Participants of 2018 Climate Retreat Organized by Centre for Local Prosperity and held at Thinkers Lodge.
Bob Cervelli of Centre for Local Prosperity hosted the retreated, invited the participants, and shaped the agenda. Bob has been a life science tech start-up entrepreneur for over 25 years, and understands the issues related to new business creation and the health of resilient local economies. He has founded, or co-founded, biotechnology companies developing diagnostics, cancer therapy, vaccine enhancement technologies, neurological drug discovery and consumer health products. He has become particularly knowledgeable in the commercial develop of botanical extracts and natural active compounds.Bob has been an active volunteer in community building for over 35 years. He is a co-founder and Chair of Transition Bay St. Margarets Bay (www.transitionbay.ca), one of the first Transition Initiatives in the Maritimes. He is advising other rural Maritime communities on the process of building Transition Initiatives in order to draw out the skills, processes and projects inherent in local cultures to build resilience and adaptability to global change.
|
Betsy Allard is a speech language pathologist who develops tools for children to problem solve and develop their creative thinking. She believes that kids are innovative in developing solutions and want to be part of environmental change.She has worked on water shed issues. She helped found Centre for Local Prosperity.
|
Joan Baxter studied anthropology and has pursued a career in journalism. She studied biology in Mexico and lived in Africa for 30 years where she celebrated their social and agricultural systems and wrote several books. In 2018 Joan published The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest. It explores the power that a single industry can wield. "For fifty years, the pulp mill near Pictou in northern Nova Scotia has buoyed the local economy and found support from governments at all levels. But it has also pulped millions of acres of forests, spewed millions of tonnes of noxious emissions into the air, consumed quadrillions of litres of fresh water and then pumped them out again as toxic effluent into nearby Boat Harbour, and eventually into the Northumberland Strait." She reported for BBC. She aspires to help with messaging for Climate Change and to encourage them to have more diversity in their participants.
|
The Mill
|
Josee-Ann Cloutier organized the retreat, meals, and events. From Northern Ontario and of Ogunquit ancestry, Josee has a background in the health, wellness, education, environment, and entrepreneurship sectors. Her passion motivated her to initiate collaborative projects, start up ventures and travel based research. She has an undergraduate degree in Management from Dalhousie University and a scholarship funded Master of Arts degree from Europe in Wellness and Spa Service Design where she researched on the significance of community and social well-being in retreat settings. Josée worked as an Entrepreneurship Coordinator and Educator for the English sector in Montréal, developing and presenting tools and resources to community leaders, teachers and students across Québec. She’s dipped her toes as an Environmental Educator on climate change and energy efficiency in Nova Scotia’s Acadian and French speaking communities. She guest lectures and consults at the School of Architecture at Dalhousie University on experience design of cross cultural thermic bathing practices. Currently, Josée is re-developing a start up project creating opportunities for restorative social and ecological well-being.
Russell Daye is a United Minister in Halifax at St. Andrews: To create theCenter for Social and Spiritual …. Cohabit space, transformation of consciousness, he tore out pews for 700 people, and now it is a multi use; he teaches at Atlantic School of Theology, not teaching ethics any more, but teaching preaching, He taught Truth and Reconciliation in Figi, worked with people who have lost nation. Reconciliation and deep transformation of consciousness as Tutu and Mandela did in South Africa. He anticipates death and destruction due to Climate Change; He believes this will become an opportunity. "Mankind can change its consciousness, teach mindfulness."
|
Cathy Eaton is President of the Cyrus Eaton Foundation which provided some funding for the Retreat. She tookcandid photographs, was an educator for 35 years, and is ready to embrace all she can learn about healing our planet with concrete action and heart. Author of Thinkers Lodge: Its History and Legacy, Cathy interviews people who have worked at the Lodge and researches the historical significance of the peace keepers who have worked to eliminate nuclear weapons. She is the lodge's historian.
|
|
John Eaton, Pugwash Park Commissioner since 2005, provided Thinkers Lodge as site to host the retreat and brought with him his experience with community gardens, local sustainability, and energized commitment to partnering Thinkers Lodge and Centre for Local Prosperity in future gatherings. He has lived for 39 years in California. In 2008 he spearheaded the restoration of Thinkers Lodge for next 100 years. He is committed to start holding conferences here that can make positive impact on world. John pays attention to groups that can mesh with spirit with Thinkers Lodge. He is interested in Environmental Issues. Californians have different view than rest of world. California intends to be Carbon Neutral by 2040. The economy is being driven by sustainable solutions. John hopes Pugwash will embrace sustainability.
|
|
Dayle Eshelby conducted the thoughtful interviews, putting the retreat participants at ease and drawing out their passions, intentions, and expertise. Dale has been involved with Center for Local Prosperity since beginning. As town councilor on South Shore, she worked with Wayne on project installing solar panels in church. She did Surgical Research at McGill University. Having grown in Shelburne County, she helps people learn and find their place. In the first week of piloting program, they help people become more educated by getting employment . The goal is to get a solid foundation to get job, have pride in self to give back to community. Her goal is to figure out how to empower people to get understanding of their place in the climate problems. How can we educate people?
|
|
Adam Fenech, UPEI Climate Lab, provided update on global climate science. Adam has worked extensively in the area of climate change since 1988 starting at the Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere and the IPCC First Assessment Report. Dr. Fenech shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has edited 7 books on climate change over the past 7 years, most recently as editor of the international journal on Climate Impacts and Adaptation Science. He has taught at the University of Toronto since 1998, and lectures regularly at universities across Canada and around the world. He joined the University of Prince Edward Island as Director of the Climate Research Unit.
Phil Ferraro, a social ecologist from PEI who is Certified Sustainability and Responsibility Practitioner, started Farm Centre Legacy Garden in Charlottetown that gives away food to groups in needs, captures knowledge of old farmers and passes it on to new farmers, and he is focused on being ecologically productive. Previously, he worked at Institue for Bioregional Studies.
|
|
Chad Frishmann (Drawdown VP) and Crystal Chissell (Drawdown Engagement Dir) Provided update about Drawndown on the Friday evening by Zoom. A coalition-builder and systems strategist, Chad Frischmann works to reverse global warming and build a new, regenerative future with cascading benefits to the environment and to human well-being.Chad is the lead researcher and principal architect of the methodology and models behind Project Drawdown. In collaboration with leading environmentalist Paul Hawken and a global team of researchers and thought leaders, Chad designed sophisticated models to assess the world’s most effective climate solutions and determine if, when, and how the world can reach “drawdown,” the point in time when the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases begins to decline on a year-to-year basis. As head of research since Project Drawdown’s inception, Chad is a key spokesperson and coalition-builder dedicated to sharing the message and model of Drawdown with the world.
With a multidisciplinary background in public policy, human rights, sustainable development, and environmental conservation, Chad provides a systems-based approach to research and strategic leadership. Previously, Chad was the Senior Program Officer at The Europaeum, an association of leading European universities; taught at the University of Oxford and the University of California at Berkeley; and worked as a consultant and researcher for numerous organizations, from small grassroots non-profits to UN agencies such as UNESCO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. |
Vivian Godfree, long-time resident of Pugwash, has long been an advocate and model for living a small carbon imprint. She and her husband Jeremy have solar panels, a field of wild flowers instead of a lawn, are pescatarians, and use bikes as their primary mode of transportation. Vivian Godfree is a product of her parents (Norwegian and English.). Father was doctor in 1930s. He was an ardent supporter of socialized medicine. The common good. Good health. Good environment. Vivian joined campaign for nuclear disarmament in 1960s. After the oil crisis in the 1970s, she turned to conservation. "Everyone has too many things. We squander energy, water, possessions. No guilt of what is effect of what we are doing. Everything we do has an effect. Be the change you want to see."
She advocates making link between what people do and what affect it has on planet. Little things matter. She brought Inconvenient Truth to Pugwash and hoped it would change Pugwash. "The planet will survive. WE may not."
She advocates making link between what people do and what affect it has on planet. Little things matter. She brought Inconvenient Truth to Pugwash and hoped it would change Pugwash. "The planet will survive. WE may not."
Wayne Grosko studied chemistry and physics for his BA and his PhD in oceanography. He is concerned about acidification of oceans and changing climate, concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere. He works at Nova Scotia Community College. In his Applied Research Lab in Renewable Energy, he conducts do tests that help people can see what they can do. He built a mobile solar power unit, hopes to deploy second prototype somewhere new, where people who have no electricity get electricity. He used to give climate change talks. He believes that the number of people adopting alternative energy is rising exponentially. People asking him how do I get solar energy. He wants to learn about social implications. "The key part of solution is how are we thinking about the world and our place in it."
Gregory Hemming. from Port Royal, Annapolis Royal, says “My life is a journey”. He studies Economic development in climate change and forestry. This is the 50th anniversary of being arrested for civil disobedience for reading names of war dead in Washington DC. He was successful in helping to stop the Vietnam War. He did graduate work in ethics at Dalhousie. After traveling a whole year, he returned to Colorado and worked in a zoo. He pioneered development rights to having development be in appropriate areas. He studied comparative religion. He danced with old elders. Then went to Yucon for 11 years without electricity. He reengaged with the wilderness. His Ph.D. is in literary ecology, the study of biological themes in literature. He claims the first ecologist was Dante inThe Divine Comedy with his Vision of birds covered in oil and unable to fly. After returning to Nova Scotia, he went to Tatamagouche at Buddhist Retreat Center. Bob, Betsy, Dale, and Gregory hatched ideas for …for local prosperity and then met John Eaton. He says, the 60th celebration 2017 Climate Retreat was passing the mantel from nuclear disarmament of the 1957 conference to climate change.
Heather Johannesen is from Northern Cape Breton, where she lived on a Subsistence farm, and had a perspective on wealth, not money but quality time with her father, a boat builder, working on the farm and helping him milk cows and cut trees. They moved to Alberta. She hated it. Her Mom was war bride. Her heart was always in Cape Breton. She is a single mom with four children and saw work through risk management lens/ framework. Her thesis work was on ecological economic ( Sustainability & Climate change.) She left development work and became consultant working with government agencies and municipalities. Heather says, half of the students of Pugwash thinks there will be no world for them. She advocates bringing message through art and music, to use cultural ways to create message for the next generation. She hopes to link what rural communities are doing with urban communities, to demonstrate what is rural wealth, and to redefine what is wealth. People should forget getting bigger house. Wealth is community and resilient people.
Amy Larkin, author of Environmental Debt, from New York, is founder of Nature Means Business. She is a radical environmentalist, carrying deeply about removing plastic out of ocean. She was head of Green Peace Solutions. She writes for Guardian, wrote “The Hidden Death”, entry way big business, was a producer, talks on culture and climate change. Amy wrote Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy. She reminded us to remember that humans are just part of nature. A brand new world has nature and sustainability as its priority. “We have a climate emergency, and we are unprepared for it.”
|
|
|
Lil Macpherson is a protector of family, lover of food. She has traveled around world. At one point with bad food and bad water, she was trapped in war. She ran away from home at 16. She has opened The Wooden Monkey restaurant in Halifax. She wants to support a world she wants, to build the world we want. She is a mother of hope, and is an Al Gore representative, having attended three camps. The has attended three climate change conference. She is dedicating her life to change and the youth. She attended The Copenhagen Conference. Everyone needs to go to climate change conference. The youth are powerful. The Green Trade Show. The People summit. She is strengthened by images of youth singing, playing, creating innovations. She hopes for food security. She emphasized sequestration.
|
|
Bill Martin started Six Rivers Media. He focuses on helping people in crisis. He advocates honesty and accepting responsibility and saying you are sorry. He is pastor of a Pugwash Memorial Baptist Church. He wants to right wrongs and find answers to why we are here. He found faith in religion. Bill is the chair of the Pugwash Commissioners. He said, "The world would be a great p[lace if it weren't for the people."
|
Paul Strome is allied with Inuit, pay attention to basic needs, traditions, beliefs; he worked in the Arctic to pay for education, returned to teach and learn. He believes Truth and Reconciliation need to be driven by First Nations People in order to succeed. Talking to First Nations People is a priority. Solutions not going to be derived from the settlers. The six week growing season is now 13 weeks on King William Island. Driving on ice is now two months later than it was.
|
Gregor Wilson is vice chair of Nova Scotia Nature Trust, where he works on the operations team and on four-season tourism planning. Tourism work has taken him to Japan, Gwaii Haaas National Park, the Cape Breton Highlands, Banff National Park, and to Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. Gregor has lived across much of Canada and abroad but keeps coming back to his native Nova Scotia for its accessible and natural beauty. He has spent most of his professional life working in the outdoor tourism industry. He has owned and operated a kayak tour company, an adventure website, and has managed Ski Crabbe Mountain. He is currently on the operations team at Ski Wentworth. His passions include anything that keeps him outside including trail development, backcountry skiing, kayaking, mountain biking, surfing and hiking. "Let's make it like the good ole days, with the weather of our childhood."
|
DOCUMENTARY CREW
As an independent filmmaker, Andrea Vandenboer has produced, edited and filmed for a number of documentaries, live events, promotional videos and research projects. She has created a life rich with experiences in numerous locations working within several artistic mediums, in the theatre, music, fashion and digital art industries. Andrea went on to form her production company The Visual Blueprint Productions in 2006 and co-founded Theme Room Films in 2007. Andrea organized the 2017 Climate Change Retreat at Thinkers Lodge and made sure it ran smoothly. Her quick sense of humour, clarity and fiercely compassionate nature will find you wanting to see your own event come to life under her skillful guidance or your own story told through the lens of her camera. A passion for organic gardening and a deep awareness of sustainable living guides many of her project choices.
Donna L Burton has spent three decades working primarily as a corporate writer, telling stories or helping others tell stories and publishing them in print and digital medias. Donna is currently using film as her media of choice, with a focus on telling stories about the human condition and how we interact with our world.
Andrea and Donna documented the 2018 Climate Change Retreat, recording interviews, filming discussions, and shooting stills. Their work will help keep the retreat alive for the future.