Workshop blog
2008-10-31
The conference reached its end on Friday, after four days of intense work. The last day was dedicated to finalizing and discussing the last details of the group input to the final result of the conference. In the afternoon, a summary of the most important conclusions of the working groups was presented in a session that took place inside the main Lund University building. It’s a message of hope that more then 40 scientists have sent to the world today. What was even more amazing was the process of constructing this message, of reaching a consensus about how the future would look like. Sometimes this was a difficult process. But the conference took place under the sign of dialogue and hope and understanding each other views and I think it has reached its goals.
It has been said that when you dream in a foreign language that you’re trying to learn, it means you’ve started to master that language well enough. One of these nights, somewhere in the middle of the week, I dreamed very vividly that I was “envisioning” and participating at a meeting at the conference. I actually hope that means I managed to master the skill of envisioning and that I learned well this useful and wonderful art of imagining what we actually desire.
Silvia Ceausu
IIIEE/MESPOM
2008-10-29
The third day at “The Planet in 2050”
These days are a tremendous experience for me. Sitting and discussing together with some of the most well-known scientists in the environmental science arena, gives me insight into different working styles and research areas of those people. At the same time, I fortunately get the opportunity to contribute to the project of writing a vision for a sustainable world in 2050 and its possible pathways.
On Wednesday, there was no particular working group meeting taking place as on the other days. It was rather a field trip for half of the group to Malmö in order to participate in a workshop about sustainable cities, and for the other half to take part in different activities in Lund. The Lund programme –in which I was taking part- encompassed a field trip to the IDEON Science Park, to the outdoor youth education and leisure centre S:t Hans, and four afternoon workshops in the field of “Scientist and Society” in different facilities of the University of Lund. The workshop “Capacity building – Education, policy and economy for sustainable development” allowed a little insight into the discussion about the difficulties and practices of integrating sustainability into the public education process – from primary school to higher education. Although the idea of a science park was nothing new for the group, the presentation about IDEON was interesting as it showed dynamics and conditions for this particular case in Lund.
What I would like to point out for this day is the remarkable inspiration I got from the guided tour we got through the children’s day care centre S:t Hans. I found it very impressive to drink tea within a garden house that was mainly built by the children of the day care centre. Likewise, seeing how children between 10 and 12 years are being taught to achieve so called “soft skills” for life was amazing and inspiring at the same time. Empathy, for example, teachers pass on to the children by making them responsible to take care of other creatures. Each of them has to look after his or her individual pet, like a rabbit or a cat, which is at home within the facility and needs to be treated also over the weekends. The abilities of cooperation, team spirit and self-confidence children acquire through building a wooden house together, and gazing at and using of the actual end result –the house itself.
This day has given us the opportunity to have -apart from the main goal of the whole workshop- a brief look into sustainable youth education, possible and beneficial (for both sides) cooperation between academia and business, and the integration of the environmental perspective into higher education courses, which helped me likewise to get an interesting contact for my thesis work. : )
Jana Timm
Student participant form IIIEE/MESPOM (Erasmus Mundus Masters Program)
My day in 2050.
Its the third day of the conference, and I can tell that the group’s energy is low. Two long, long days of work have left people not only physically tired, but in my case at least, mentally tired also. However, in the defense of my conference compatriots, I have to say that I am greatly impressed. Given that the “brain trust” was presented as a counterpoint - in, ahem, a certain numerical indicator - as a counterpoint to the youth (oops!) of us students, it is incredible how much energy they still seem to have after a full day of meetings.
Whether or not it is a function of experience over youth or just some sort of crazy conference energy patch that they distributed without my knowledge, I can honestly say that the “more mature” folks are putting me to shame.
Through some wonderous foresight of the planners however, this third day was set aside as field trip day. The group split into two, with one going staying in Lund and doing peer group sessions, and another going to Malmo to participate in a daylong urban sustainability workshop. I had the pleasure of going to Malmo. Instead of talking about what we did, I’ll just point out some highlights - HSB Turning Torso, Bo01, slow food reindeer, Green Roof Institute, ballrooms at City Hall in Malmo, and the Red Cross House of Humanity. Getting out from the Grand Hotel into the open, walking around, and changing settings was not only enjoyable but also good for everyone’s energy levels.
Beyond that though, I was really happy to get a chance to spend more quality time with my fellow participants at the conference, outside of the intense hotel setting, as well as meeting people who are attempting to implement change in a progressive like Malmo. But, what was perhaps the most rewarding experience in a good day, was the hour we spent as workshop participants, sitting around a table and just brainstorming relevant ideas that could be realized and implemented at a local level.
The compressed time scale, inclusive atmosphere, and diversity of backgrounds really allowed us to share ideas and come up with solutions that I thought had “legs” and could be scaled and applied to different places.
This reflects what I’ve found to be the most enjoyable part of participating in the conference. While there have been many examples of “status quo” thinking, as there are everywhere and as are often needed, there are also a great variety of “out there” perspectives and ideas that have really helped challenge my definitions of normal and refine, change, and strengthen my belief systems. Some of these challenges have occured in our workshop meetings, others have happened through personal interactions outside of the workgroups. Yet I feel safe in saying that the have all occured in very mutually respectful interactions - clearly debunking a pre-meeting (and unfounded) fear of mine that the world’s leading “brains” might treat students as less than equal. I have met so many brillant people here who not only listen to what we say, but also want to hear what we say. It’s refreshing and heartening.
Now, back to the hard work. A book in a week. If we can do this, why can’t we help make the world healthier?
Wayne J Pan
IIIEE/MESPOM
2008-10-28
Day two of the working group was motivating and bursting of ideas and challenges what today’s world is facing in terms of energy and technology. As a part of the energy group today we started with discussing and warming up the house with different thought reflecting on the agreement and disagreement which we had on the very first day.
Nevertheless, as a group we has a same vision. How to get there? What are the obstacles we need to focus on? Where do we need to draw line? What efforts to be make to achieve our vision for sustainable planet in 2050? these issues were come up. Most important question as a part of this society comes to my mind was that where our civilization going? There is a strong bond of relationship between ecosystem, technology and history we shouldn’t overlook that.
Greatness comes from the way of living. Education plays a very key role in the information dissemination and to change lifestyle of individual. Change in the education system will provide avenue for future in energy efficiency and management at the individual level.
Energy has been a very important part of our day to day life. We do depend on the various forms of energy. Fossil fuels are responsible for the green house gas emission but can we separate energy from green house gas emission? There are other issues directly associated with the energy for instance poverty.
When we started discussing about all these challenges we also consider that there are different groups of countries the situation might not be the same everywhere and certainly it is not. We also need to create some kind of mechanism and massive international political interest to help them to achieve equal platform in future. That would facilitate access to the electricity for poor people in different parts of the world where they do not have electricity.
The overall day was motivating and productive. We came up with ideas and solutions and we also identified obstacles that need to be focused to get there and secure our sustainable future in 2050. This was a great start and nice experience for me to be a part of this workshop and share my thoughts with senior scientist.
Anand Deshmukh
Student participant form IIIEE/MESPOM (Erasmus Mundus Masters Program)
The Planet in 2050 …two days in….
“We are a diverse group and we envision a diverse world….”
That’s how one of the visions of the Planet in 2050 begins, composed by one of the 50+ participants who are gathered here this week in Lund.
“A desirable future 2050 is an ecologically sustainable situation, i.e. a situation where there is no undermining of the life support system….”
Gladly the human energy here is high, starting with Sunday night’s reception through today (Tuesday afternoon). It’s an intense, friendly and very concerned setting.
“The planet and societies are at a threshold…. [But] societies are slow to respond to crisis….”
Terrific challenges that can’t be avoided: climate changes, global changes, economic contradictions, social emergencies… now and through 2050. Can we respond?
“By 2050 the dominant practices, rules and assumptions of the European Union have changed dramatically from those that were in place in 2008. The prices for energy, resources and land truly reflect the value of ecosystem goods and services….”
Monday morning began with introductions of various kinds led by Torvald Jacobsson (IIIEE) and the two co-chairs Bob Costanza (Gund Institute) and Guy Brasseur (National Center for Atmospheric Research): to the schedule, the format, and the participants. Each person in the room (around fifty of us) took a turn to stand – by their chair or in the aisle, or - to save people’s straining neck muscles - walking down to the fore of the aula – to introduce themselves and their focus areas of work.
“The path… involves the transformation of our knowledge and value systems and our institutions, not only small adjustments here and there….”
Consider now an idea: diverse forms of diversity. That’s precisely what you find here. Not just diverse geographically and culturally: yes, all the continents of the world are represented here, along with tens of different passports tucked into briefcases and backpacks…
“Among the upsides of global communications, more open, participatory approaches are possible at all scales of governance, and closed, totalitarian approaches have become more visible and perhaps less enduring….”
The conference also brings together a surprising diversity of ways of knowing and doing and learning among the people here. Just consider one of the special working groups, on Development, global economy and culture: the scientists, activists, and scholars here are working to integrate legal and historical scholarship, ecological economics, security studies, health sociology, and social ecology (a partial list!) into their deliberations and a public report.
“Looking back from 2052, the last 400 years of human occupation of this planet has been a catalyst for evolutionary creativity and transformation. A new phase of human awareness and interdependence on a planetary scale has occurred during 2030 to 2050….”
There’s the diversity in the set of working groups: there are four groups in session from Monday morning, through today, to Friday.
Development, global economy and culture
Environment, climate change, and air and water pollution
Land-use change, agriculture, and urban development
Energy and technology
(You might want to re-read the titles now, as the keywords above are easy to gloss over. Actually each group is rather different.)
“Humanity is on a brink of a grand transition to be compared with the emergence of agriculture some 20,000 years ago, the Neolithic and the Industrial Revolutions….”
It is a diverse group of institutions convening the conference: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP), the European Science Foundation (ESF), and the Heinz Foundation. Another form of heterogeneity is that it’s a new kind of meeting looking four decades ahead, yet it’s rooted in the great sustainability meetings that began four decades ago (e.g. the Stockholm Conference in 1972). Today it’s well established institutions working in very new ways…
“There is a new very advanced virtual reality system that just came out (almost like the ‘holodeck’ on Star Trek)… It basically allows participants to create a future world that represents their overlapping hopes and dreams, tempered by the constraints of human natures and biophysical reality. …”
Surprisingly diverse ways of working can also be found among the groups too: quiet reading time, loud brainstorming, sustained hours of debate, and so on. Dialogue is the most obvious common denominator, a watchword for everyone here. Dialogue to be preferred over debate, where debate implies there’s a right answer that one person has, while dialogue recognizes the need for learning to arrive at answers together (cited from D. Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue).
“It was clear though that, as opposed to other historic disasters in the human history, the undesirable non-linear dynamics triggered by the Anthropocene, were all in essence, irreversible. This was a shocking realization for a large part of humanity. The melting ice could not be re-frozen. Instead, massive investments were mobilized in a global emergency plan to adapt and transform in the face of unavoidable and undesirable state changes….”
Aaron Thomas
Science writer for the conference
2008-10-27
Opening day
The opening day of the workshop to envision the planet in 2050 was the beginning of an exciting week for me. It felt special to be able to interact with people who had such converging and diverging interests and perspectives.
The plenary sessions helped to understand the diversity of disciplines that the participants belonged to. The geographical, professional and knowledge diversity was a key feature of the interaction. It was a good start that we got off to in the first session for the land use change, agriculture and urban development working group. A variety of the topics and myriad observations, experiments and conclusions were discussed as part of a brain storming session which allowed us to look at the problem from different angles. The post lunch session included a couple of exercises to open up our minds and allow our thoughts to flow and to understand the different interactions in the system. The concluding session on the first day helped to narrow down our focus in a more well defined manner.
This was an excellent learning experience for me. I am satisfied with whatever little contribution I made to the discussion. My wish to garner more understanding of complex issues and systems will be given a major boost through the interaction at the workshop over the next week.
