An interview with Global Chorus Editor Todd MacLean

By Jason Robinson

 

OCTOBER 30, 2014 

Today marks the launch date of the much anticipated Global Chorus Anthology.  A mere idea some four plus years ago, today it's a reality.  Jason Robinson (a contributor to the book) interviews Todd MacLean, Global Chorus Editor-in-Chief about his inspiration to create the book and the process that has led to the Global Chorus documentary by Sustainability Television.  

Nusa Penida, Bali - 21 October, 2014: INDONESIAN conservation NGO Friends of the National Parks Foundation (FNPF) joined with Durrell Expeditions bringing 85 UK ecologists and conservationists by National Geographic explorer ship witnessing a wild release of Critically-endangered Bali starlings back to the wild at the protected island bird sanctuary, off Bali.

Vancouver is alive with innovation, creative minds, and great examples of sustainability being put into practice. From solar panels to oil powered cars, and tiny house community centres - you'd think you were living the dream if it wasn't for the rain and high cost of living.  But there are lots of folks who are reducing, reusing, recycling, and rethinking how they do everything creating new possibilities to solve even the toughest challenges combining knowledge from the past and the goals for the future into real sustainability - today!

BY SHAMAN ELIZABETH HERRERA

While a large part of the USA is experiencing severe drought and California is ablaze with forest fires, the snowstorm Achilles dropped over a foot of snow onto Minnesota and western Wisconsin a few weeks ago.

Indigenous spiritual leaders, often called shamans or medicine men/women, believe that extreme weather conditions are a reflection of a spiritual imbalance—that our thoughts of fear, guilt, anger, etc. are being reflected by the environment.


By Chad Park

Urban Greening - What's That?
 
When I tell people that I do translations and editing in the area of urban greening, I often get blank looks. Some people nod politely and then go off shaking their heads a bit after I’ve given them a very brief explanation, others summarize, not too wrongly, as ‘so you mean it’s about planting a few trees around the city’.
 
Its spring again and time again for the 2014 City of Burnaby Environment Awards - and the nomination process is now open ( www.burnaby.ca/environmentawards ).

Now in it's 18th year the Burnaby Environment Awards have been recognizing outstanding achievements in the Burnaby community since 1996. Each year the community puts out a call to youth, industry, and the general public to search out the best stories from the last 12 months.

See every day as a sacred experience.
 
We and the Earth are one - there is no separation.
The Earth and everything on it is a manifestation of divine will and there is a lesson, an opportunity, in every moment of every day.
 
Pay attention to the randomness of life, recognize and act on the gifts the Earth provides.
 
Every interaction, every person you meet, every bird who chirps, every single thing positive or negative is a divine moment that will by your choice and attention be forever changed, altered, shaped, and defined.
 

Being a civil engineering student I am always fascinated by new technologies, firstly for their ingenuity, and secondly for their lack of the same.  In several quoted articles and images below I highlight how engineers thousands of years ago developed systems that were arguably much more sustainable as compared to many of our supposedly advanced unsustainable modern engineering systems that rely heavily on energy inputs.
 
Engineers thousands of years ago knew (as we should today) that systems with less moving parts, less energy - time - or value inputs, working in a symbiotic way with the environment will yield long term truly sustainable building energy management systems.

The example I will focus on in this blog is: Qanat [Kareez] systems(underground hand-dug tunnels for extracting groundwater in the dry and semi-arid regions of Iran and the works of many engineers and scholars who have come before me).

 
Some of our accomplishments:
 

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