Green vs Greed: Poverty in a Perishing Planet

Marc Kielburger is the chief executive director of Free The Children, a unique international development and youth empowerment organization. Since its founding in 1995, Free The Children has become the world’s leading youth-driven charity, inspiring an entire generation to stand up and have their voices heard.

With the involvement of more than a thousand Youth in Action Groups, Free The Children has built more than 500 schools throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, providing daily education to more than 50,000 children. Through its Adopt a Village development model, it has established more than 23,000 alternative income projects to assist women and their families in achieving sustainable incomes.

Free The Children’s latest initiative is a joint project with Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network called O Ambassadors. It is an unprecedented program, designed to educate and inspire more than one million young people across North America to become socially engaged and take action to help their underprivileged peers overseas.

Marc is also the co-founder and Director of Me to We Social Enterprises. The goal of Me to We is to make ethical living become the norm while helping Free The Children achieve financial sustainability. Me to We Social Enterprises provides socially responsible lifestyle products and choices for young people, families and corporations. It includes international volunteer travel programs, a publishing house, a music label, leadership training workshops, a speakers’ bureau and a socially responsible clothing line. Last year alone, Me to We worked with more than half a million people and some of the best-known companies in the world to make social change as easy as buying an organic fair trade T-shirt.

Marc graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, completing a degree in International Relations. He won a coveted Rhodes Scholarship and went on to complete a law degree at Oxford University with an emphasis on human rights law. Marc has also received two honorary doctorates for his work in the field of education and human rights.

He is the co-author of national bestsellers Take Action! A Guide to Active Citizenship, Take More Action and most recently, the New York Times Best Seller Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World.
With his brother Craig, Marc is a syndicated columnist carried by the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun and Huffington Post, as well as for Canada’s most widely-read women’s magazine, Canadian Living.

Marc is the recipient of many honours, including the Order of Canada and selection by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 Young Global Leaders. His work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, BBC as well as many other news and print media.

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada

Elizabeth May is an environmentalist, writer, activist, lawyer, and leader of the Green Party of Canada. Elizabeth became active in the environmental movement in the 1970s. She is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario. She held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre prior to becoming Senior Policy Advisor to the federal minister of the Environment from 1986 until 1988. Elizabeth became Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada in 1989, a position she held until March 2006, when she stepped down to run for leadership of the Green Party of Canada.

Elizabeth is the author of five books, including her most recent How to Save the World in Your Spare Time, a manual for activists. Elizabeth holds three honourary doctorates, and the Elizabeth May Chair in Women’s Health and the Environment at Dalhousie University was created in her honour. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the National Round Table on Environment and Economy and is currently is a member of the Earth Charter International Council. Elizabeth became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005, and was elected as leader of the Green Party of Canada in 2006.

Peter Corbyn, Co-founder of GreenNexxus

Peter began helping Canadian businesses and home owners save energy and reduce their carbon footprint in the early 1990’s.

His past activities included launching the first Employee Energy Awareness Program in Ontario, Canada in 1992 for his employer at the time, Woodbridge Foam Corporation.

He was the Environment Director for the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association in Toronto from 1996 to 2000.

Peter sits on the board of directors of The Climate Project Canada, a member of a global non-profit organization launched by Al Gore in 2006. This is the organization through which Gore has personally trained 2,200 people in the U.S, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, India and China since the fall of 2006 to present a live version of the Academy Award winning movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

Peter is a co-founder of GREENNEXXUS.COM, a green social networking site that launched in March 2008. GreenNexxus provides the ability for people, organizations and businesses to share, publish and contribute green knowledge for the purpose of reducing our collective environmental impact.

Peter won the Canadian National Clean Air Day Award for Excellence in Efficiency Outreach in 2007. He is also the co-author of Cool Comforts – Bargaining for Our Survival, now entering its third printing.

Peter graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in 1987. He currently lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada with his family.

Ray Zahab, Founder of impossible2Possible, Adventurer and Ultra Marathoner

On November 1, 2006 Ray and two other runners set out on an epic expedition to cross the Sahara Desert by foot. One hundred and eleven days after leaving the coast of Senegal they made history by dipping their toes into the Red Sea and raising the bar of all that we consider possible. The epic expedition had the trio running an average of 70km’s a day, without a single day of rest. National Geographic tracked this epic expedition by web, and the documentary film ‘Running The Sahara’ – narrated and produced by Matt Damon – was filmed in an effort raise awareness for the drinking water crisis in Northern Africa. After witnessing and experiencing the water crisis and malaria epidemic in Africa, Ray decided to dedicate his future adventures to raising awareness and funding for causes that he supports and believes in.

Two years later, Ray, and two other Canadians, broke the world speed record for an unsupported expedition to the South Pole, In the process, Ray became the first person to trek this traditional route to the South Pole solely on foot- without the use of skis. This expedition was completed as part of Ray’s organization, impossible2Possible, a non-profit organization with a mission is to inspire and educate youth through adventure learning, and inclusion and participation in expeditions.

Ray is a member of the board of Directors of the Ryan’s Well Foundation; the official Athletic Ambassador to the ONExONE organization; and is a representative of SpreadTheNet. Ray was the recipient of the ONExONE Difference Award in 2007.

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Workshop 2

March 15, 2009 · No Comments

The following is a selection of our speakers for workshop 2.

Santiago Alba-Corral (Technical and Research Director, Action Contre La Faim)
Hunger and Environmental Issues

Santiago Alba coordinates the Technical and Research department of ACF-Canada. He received a Master in international agriculture and rural development from Cornell University (US), a Master in environmental auditing from the EU, and a bachelor degree in agricultural engineering from the University of La Rioja (Spain). After working in rural development and environmental issues in Europe, Santiago relocated to Southern Africa. There, he worked with the International Aid Agency of Spain, mainly in Land Reform processes. Before his current position in ACF, he worked in the Institute for African Development at Cornell. The past 14 years, Santiago’s academic and professional experience has led him to focus on evaluation and management of sustainable and rural development programs. He has worked in Europe (Spain, France, Italy), Africa (Namibia, Niger, Burundi, Uganda, Mali), and North America (US, Canada). He currently is member of the Technical Directors Group and support the Scientific Council of ACFIN. He manages projects and research in areas such as nutrition, water and sanitation, food security, and climate change.

Julie D’Aoust (International Climate Champion, British Council)
Drunken Trees and Melting Ice Caps: The Science

Julie is a student at Marianopolis College and a graduate of The Study. Last year, she was selected to go the Canadian Science Writer’s Conference in the Yukon as part of the British Council’s initiative to engage youth on the topic of climate change. Again with the British Council’s support, she and ten other teenagers from across Canada organized an ICCommit week, where they asked high school and elementary school students in their communities to make one “green” commitment that would reduce their carbon footprint. In addition, Julie was given the opportunity to learn how to give Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” slideshow, last April in Montreal, and now belongs to a growing community of presenters for The Climate Project.

Sophine Johnsson and friends (McGill Environmental Studies)
When the Tap Runs Dry: The World Water Crisis

We are a group of university students in the McGill School of Environment. Although it’s often tough to be learning about the big issues our world is facing, we know that the environment is something that we all affect and that affects us all. We’re inheriting a lot of challenges, but we’re excited to work with the other youth of our generation (you!) to tackle these problems head on, and early on!

Regina Flores (Campaigner, International Fund for Animal Welfare)
Employment in the Environmental Field

Eve Steben and Charlotte Belleau (Étudiants en mode et en marketing)
La mode et l’environnement

Youri Cormier (National Director, Sierra Youth Coalition)
Eco-Justice: Why the guy with the Hummer doesn’t worry half as much about climate change and pollution as women living in less developed countries … and other things to think about when trying to strengthen the environmental movement.

Born and raised in Quebec City, Youri studied in Business and Community / Public Affairs at Concordia, and then pursued an M.A. in War Studies at Royal Military College. Until recently, Youri was teaching Human Rights and Justice and International Politics at Johns-Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth. In 2002, he won the National French Language Debating Championship in Ottawa (he gets a kick out of arguing with people). Youri got involved in Sierra Youth Coalition initiatives in 2003 through the pilot Sustainable Campus project at Concordia and the SYC WTO-protest bike trip to Mexico, and has been the organization’s National Director since 2007. He will be “retiring” in a few months to start PhD in International Relations at King’s College London, in England.

Caroline Jo (International Climate Champion British Council)
ICCommit Week to Get My Peers Involved

In March 2008, I was chosen by the British Council as one of three Canadian International Climate Champions (ICC). Through the ICC program, I had the opportunity to travel to London, England in March 2008 to meet with three ICCs from each of the other G8 + 5 countries: France, United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, China, Italy, Russia, United States, Germany and Japan. Once in England, all of the ICCs worked together to create three draft proposals, each dealing with what we, as international youth, saw as the most crucial steps in combating climate change. Our ultimate purpose was to present the most popular draft resolution at the G8+5 Environment Ministers Meeting taking place that May in Kobe, Japan. Between March and May, the three draft proposals were posted online, alongside Youtube videos, school presentations and even radio announcements urging youth to vote on their favorite resolution. After more than 20,000 votes, I had the honor of presenting the most popular proposal in front of the Environment Ministers at their meeting in Kobe. Since then, I have been involved in making sure that Canadian youth get involved with realizing a greener Canadian future. In December of 2008, I, with fellow Canadian ICCs, piloted ICCommit week, which involved more than 13,000 students across Canada. ICCommit week was an eco-week in which students were asked to make week-long green commitment, ranging from walking to school, to changing all the light bulbs in the house, to taking 4 minute showers. The purpose of the week was to help Canadian youth realize how easy it was to make eco-friendly changes in their day-to-day lives. A list of the ICCommit commitments were compiled on a website, and the list will soon be sent off the next G8+5 Environment Minister’s Meeting to attest to the enthusiasm of Canadian youth in embracing more eco-friendly lifestyles.

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Workshop 1

March 15, 2009 · No Comments

The following is a selection of our speakers for workshop 1.

Paul McAdams (Senior Education Specialist, Equitas – International Center for Human Rights Education)
Personal Reflections on Poverty and the Environment: How Education Can Make a Difference

Paul McAdams is a Senior Education Specialist at Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education, a non-governmental organization based in Montreal which develops and implements capacity-building programs in human rights education for organizations around the world. He has developed educational material and facilitated workshops for several Equitas programs in Indonesia, Africa, Canada, Nepal, the Philippines, and the Middle East and North Africa.

He has had two overseas postings with the World University Service of Canada as a mathematics teacher in Malawi at a girls’ secondary school and as an education policy advisor on girls’ education for the Ghanaian government. He has also lectured in the Faculty of Education at McGill University. He has been an information technology consultant and was a statistician for Statistics Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics from Concordia University and a Master’s Degree in Education from McGill University.

Kelly Baxter (Executive Director of Natural Step Canada)
Sustainable Thinking for a Crowded Planet: How to Create a Future We All Want to Live In
Kelly Hawke Baxter is Vice-Chair of The Natural Step International and Executive Director of The Natural Step Canada. The Natural Step is a non-profit organization that helps businesses, communities, and individuals take meaningful steps toward sustainability. The Natural Step provides provide education, training, coaching and advice to leaders and decision-makers on how to integrate economic, environmental and social priorities into their decision-making and planning.

The mission of The Natural Step is connect existing and emerging leaders in Canada with the inspiration and learning they need to make strategic choices for the long-term benefit of our environment, economy and society. The Natural Step promotes sustainability: living within the planet’s ability to support us today and tomorrow. It takes a big-picture, systems-based approach and focus on the root causes of our un-sustainability.

Kelly leads a team in Canada that has worked with dozens of communities and businesses to help them advance the practice of sustainability. The Natural Step also acts as a hub for a growing network of sustainability champions who are sharing and learning from each other.

A journalist and editor by training, Kelly’s excellent communications skills make her an engaging speaker, facilitator and leader. Her commitment to the public good has seen her volunteer her time with other non-profit organizations including Friends of the Earth, the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, Street Kids International, and The Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Kelly holds masters degrees in Development Studies and International Journalism. She is a member of the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, the Advisory Board of the Smart Growth Canada Network, and the Distinguished Advisory Council of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. She lives in Montreal with her husband and two sons.

Marie-Marguerite Sabongui (Founder of Greener Sets)
A live adapted presentation of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth: Climate Change and What We Can do About it”

A professional actor since she was seventeen, Marie-Marguerite is the founder of Greener Sets, an organization dedicated to advising film and television shoots on sustainability. Trained by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore, Marie-Marguerite works as a presenter for The Climate Project Canada to educate the public on solutions to climate change. In October 2008, she was on the coordination team of the David Suzuki Foundation

Students for Sustainability cross-Canada tour to promote the greening of Canadian university and college campuses. On tour, she spoke to film schools across the country about reducing the industry’s footprint. Marie-Marguerite has used travel, work and academic experiences in Nepal, the UK, Barbados and Canada to develop and explore her interest in environmental issues. She holds a First-Class Honours Degree in international development and English cultural studies from McGill University and currently lives in Montreal as a Jeanne Sauvé Scholar.

Marc Garneau (Liberal Party MP)
Seeing Earth From Space

Born February 1949, in Quebec City, Canada.

Education
Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics from the Royal Military College, Kingston (1970).

Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England (1973).

Graduate of Canadian Forces Command and Staff College (Toronto 1982-1983).

Naval Career
Dr. Garneau was a Combat Systems engineer in HMCS Algonquin, 1974-76.

While teaching naval weapon systems at the Canadian Forces Fleet School in Halifax, 1976-77, he designed a simulator for use in training weapons officers in the use of missile systems aboard Tribal class destroyers.

He served as Project engineer in naval weapon systems at Canadian Forces Headquarters in Ottawa from 1977 to 1980.

He served with the Naval Engineering Unit in Halifax, 1980-82, which troubleshoots and performs trials on ship-fitted equipment, and helped develop an aircraft-towed target system for the scoring of naval gunnery accuracy.

Promoted to Commander in 1982 while at Staff College, he was transferred to Ottawa in 1983 and became design authority for naval communications and electronic warfare equipment and systems.

In January 1986, he was promoted to Captain. He retired from the Navy in 1989.

Space Program
He is one of the original six Canadian astronauts selected in December 1983 and began astronaut training in January 84. He became the first Canadian astronaut to fly in space as a payload specialist on Shuttle Mission 41-G, October 1984.

He was named Deputy Director of the Canadian Astronaut Program in 1989, providing technical and program support in the preparation of experiments to fly during future Canadian missions. He was selected for Mission Specialist training in July 1992.

He reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1992. He completed a one-year training and evaluation program and became qualified for flight assignment as a Mission Specialist.

Dr. Garneau initially worked technical issues for the Astronaut Office Robotics Integration Team. He subsequently served as the first non-American spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) in Mission Control during Shuttle flights.

A veteran of three space flights (STS-41G in 1984, STS-77 in 1996 and STS-97 in 2000), Dr. Garneau has logged over 677 hours in space.

In February 2001, Dr. Garneau was appointed Executive Vice President, Canadian Space Agency to be subsequently appointed President, effective November 22, 2001. He occupied this position until 28 Nov. 2005, at which time he ran unsuccessfully as the liberal candidate in the federal riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

As President of the Canadian Space Agency, he was responsible for a staff of approximately 700 employees and an annual budget of some 300 million dollars. He was responsible for the drafting and approval of the Canadian Space Strategy, a Cabinet-approved document that defines the mandate and long term vision of the Canadian Space Program. A number of major programs were initiated or completed during his tenure as well as the creation of new partnerships with countries such as China, India and Israel, as well as the renewal of existing partnerships with NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space agency and the Japanese Space agency.

During his tenure as President, Dr. Garneau focused on building stronger links between the CSA and its stakeholders, namely, the scientific community, government and industry.

In April 2006, Dr. Garneau was named to the Board of UTS Energy Corporation, an Oil Sands developer based in Calgary. He stepped down from this post on October 14th 2008.

Also in April 2006, at the invitation of the Minister of the Environment of Ontario, the Honourable Laurel Broten, he accepted an invitation to become a member of the Executive Committee on Transboundary Air Pollution (ECOTAP), a committee focused on reducing transboundary air pollution. He remained with the Committee until its dissolution in early 2008.

In November 2006, he become a public board member of the Board of Directors of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. He stepped down from this post on 14 October 2008.

Over the course of the past 22 years, he has spoken and lectured extensively on the Canadian Space program both in Canada and abroad.

Marc Garneau was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Westmount-Ville Marie on 14 October 2008.

SPECIAL HONOURS AND DISTINCTIONS
Marc Garneau became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1984 and was promoted to the rank of Commander in 2003.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, Member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia (APENS), and the Navy League of Canada. He was named Honorary Member of the Canadian Society of Aviation Medicine in 1988.

He is the Honorary Patron of Hope Air and of Project NorthStar and was President for Celebrations Canada – Fêtes du Québec during 2005. For four years (2001-2005), he was the President of Montreal’s McGill Chamber Orchestra.

He became the Chancellor of Carleton University in 2003 and stepped down from this position in October 2008.

He has received the following awards: the 2006 Gold Medal Award from the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the APENS Sexton Gold Medal (2005) for excellence in engineering; the Prix Montfort en sciences (2003); the Golden Jubilee Medal of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (2002); three NASA Space Flight Medals (2000, 1996, 1984); the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1997); Co-recipient of the F.W. (Casey) Baldwin Award in 1985 for the best paper in the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Journal; the Canadian Decoration (military) (1980); the National Research Council (NRC) Bursary (1972) and the Athlone Fellowship (1970).

Marc Garneau was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame on the 28th of May 2008.

Mr. Garneau is the recipient of several honorary doctorates from Canadian institutions including the British Columbia Institute of Technology (2006), McMaster University (2005), Concordia University (2004), York University (2002), the University of Lethbridge (2001); the University of Ottawa (1997); the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean (1990); Laval University (1985); the Technical University of Nova Scotia (1985) and Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario (1985).

Marc Garneau was named an Engineers Canada Fellow in December 2008.

Carrie Haber (Documentary Filmmaker)
Environmental Documentaries

Documentary filmmaker Carrie Haber has been producing multi-platform projects since 1999. She directed the international human rights feature documentary, Pig Farm in 2004 (Amnesty International Human Rights Festival) and has been working as a director and editor with The National Film Board on over twenty productions. There she has created projects about Climate Change and youth activism with David Suzuki, and has collaborated on several documentary projects including Tie Up Your Shoes, an upcoming hybrid animation/documentary about artists with Down Syndrome. Carrie is also a journalist and award-winning fiction writer, raising awareness of social justice issues through the power of story. As a community leader she has developed courses in radio journalism and technology for underprivileged youth groups. She has been a producer of new media narrative initiatives, has produced radio documentaries for CBC Radioʼs national network and is currently contracted as a Story Mentor to emerging documentary filmmakers by the NFB and CBC Television.

Chris Adam (Founder and Executive Director, Earthvalues Institute)
Creating Change – Celebrating Student Driven Environmental Projects

Chris Adam is an award-winning naturalist who has lectured throughout North America and has been recognized for his outstanding abilities in the field of education both nationally and internationally. He teaches environmental leadership and group development at Dawson College in Montreal and is executive director of the Earthvalues Institute. His expertise is in communicating environmental issues to the public at large and engaging people of all ages in action projects that benefit the community.

The Otesha Project
Reasons to Dream

We know that our current way of life is harming the planet and its inhabitants.
Only hope and action will remedy this.

For a better future, we each must re-evaluate our own actions and BE the positive change we want to see in the world.

A dream born in Kenya has become a charitable organization of hopeful young people uniting as the Otesha Project. Otesha, which means “reason to dream” in Swahili, was created to mobilize youth to create local and global change through their daily consumer choices. We believe that there are alternatives to our culture of overconsumption, and that each one of us has opportunities to have positive impacts every single day.

The Otesha Project’s education programs and bicycle tours use theatre, multi-media, and storytelling to engage a wide range of audiences, and have reached more than 85,000 people to date. Otesha’s performances focus on re-evaluating our daily choices to reflect the kind of future we’d like to see – rethinking what we really need, conserving resources, and voting with our dollars. We aim to demonstrate the positive effects our everyday choices can have, by living sustainably, changing the world, and having loads of fun–all at the same time!

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Marc Kielburger

February 12, 2009 · No Comments

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Green vs Greed: Poverty in a Perishing Planet

Flickr

April 14, 2009 · No Comments

Peter Corbyn

April 4, 2009 · No Comments

Ray Zahab

April 3, 2009 · No Comments

Elizabeth May

April 3, 2009 · No Comments

Marc Kielburger

April 3, 2009 · No Comments

Sponsors

March 15, 2009 · No Comments

Speakers (Keynote and Plenary)

March 15, 2009 · No Comments

Workshop 2

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Workshop 1

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Marc Kielburger

February 12, 2009 · No Comments

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