Young Voices for the Planet | DVD Trailer

Repost from: http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/movie_trailer.php

Young Voices for the Planet is a series of short films featuring young people using science and data to reduce the carbon footprint of their homes, schools, communities, and states. The films present replicable success stories. Young Voices for the Planet allows young voices to be heard and inspires action, the best antidote to fear. These young voices reach our hearts and minds.

This short video shows many young people talking about climate change solutions. There are young people from Team Marine, Green Ambassadors, Surfriders, Girl Scouts, and more.

Teachers: Show this film and discuss some of the points that the young people in the movie bring up.

1. Social Responsibility
2. Is it okay for humans to destroy the earth?
3. Is it okay for one generation to destroy the earth for generations to come?
4. Is it okay for people to do nothing?
5. Do people have a responsibility to speak out if they see something wrong happening?
6. Do animals have rights? Does nature have rights?
7. Can we survive without nature?
8. Can one person make a difference?
9. Can kids make a difference?
10. What Bill Love-Anderegg says—Things have to reflect their true costs to everyone? What is the value of ecosystem services?

More: http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/climate-change-videos.php

Reflections on ‘Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining a New Economic Paradigm’. By Jaimie Cloud

On April 2nd of this year I attended a meeting at the U.N. Hosted by The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan, Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley entitled, ‘Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining a New Economic Paradigm’.  Bhutan is famous for developing the Gross National Happiness Index, a stunning measure of sustainable development that  takes a holistic approach towards notions of progress and gives equal importance to both economic as well as  non-economic aspects of wellbeing.   In attendance at the full day meeting were,  Her Excellency Ms. Laura Chinchilla, President of the Republic of Costa Rica,  H.E. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, our U.S. based friends and colleagues Mathis Wackernagel (The Ecological Footprint), Bob Costanza (Ecological Economist and  Professor and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS) at Portland State University), Hunter Lovins (Co-Author, Natural Capitalism) and Gifford Pinchot (Bainbridge Graduate Institute), and the list goes on. It was thrilling to see and hear so many important dignitaries talking about the need for alternative indicators to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and about re-thinking what we really want and how to measure what really counts.  The Cloud Institute and other educators for sustainability have been educating young people and educators about that since 1995.

It was an amazing event and I was very proud to be included in the conversation.  I would have loved to see a public figure from the field of PreK-12 Education for Sustainability included in a panel.  It is, however,  not uncommon for the leaders of  professional sectors engaged in the shift toward sustainability (business, economics, government, higher education, architecture and design) to inadvertently leave out the Pre-K-12 Education sector in their deliberations.  It is a commonly held belief that Pre-K-12 education requires a twenty year return on investment period—in other words, that it will take twenty years before the children who are educated for sustainability will grow up and make a difference that can contribute to sustainability.  This, of course, is not true.  It is, in fact, the children and young people who are educated for sustainability that are “making the difference that makes the difference” (Gregory Bateson) right now.  They have everything to gain from the new paradigm and everything to lose in the old one.  They get that more than most. See our Inspiring Kids section for evidence.

Working documents and frameworks from the initiative and from the meeting:

http://www.www.2apr.gov.bt
http://www.2apr.gov.bt/images/stories/pdf/unresolutiononhappiness.pdf
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20Report.pdf
http://www.gnhusa.org

The Impossible Hamster

During our EfS Summer Design Studio, one of our participants shared this funny (and thought provoking) video with us.  The "Impossible Hamster" video, created by The New Economics Foundation (NEF), illustrates what would happen if there were no limits to growth.  The video confronts this topic head on, and puts a finger on a very important point--"As economic growth rises, we are pushing the planet ever closer to, and beyond some very real environmental limits."

We thought the video was worth sharing, and will hopefully spark a conversation.  What do you think about the Impossible Hamster?