Green is Action

As I mentioned on the previous post, I’ve been visiting some American universities’ sustainability unit and also attended a conference. So After Portland State University, it was time to see what is going on in California where I started my adventure by attending a conference.
UC Davis hosted the annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference on 18-22 June. While other Norwegian delegates on this tour decided to attend the ISCN conference, I packed and went to Davis where the temperature was almost 40° C. I met the rest of Nordic Sustainable Campus Network Delegates from Sweden at the conference and we had some exciting days together.

UC Davis is highly profiled as a sustainable university in California. They have received 4 sustainability awards last year, reduced their waste up to 60%, designated a gold-level ‘Bicycle Friendly University‘, awarded Platinum LEED and a lot more recognition and activities that make visiting their website and the university truly worthy.

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 Mayor of Bonn, Jurgen Nimptsch calling on cities to take action, standing between president of ICLEI David Cadman and the Secretary General of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlstrom

The Third Congress of Resilient Cities was hold in its regular host city, Bonn on 12-15 May 2012. Green UiO as a core group member of UNICA Green Academic Footprint UGAF contributed to the poster session at the Resilient Cities 2012 congress by sharing some examples of collaboration between universities and municipalities for greener cities.

 This congress is organized before the UN Climate talk annually in the city of Bonn by  ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability  which is an association of over 1200 local government members from 70 different countries who are committed to sustainable development.   According to the ICLEI website, more than 400 participants are attending this year’s congress which marks the biggest gathering of local leaders and experts in urban resilience and adaptation.

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plymouth.ac.uk

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 The 2nd UNICA Green Academic Footprint (UGAF) Workshop, took place at Université de Lausanne, 16-17 February 2012.
Prof Stephen Sterling , Head of Education for Sustainable Development at Plymouth University was one of the  speakers at the workshop.  He elaborated on how Plymouth University has implemented sustainability and what the motives and barriers were at their university. The presentation slides are available here.
Sterling has published number of books and articles. If you are interested to learn more about Education and Learning in Change, his book: Sustainable Education Re-visioning Learning and Change  is highly recommended.

 The fifth annual World Student Environmental Summit  is to be held at Lausanne University (UNIL) in Switzerland. The summit will take place from the 5th of September to the 9th at the Lausanne campus.

Every university have opportunity to send 2 delegates to the summit. University of oslo currently is looking for enthusiastic students to represent UiO at the summit. If you are interested to be an active actor in making change fill the application form or contact Green UiO  before 15th of March 2012. The opportunity is open to all local, international, exchange students of any level and disciplines. However you should have been involved in some environmental activities and have a good level of English proficiency.     All the cost of traveling and participation will be covered by UiO and UNIL.

Let’s change!

The 2012 summit in Lausanne is themed  ”Let’s change!”. It is needless to mention that without a paradigm shift in our pattern of behavior toward the nature, it will undergo irreversible damages. Therefore we have to make a change now and in different levels. Les resten av dette innlegget →

 In occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the United Nations Agenda 21 , Leuphana University Lüneburg will hold the Sustainability Summit from 29 Feb until 2 March 2012.

Agenda 21, is the guiding vision agreed to by 179 nations at the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. Les resten av dette innlegget →

  The COPERNICUS Alliance Annual Meeting 2011 offers the possibility for members of the network to meet and exchange and for interested persons to learn more about the European Network on Higher Education for Sustainable Development. The event will take place on November 24 & 25 2011 in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.

The conference fee is 30 € for COPERNICUS Alliance members and 60 € for Non-COPERNICUS Alliance members.  Registration is possible until November 11th 2011.  You can check the program here.

It is also important to mention that the annual meeting will be right after Global RCE conference on effecting learning for sustainable development, entrepreneurship and world citizenship in the same place. Les resten av dette innlegget →

4^th International Conference on Higher Education for Sustainable Development: Moving the Agenda Forward will be held on September 14 –  16, 2011 in Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany.

The UNESCO Chair ‘Higher Education for Sustainable Development’ cordially invites you to the 4th International Conference on Higher Education for Sustainable Development. Conference is  focusing on new developments in key topics and dynamic regions:

• Management Education for Sustainable Development,
• Sustainable Consumption in Higher Education Institutions, and
• Higher Education for Sustainable Development in Central and Eastern Europe

Submissions are accepted until 31 July 2011. The organizers are pleased to announce that the conference fee and the subsistence expenses will be funded for presenters.

If you are in Oslo on 2oth and 21st of May 2011, do not miss the lectures by Dr Richard Kahn about Education and Environmental Challenges. He will join us at UiO Sophus Bugges hus on 20th at 12-13 and 21st of May at the Idea Festival of Climate Change at Helga Engs hus at 15.15-16.

His firs talk will be “How Should Global Climate Change Change the Climate of Our Conversation in Education? ”  He will emphasize that life on earth increasingly unfolds as a form of planetary ecocrisis — specifically through complex, but interrelated, threats such as global warming, species mass extinction, and nuclear terror.

In response, education has developed three primary strategies: 1) A technological ecomodernist and lifestyle consumerist problem-solving strategy consonant with a privatized, capitalist economy and Education for Sustainable Development; 2) A critical and emancipatory strategy of problem-posing popular education that seeks to challenge the current economic hegemony, especially in its form of neoliberal ideology at work in both corporate and state discourse, as an unsustainable social force that both generates and aggravates ecocrisis such as global warming; and 3) A commons-oriented strategy, such as represented by transition towns and ecovillages, in which the macro-problems of the private and public spheres are in effect abandoned in order to manifest an alternative formof human-scaled, place-based, subsistence-styled community. While it is likely the case that all three strategies are now necessary, there are dangerous reasons to fear that the growing global privatization and militarization of higher education increasingly blocks forms of education that might seriously challenge dominant forms of social power. Les resten av dette innlegget →

The Conference with the main theme of Global Challenges for Education: Economics, Environment & Emergency will be held at the University of Oxford Examinations School on 13 – 15 September 2011.

‘ Global recession, climate change, conflict and emergency are challenges that have dominated the first decade of the 21st century.

Education risks being a casualty of these contemporary uncertainties. It is a catalyst for growth, environmental protection and peace-building, but it can also aggravate social tensions and marginalisation. How can education best contribute to sustainable development and a peaceful society? How can the delivery of basic education to the poorest be safeguarded in times of crisis? What types of learning and modes of delivery can best support individuals and states while helping economies to grow? What skills can best meet the needs of highly mobile labour markets?  Les resten av dette innlegget →

euroecoteens.net

The 13th International Conference organized by Finland Futures Research Center (FFRC)  and Finland Futures Academy at University of Turku will deal with the different dimensions of a sustainable future. The conference will be held on 9-10 June 2011 in the University of Tampere, Finland.

According to the conference website, each year, the FFRC organises its annual conference, an invaluable opportunity for meeting, exchanging and debating current topics related in futures studies and foresight. With approximately 100–200 individual participants attending from all over the world, international researchers, organisational delegates, business people and students convene to the FFRC annual conferences in the spirit of futures-oriented information, research, analysis and collaboration. Les resten av dette innlegget →