Wishing everyone a Happy 2012 New Year !
EJ Wensing
Lead at Ecosphere Net
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Wishing everyone a Happy 2012 New Year !
EJ Wensing
Lead at Ecosphere Net
]]>Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent made this proclamation this week at Colorado University (CU) as he committed to a new partnership with the University; one in which the success of society takes precedence over business success.
As reported in The Coloradian, Kent is developing a great new partnership model with CU for sustainability. (link here)
NSF supported research by the lead co-founder of Ecosphere Net, EJ Wensing, is developing the Sustainable Futures Protocol (SFP). The SFP is an exciting new social science research protocol that seeks to develop leadership and partnerships for sustainability worldwide.
The SFP will fit right into the CU/Coca-Cola model as well as other ventures for corporate social responsibility.
Ecosphere Net's EJ Wensing is seeking to research and develop the SFP while acting as a consultant to corporations as they seek to shift with societies toward a sustainable global future.
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The UN predicts that by the end of October 2011 the 7 billionth person living on Earth will be born.
I have read several opinions about this event.
Some say it’s a non-event, suggesting that the Earth’s capacity is still unknown and likely much greater than we expect. Some suggest that in the economically developed world the population growth has plateaued so its “only” a problem in the developing regions of the world.
Many leaders for global sustainability, however, from the social entrepreneur to the sustainability champion see it from the perspective of “connectedness”.
Simply put, the concept of connectedness is about how we are all linked around the world no matter where we live; linked because we all utilize the same life supporting ecosystems and linked because we are all human.
The former takes the practical stance. We are all co-dependent on each other because we eat, breath, and drink the food, air, and water from the same cycling resources. The latter might be seen as too “touchy- feely” by some, but speaks to the moral and ethical obligation we have to our fellow humans.
I think the research efforts of groups like Population Council are the best approach to curbing world population growth. Developing valid and effective collaborative action initiatives is the key.
Our part at Ecosphere Net is to pursue research of the most effective cross-cultural learning systems to characterize, develop, and connect community leaders for sustainability worldwide.
EJ Wensing
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EJ Wensing has received a generous award from the US National Science Foundation for his doctoral research (Link Here to NSF Announcement)
Funding will go toward his cross-cultural research study of community leaders for sustainability and his development of the Global Sustainability Inventory (GSI) that seeks to characterize those personal and social characteristics that help make them effective.
]]>Very funny and very brilliant.
EJ Wensing
]]>Many researchers are beginning to ask, what about the people? How do our attitudes and behaviors need to shift to help generate a sustainable future?
In other words, if we could look into the future what would the people of the sustainable future be like? How do they work within and between their communities to help generate a sustainable future?
If we could look into the future I suspect we’d see a lot of people being more active in their communities. These communities would be organized into collaborative groups that would network with other similar groups around the world. There would be community sustainability centers that would serve as meeting places for the collaborative groups with the capacity to connect to other centers around the world.
Of course many such groups already exist and already meet at community town halls or on the internet.
What appears needed, however, is the social science research to help refine them and co-ordinate them so that they can work together to help generate a sustainable future across global societies.
EJ Wensing
]]>Our global future remains uncertain.
What is certain is that as global populations continue to get bigger our futures are becoming more and more connected.
The pollution generated in one part of the world effects the health of those in other parts of the world.
Killing the ocean in one part of the world will affect the health of all the seas and oceans, and our health all over the world.
Global sustainability is about more than climate change.
The world is made-up of connected ecosystems and, more than ever, we are part of those systems.
At Ecosphere Net we are looking to connect all people across the world as global citizens in collaborative action networks toward a sustainable future for this generation and the next.
Stay-tuned to this blog for some exciting reports on our social science research that will help us move toward that global future.
EJ Wensing
USVI
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Click on this link
Click on link above for a beautiful and important movie about our home.
EJ
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Meat production puts a heavy burden on the environment and our future global sustainability. Meat consumption is actually not necessary. There are many alternatives.
Starting in Aspen, Colorado the Meatless Monday Initiative has turned into a global movement.
Here’s more info from their website (click here):
“Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. We provide the information and recipes you need to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat-free alternatives. Our goal is to help you reduce your meat consumption by 15% in order to improve your personal health and the health of the planet.
By cutting out meat once a week, we can improve our health, reduce our carbon footprint and lead the world in the race to reduce climate change.
For most Americans the week begins on Monday. On Monday we move from the freedom of the weekend back to the structure of work or school. We set our intentions for the next six days. We plan ahead and evaluate progress.
From an early age we internalize this rhythm. And studies suggest we are more likely to maintain behaviors begun on Monday throughout the week. That makes Monday the perfect day to make a change for your health and the health of our planet.
Monday is the call to action built in to every calendar each week. And if this Monday passes you by, next week is another chance to go meatless!”
Join us and go meatless at least every Monday. Together we can take the actions necessary to make our world sustainable so that future generations can enjoy the possibilities for a better life like we do.
See the widget in the right margin of our blog for some great meatless recipes you can use on Mondays and any other day of the week!
Monday..."The day all health breaks loose"
EJ Wensing
US Virgin Islands
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New York Times columnist and author of the best-selling book Hot Flat and Crowded (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishers) Thomas L. Friedman recently posted an opinion piece in the Times in which he introduces a new book by Paul Gilding and seems to agree with Gilding’s notion that only a large-scale global event of a significant magnitude brought about by the climate crisis will motivate a necessary social transition across societies toward a sustainable global future. Gilding’s new book is called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.”
While the factors of climate change, over-population, and natural resource depletion are real we do not have to encounter an “imminent great disruption” to change our ways. We can develop, implement, and connect systems of sustainability across global cultures; socioeconomic systems in which individual identity, collective identity, and commerce are based in sustainability, from the local to the global. We can transition toward a global citizenry for sustainability in which local communities are connected to the global through leader networks across cultures.
This is a vision of a sustainable future, one in which our sense of self and our needs for well-being are redefined, without any need for an “imminent great disruption” related to our economic growth.
EJ Wensing
USVI
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