, many of which have been filmed andContinue reading “A LIFE ON OUR PLANET”

Climate Assembly UK: Talking about the whether…

Guest Blog by Barry Carney, Research Associate with Change Agents UK The UK is legally committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This target was put forward by the Government’s statutory advisor, the Committee on Climate Change, for delivering on the UK’s commitments to the Paris Agreement. The measures are a continued response to theContinue reading “Climate Assembly UK: Talking about the whether…”

FROM GREEN ACADEMY TO ECOLOGICAL UNIVERSITIES?

Our civilisation, as we know it, is at an historical tipping point, because of the environmental wreckage we are creating in the planetary biosphere. Planetary biophysical limits will determine the future of our world and, as things stand, this will be characterised by huge discontinuities for human and natural systems, caused by widespread natural disasters,Continue reading “FROM GREEN ACADEMY TO ECOLOGICAL UNIVERSITIES?”

Consciousness and Climate Change

Guest blog by Emma Hickling Amidst all the doom and gloom of Covid-19, I decided to read a recently published book about the philosophy of consciousness, which has the engaging title of “Galileo’s Error”. The author, Philip Goff, is an academic who manages to make a complex subject very accessible to the lay reader. TheContinue reading “Consciousness and Climate Change”

NEW WAYS of THINKING AND ACTING in the ANTHROPOCENE

Guest Blog by Barry Carney: MSc (Centre for Alternative Technology, UK); Change Agents UK research associate. In the age of the Anthropocene, we urgently need new ways of thinking and acting. Economists are predicting that biophysical limits will determine the post-growth world and, as things stand, this will be characterised by mass migration, profound naturalContinue reading “NEW WAYS of THINKING AND ACTING in the ANTHROPOCENE”

THE HIDDEN POWER OF SYSTEMS THINKING Governance in a Climate Emergency

In many of my recent blogs I have begun to focus on how we can implement transformational change. During my time as the CEO of a new company in the fastest growing city in the UK- Milton Keynes in the late 1990s, I found myself engaging with some of the foremost creative and influential academicsContinue reading “THE HIDDEN POWER OF SYSTEMS THINKING Governance in a Climate Emergency”

Transformative Change: How do we get there?

The pandemic lockdown is offering groups of like-minded individuals the opportunities to come together to talk sensibly and sensitively about our global futures. Here in Derbyshire the Climate Coalition group recently initiated a zoom conversation on why and how to create a “movement of movements” on climate change. It was a robust and creative sessionContinue reading “Transformative Change: How do we get there?”

Our House is on fire

I have written in an earlier blog about Greta and my links with Sweden and its education system. I have also been honoured to work with Karl Henrik Robert the founder of the Natural Step a framework for sustainability (https://thenaturalstep.org/approach/ ). And, following the 2002 Earth Summit, I worked as a facilitator of an amazingContinue reading “Our House is on fire”

What Do We Mean by a Crisis?

Massive social lock down has closely followed the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Like many I’m struggling with how this is being communicated and, more importantly, how the required actions are being implemented. More than ever we need clarity and understanding from everyone. Yet we continue to see pictures of breaches to the governmentContinue reading “What Do We Mean by a Crisis?”