Profile of a Global Environmentalist
- 4 Oct 06, 09:33 AM
Climate change is something that is going to effect every single one of us on the surface of the Earth. To maintain this unique planet as something fit to live in we need a global environmental leader who can connect the voyeurisitic images of the future to the ordinary people of our global community. This person I suspect doesn't know it's them. Their qualities will need to give us a fear of heights (read my last blog) and be able to show us how our individual interests need to be the same as humanity its self. Above all they will need to tell us we can fight back and win. What is the profile of this person?
Profile of a global environmentalist - BACKGROUND
Serious grasp of ecology. Why? Ecology is the science of living communities and ecology unpicks the relationships between individuals, populations and whole communities.
Profile of a global environmentalist - SKILLS
Manifest people skills able to see through and work with the complexity of national self interest. An ability to make ecology sexy - after all, ecology can inform us about everything from resource management to how we run our homes and manage the people in our corporations.
Profile of a global environmentalist - LEADERSHIP STYLE & PERSONALITY
Passionate communicator, generous with their knowledge and able to link the global environmental agenda to the lives of the world community. This person, first and foremost, needs to know how ordinary people live and the timescales they can achieve things.
Profile of a global environmentalist - STREET CRED
Well they need it in bucket loads. A fresh face and free of the establishment.
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Yes indeed, but perhaps we also need a better understanding and a greater awareness between the various disciplines and how they interact. This is especially relevant to the earth sciences where what happens in the oceans, the atmosphere and in terrestrial regions is of course inter-connected and, in turn, linked to the biological situation and the sustainability of species. As a society, we often seem to focus on one area at a time (according to popularity and media exposure) without necessarily making the linkages across disciplines.
Perhaps addressing this factor could represent an interesting project? Maybe with an international involvement and over a defined period of time? I would certainly be very happy to collaborate in this context (see my little earth sciences website as a starter). With a little intelligent coordination, and perhaps some 主播大秀 support, I am sure that we could achieve something really worthwhile. Furthermore, it may establish a pattern for future work in this context.
Kind regards,
Julian Ashbourn
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It's good to hear from you Julian. I was struck when the Dali Lama told his faithful that they shouldn't wear the skins of endangered species (referring to tigers) for fashion. Here was a religious leader who took an environmental issue and made a ruling across his faithful. In that small statement, from my seat, I saw an emergent global environmentalist. It some ways it came out of the blue. Earlier in the life of this blog there's a suggestion that the Pope could call on all Catholics to take much more environmental responsibility (Brazil and the Phillipines are almost entirely Catholic and both plagued with huge environmental issues). From a media perspective we look for these emergent properties in people and report about them. There will be a Jamie Oliver of the environment I'm sure.
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Let's not forget the role of Geography in our understanding of the world. The 主播大秀 all too often forgets Geography. Visit www.passion4geography.co.uk to find out more.
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This point raises some concern, when you state that we need a leader, this is too true we do, a better one. I say a better one because in actual fact there are one, in fact several all those leaders who attend Greenpeace summits to make the earth 鈥渁 better place to live鈥 are our mentors in the face of environmental adversity. Looking on a more optimistic level, it is in fact those who stand aside form politics of a country who need the authority to make the change. They lack this authority that the political leaders have. Therefore I ask are we in a time where authority should be given over to those who do care?
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How much does it cost to plant a tree or even a forest? It would seem to me that the best technological fix for global warming is to "Re forestation not De forestation" on a large enough scale growing trees takes a great deal of Co2 out of the atmosphere. Western "rich" nations should plant millions of trees to off set co2 emmissions along with the planned reductions. Kind of scales that balance.Use less, remove more!
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