Almere NL, a city of 190,000 is getting ready for a "scale jump" to double in size by 2030. Seeking guidelines to renew and transform itself, in 2008, it invited Cradle to Cradle authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart to craft principles by which the city could grow sustainably in balance with its unique polder environment and [...]
This is An Open Letter to Three Women Imagineers of the Integral Age On The Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day Dear Drs. Hazel Henderson, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Jean Houston I claimed I was never a feminist in the 60’s or 70’s. That’s because I didn’t see myself as an activist [...]
The watch continues as events unfold in North African and the Middle Eastern cities and countries. We wonder whether and how autocracies in these places may be superseded by autocracy, theocracy or even democracy? Each country is different so most informed observers don't expect that a single solution will emerge across all countries. From the outside of this area, all we can see [...]
At Royal Roads University, the inaugural Sustainable Community Development (SCD) cohort has just completed their first Potentials for Adaptive Change Residency on RRU Campus. In the first week of February, after three weeks online, a cohort, with professions as varied as municipal forester, downtown revitalization director, tourism instructor and sustainability officer, whose members come from [...]
This was the keynote speech delivered by Dr. Marilyn Hamilton at Globe Forum, Dublin November 17, 2010 Thank you for this invitation to share what I am learning about cities as innovation ecosystems. James Lovelock – innovator of the Gaia hypothesis – says that humans are Gaia’s most reflective organ. That means that evolution has [...]
I had another brush with fear yesterday when I read the Climate Primer released by the Melbourne Climate Action Centre called 4 Degrees Hotter. Ironically I had just finished teaching at Royal Roads University, the inaugural Sustainable Community Development Graduate Certificate, with a Challenge focused on a Climate Action Plan for a BC City. I had completed the literature [...]
I spent last week at Royal Roads University delivering the first Residency of the Sustainability Graduate Certificate. Ten students from across Canada provided a rigorous proving ground for the Integral City approach to sustainability. Using the Integral City Compass to prove the design with three leverage points, here is what we did. Integral City Compass [...]
Events in Egypt this last week show how the consciousness of people in the rural area that serves cities can ignite a whole culture. The amazing pictures of hundreds of thousands marching in Cairo and the Mubarak government's progressive retreat in the face of the population's fearless demands mark what the media call a "regime change". [...]
A domesticated cousin to the apis melifera honey bee, is raising questions about how life conditions - including those created by humans - can offer a species the opportunity to expand its territory because of its natural but transplanted capacities. It is a good example of unintended consequences, and may prove to us (yet again) that resilience [...]
A few days ago a trusted colleague, John Steiner, sent me an email thread that told the story of an interesting Japanese invention - a machine that converts plastic into oil. You can see a video for yourself if you click here. This machine answers a question I have harboured for years, and that is: if plastic [...]