Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Strategies for Responding to Climate Change, the Climate Crisis, the Climate Emergency

There appear to be three main strategies for attempting to motivate citizens to take action on climate change. The terminology by which this state of affairs is referred to is beginning to reflect the essence of the different strategies - Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Climate Emergency, a Decarbonized World.

One strategy is to scare the hell out of people in motivating them to take action. This is currently reflected by Greta and previously by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. This approach has been directed to both leaders and citizens. One benefit of this "scare-the-hell-out-of-them" approach is that it educates people on the severity of the real situation as presented by climate data and observation. It attempts to get this issue into the current political discussion. Education can be included here as a subset of the overall strategy. Being educated as to the reality of climate change should scare the hell out of people. Many campaigns to involve people have education as a key objective.

A Reflection on Education in the 21st Century

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

As I reflect back over my teaching during the five years that I have been in Israel, I am very mindful of the increasing role that ideas of "sustainability" have in my work. Of course, "sustainability" is the consequence of a variety of approaches which we often refer to by the title of "sustainability." One might also refer to this as how we will go about living within our planetary budget in the foreseeable future.

Creating a Better World

 

To survive into the future, businesses, organizations and our global society will need to develop updated assumptions about what it takes to do well as inhabitants of this planet. New ideas about the relationship of the economy, businesses, the individual and the biosphere will need to be developed to replace outdated ones. We need a new story of humanity's place as a contributor to the thriving ecosystem of our planet that reflects our full human potential.