Some years ago I heard Lynne Twist talk about "changing the dream of the North". It was an invocation given to her by the Achuar people of the upper Amazon. When I heard this story, it made my spine tingle as I grokked that this intention had powers to embrace my own work. These last few [...]
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 [...]
In yesterday's National Post two stories intrigued me that ultimately relate to resources available to the Human Hive. They appeared without linkage to each other but they raised bridging questions for me. The first article was about a Super Human Hive - a megacity that China has plans for turning the Pearl River Delta into [...]
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 [...]
How is a masterfully crafted and portrayed story like Downton Abbey (currently being aired on PBS Masterpiece Theatre) an analog for today's down town world scene? Set in an English stately home just before WWI, the story is about the shifting of worldviews from traditional to modern. It uses cracks in the system of land/estate ownership, class and gender [...]
Several Integral Citi-zens have alerted me to the social media activist campaign by AVAAZ currently underway. They are alerting activists that the honey bee is in peril from the effects of a toxic insecticide. This may be the cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD) (along with other contributing factors.) I have been tracking CCD for several years and have [...]
Globe Forum Dublin ...cities are very much social-ecological systems. Cities represent the hopes and dreams of the people that live in them and they also represent perhaps the best hope for reversing large-scale ecological decline, social breakdowns and economic stagnation. Each session though had its own flavour.... The final speaker was the blue-sky thinker, Dr [...]