Full reports: Dr. Jane Goodall; Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler, Chief Phil Lane, Jr., Climate scientist David Poister, Marc Barash of Green World, Breakthough Communities, Compassion Games Founders , Yes! Magazine and more...
Fighting to save a planet is going to require a fierce kind of compassion, and it’s going to take all of us working together to pull it off. Just to makes things clear: compassion isn't soft or "touchy feely." It's action driven and it requires commitment to act. That action is at the heart of our work with compassionate cities and communities. If you take a look at our assessment categories in our Charter Tool Box you will see that the environment is prominent in our work.
We've been working diligently to plan a significant number of events leading up to and including the celebration of Earth Day. If you've never attended a webinar here at the Charter, Earth Week is not to be missed! Stewardship of the planet is the great work of our time and the greatest challenge to humanity thus far. It’s also the greatest opportunity for the world to create unity for a grander purpose. The Charter's Earth Week Series promises to reintroduce you to your home in ways that you may never have considered. We'll be looking at the science of climate change for the lay person and we're bringing together some environmental pioneer activists like Jane Goodall, Greenpeace, Chief Phil Lane Jr., "Yes" Magazine and much more. Discover what others are doing to steward the Earth and how you can be a steward too. Below is a preview of presentations and a link to register for the event. Click on this link to get a full description of all Earth Week presentations.
Saturday, April 16, 9 am PDT: Screening of "How Do Humans Heal a World?" with Barbara Kaufmann, Walking Moon Studios, and Sommer Albertsen, Compassion Games International.Read the report here.
Sommer and Barbara will discuss grief and how we can process our feelings about what is happening to our planet in ways that are healthy, motivating and inspirational so we can move past it and go about the work of stewardship for the Earth.
On Earth Day last year artist and writer Barbara’s Art Brainchild, Walking Moon Studios, released the film “How Do Human’s Heal a World?” produced for the Charter for Compassion International. Now in its second and HD edition.
This film came out of conversations with people that began in Barbara's Charter for Compassion booth at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association Fair and has continued in subsequent gatherings. Her medical arts background alerted her to a pattern that emerged when she initiated conversation about the stewardship of Planet Earth. Every person she spoke to was exhibiting some stage of grief which accompanies the process of dying; many were frozen and feeling helpless in their inhabited melancholy. The film is designed to embrace that all-too-human sadness, validate it, thaw the energy frozen in its helplessness or hopelessness, discover the love that actually fuels it, and transform it into fierce compassion and inspiration.
Gift in the Shadow of Climate Change (PDF)
Movement as Medicine (PDF) | Video
Sommer Albertsen teaches healing through movement and dance as a wellness coach and teacher of Nia. A member of the Leadership Team for Compassion Games International, she is passionate about creating connections and partnerships that allow for people to find their highest human expression through movement and cooperative games that highlight human brilliance through cooperation in movement with survival of the kindest, not the fittest. Sommer sees movement as medicine and has put together some exercises that will help us move through our grief and reach for that inner brilliance so that we can employ it in healing our planet.
”One Wordsmith” Barbara Kaufmann “writes to simply change the world.” www.onewordsmith.com Writer, author, artist, filmmaker, impresario, minister, healer, and spiritual advisor—trained conventionally with a Business Degree in Management, Nursing Diploma, and in seminary as an ordained minister while training unconventionally with gurus, Sufis and shaman in alternative healing, Spiritual Emergency, Interspecies Communication and Shamanism, she dreams out loud of “a more humane narrative on the planet.”
Lifelong global and local activist, leader and citizen diplomat, she believes fiercely in the power of “Story,” communication, connection and agency—especially through the arts. An award winning author she’s written for the Huffington Post, magazines, organizations and is the founder and steward of “Words and Violence” Project compendium on bullying (including the planet) now in its 4th edition. An original member and officer with Sister Cities’ Russian-American partnerships that begun during the cold war and nuclear arms race, she wrote and administrated the grant that built the infrastructure for the decommissioning of weapons of mass destruction in her sister city region in Russia. She is a staffer, writer and contributor to the Charter for Compassion International.
Sommer Joy Albertsen is a member of the Leadership Team as Compassion Games International Relations Coach & Artistic Outreach Director. She is passionate about bringing together complementary partnerships, creating connections between people and organizations who are committed to a kinder, more just and sustainable world. She has a Bachelors Degree from Western Washington University in Therapeutic Recreation which she continues to amplify with new programming skills and working with individuals’ plans for quality of life and well being. She is a natural leader in advocating for women and girl’s empowerment, people with various disabilities, elders, social justice and environmental issues. Her business, Island Joy Wellness, includes her work with Compassion Games, as an Energy Brilliance Healer, and Brown Belt Nia Teacher, where she employs her knowledge and experience to support both individuals, and communities around the world in aligning with their highest calling. www.compassiongames.org www.islandjoywellness.com
Sunday, April 17, 9 am PDT: Climate, Compassion and Community Building: Sustainability with Justicewith Paloma Pavel and Carl Anthony. Read the report here.
Climate change is a critical moment within our lifetime. Yet, the global breakdown of economy, environment and equity is also an unparalleled opportunity for a reimagining of our purpose on the planet and a comprehensive coming home to our place in the Universe. The Breakthrough Communities team offers this interactive dialogue and workshop to better understand how to approach climate justice from a place of compassion to transform ourselves, our communities, and the planet.
Carl Anthony’s upcoming book and accompanying short film, The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race places an African American narrative in the context of deep time and climate crisis- from the Big Bang to Hurricane Katrina. Carl illustrates how this Big History framework is key to transforming the dominant narrative of race and providing new pathways for the Great Work of our time.
Dr. Paloma Pavel provides case studies from Breakthrough Communities’ work with coalitions, documented in the forthcoming publication Climate Justice: Frontline Stories from Groundbreaking Coalitions in California. These stories of social innovation apply tools for regional coalition-building in vulnerable communities across lines of race, place, and class, in response to global warming.
You can find Paloma and Carl at: www.earthhousecenter.org.
M. Paloma Pavel. PhD., M.Div., is an educator, eco-psychologist, author, and editor of Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis (MIT Press), and co-editor of the MIT Press Sustainable Metropolitan Communitiesbooks series. Paloma built the first deep ecology leadership center in the United States before founding Earth House, a multicultural media and learning center for environmental and social justice. At Harvard, she helped to lead the national anti-apartheid divestment campaign and was subsequently invited to be the first North American faculty on board the Peace Boat. Dr. Pavel serves on the board for the WCCC League of Women Voters; Commissioner for Environmental Quality for the City of El Cerrito; on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s board for Adapting to Rising Tides; and is a graduate of the 2015 cohort of Emerge California where women are trained for political office. Her forthcoming book is Climate Justice: Frontline Stories from Groundbreaking Coalitions in California. Dr. Pavel has also worked internationally consulting to leaders and NGO's in Cambodia, Japan, South Africa and Costa Rica. She was the first North American faculty to circle the earth on the Peace Boat, providing strategic and technical assistance to humanitarian hot spots. She is currently launching a global climate justice and community resilience project with the 20th anniversary edition of Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty, co-authored with Anne Herbert and artist Mayumi Oda with a foreword by Desmond Tutu.
Carl Anthony is an architect, author, regional design strategist, and co-founder of Breakthrough Communities, building multiracial leadership for sustainable metropolitan communities. He was co-founder of the Urban Habitat Program in the San Francisco Bay Area, serving for 8 years as Executive Director. At the Ford Foundation, Carl served as Acting Director of the Community and Resource Development Unit, responsible for the Foundation’s worldwide programs in fields of Environment and Community Development. Carl also spent 7 years as Ford’s Director of the Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative (SMCI) and the Regional Equity Demonstration. In 1996, he was appointed Fellow at the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He was presented the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition by Congresswoman Barbara Lee in 2014. His forthcoming book is entitled The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race: Discovering New Foundations for the Great Work of Our Time.
Monday, April 18, 9 am PDT: Love this Place, Serve the Earth: Collaboration is Necessary for the Earth with Jon Ramer and Joey Crotty. Read the report here.
Jon Ramer, First first follower, Compassion Games International, will be showcasing LIVE a new song for Mother Earth. Jon says that "since it is the Earth’s land, water, and clean air that we totally depend upon for our sustenance, well-being, and future, the decision to act compassionately toward our Mother Earth is as natural as breathing.” He adds that “‘Green Compassion’ is calling us to live in unprecedented, unified action to change the narrative of our current story to one of justice, sustainability, and love for one another, all beings, and this place we call home.”
Joining Jon is Joey Crotty, a storyteller, writer and rogue techy supporting the Compassion Games. Joey utilizes his talents as a hopeless storyteller and writer, creative strategist, and rogue techy to elevate the evolutionary capacity of consciousness and compassion in the world. Joey is an undergraduate researcher and co-founder of the Consciousness Club at the University of Washington – Bothell. He is a major organizer toward the creation of the Center for Education and Research in Consciousness (CERC), the first consciousness program of its kind at a public university. Joey enjoys spontaneous song-making, belly laughter, all of nature, and learning from the wisdom of little ones too.
Tuesday, April 19, 9 am PDT: Practicing Green Compassion: Can We Re-Green the World in One Generation? with Marc Barasch. Read the report here.
“A compassionate civilization is not a utopian fantasy; it’s an evolutionary imperative.” Marc Barasch, Green World’s founder says that environmental activism and sustainability is not enough; we have to implement holistic solutions for regeneration that aren’t competitive but include everybody and treat people and planet as an inseparable unity. From here on, it’s going to mean survival not of the fittest but of the kindest. Come and explore with Marc, how to re-green the world.
Marc Barasch is the author of the acclaimed bestseller, The Compassionate Life which was the inspiration for the film “I Am,” in which he co-starred with Nobel Prize-winner Reverend Desmond Tutu, biologist David Suzuki, and poet Coleman Barks. Marc founded Green World Campaign www.greenworld.org which calls for a global movement to “re-green the world in one generation.” The campaign: plants millions of trees on degraded land on three continents; regenerates degraded land, creates rural employment and food security, and helps communities on the front lines of climate change to thrive. Marc’s newly founded Green World Ventures is mobilizing hundreds of thousands of farmers in Nigeria to farm superfood moringa trees using eco-agriculture to restore the economy and ecology of some of the world’s poorest places. His Green World Charter www.greenworldcharter.org engages with faith traditions to renew the Tree of Life; Former editor of culture-shifting national magazines like Psychology Today, Natural Health, and New Age Journal; Marc created TV specials for TBS and the Discovery Channel seen by billions. Author of landmark books on healing and wholeness (The Healing Path; Remarkable Recovery; Healing Dreams,) Marc is a long-time Buddhist meditator and persistent catalyst for change. http://ow.ly/vwT7T. You can reach Marc at Green World Ventures Ltd: www.greenworld.org; Green World Charter: email: marc@greenworld.org.
Wednesday, April 20, 9 am PDT: “The Science of Climate Change” with Dr. David Poister. Read the report here.
Although the techniques used by scientists to measure and predict the effects of climate change are complex, the fundamental physical and chemical processes that cause these changes are quite understandable. This presentation will explain these processes to give participants without a scientific background a basic understanding of climate change science.
David Poister is a Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science at St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin where he has taught since 1995. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from St. Francis College in Loretto, Pennsylvania and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Water Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. An environmental chemist with research interests in biogeochemistry and the chemical ecology of aquatic systems, his current research focuses on chemical interactions between algae growing in Wisconsin’s Fox River. In addition to his scientific work, David is interested in exploring how the dialogue between science and religion can be used to understand and advance the human condition. David and his wife Sara have four children and live in De Pere, Wisconsin. http://www.snc.edu/academics/faculty/david.poister.html.
Thursday, April 21, 9 am PDT: Shifts in the Culture around Climatewith Sarah van Gelder of Yes! Magazine and George Price of the University of Montana. Read the report here.
Sarah has studied communities and individuals who are exploring ways to build bridges to a future based on hope and unified action—and is writing a book based on a recent project called the Edge of Change Road Trip http://edgeofchange.yesmagazine.org/about/. As part of discussion, we’ll learn about key places where the debate over climate change has shifted into resilient action, and explore how people are helping to move themselves and their communities toward collective action.
George Price, a professor at the University of Montana, teaches African American and Native American Studies, runs a permaculture farm on the Flathead Reservation outside Missoula. George has been very active in climate change resistance and fossil fuel resistance.read
EARTH DAY: Friday, April 22, 9 am PDT: Ignite Engagement for Earth Stewardship Across Generations with Jane Goodall, Chief Phil Lane, Jr., and Rex Weyler. Read the report here.
Our eminent panel is headed by:
Jane Goodall, is considered a luminary in the world of conservation and the environment. A British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace, she 's considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. Goodall is best known for her 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program, and her lifelong extensive work in conservation and animal welfare issues has won her awards and worldwide recognition. She serves on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project and has since its founding in 1996. A prolific scientist and writer, Jane has authored more than 40 books and co-authored dozens more, many of which have "hope" in the titles.
Chief Phil Lane Jr., is an Ihanktowan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations, and Chairman of the Four Worlds International Institute. During the past 45 years, Chief Phil has worked with Indigenous peoples from North, Central and South America, Micronesia, South East Asia, India, Hawaii and Africa. He served 16 years as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (1980-1996). With Elder’s from across North America Phil co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) in 1982 which became an independent Institute in 1995. Phil is Chairman of the Four Directions Corporation and First Nations Solar, Indigenous owned companies that serve as Four World’s economic development arm.
Phil is the recipient of numerous awards for his 45 year tenure of activism and his film credits" which include National Public Television series “Images of Indians, “Walking With Grandfather”, “The Honor of All: The Story of Alkali Lake”, “Healing the Hurts” and “Shift of the Ages," based on the legend of the reunion of Quetzal and Condor.
Rex Weyler was a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, the editor of the organization's first newsletter, and a co-founder of Greenpeace International in 1979.
He was a photographer and reporter on the early Greenpeace whale and seal campaigns, and has written one of the best and most comprehensive histories of the organization, Greenpeace (Raincoast, 2004). His book, Blood of the Land, a history of the American Indian Movement, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Deep Green is Rex's monthly column for Greenpeace, reflecting on the roots of activism, environmentalism, and Greenpeace's past, present, and future: www.greenpeace.org
The State of the Planet Address by Rex Weyler and Chief Phil Lane Jr.: "COP21-Critical State of Our Mother Earth, Paris France, December 6, 2015: Immediate, Unprecedented, Unified Action Needed to Stop Runaway Climate Change" http://www.fwii.net/profiles/blogs/critical-state-of-our-mother-earth-cop21-unified-ac
This Changes Everything: A Special for Earth Week, April 16-23. Listen to a discussion of the film here.
A global #dreamstream of This Changes Everything brought to you by our Charter partner, Compathos>IMERSIV Film Club. All around the world, people are hosting screenings of this powerful new film in living rooms, libraries, and independent theaters. Our hope is that this film will be a conversation starter and an organizing tool for campaigners, organizers and community groups worldwide.
Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.
Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.
Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.
The film is offered On Demand (VOD) on multiple platforms including Itunes and Amazon where the rental is $4.99 and purchase price is $9.99. Additional information here.
Top image: © Iryna Mandrychenko | Dreamstime.com - Plant on Earth and its roots around planet. Earth Day and Go green concept
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