My dear readers,
It's been quite a while, but I'm back at the blog here in Barcelona at the World Conservation Congress along with 8,000 other representatives of government, civil society, and media. The event is a massive convention and showcase of hundreds of workshops, discussions, learning opportunities, lectures, and networking opportunities all centered around environmental conservation and sustainability. It's too expansive to take all in and digest and there's a million people to meet and talk to, both old acquaintances and colleagues and new faces. It's overwhelming.
I got here two days ago and have been staying in a village to the north of Barcelona called Alella, pronounced ah-lay-yah. I'm staying with a woman who I went to highschool with in New York and have had no contact with since then. We connected through a mutual friend from school and we really get along well. We always liked each other in school and we still do. The power of networks shows itself again and, as usual for me, I'm here much more on the local level than I would be were I staying with the other guests in hotels.
Among the people I've met here are included people from Costa Rica - the Earth Charter and the University for Peace, the former environment minister of Costa Rica who I met a few years back, and some IUCN members I know, just had a 15 minute conversation with Geoff Dabelko, director of the environmental security program at the Wilson Center and IHDP board co-chair, met Alistair Doyle - climate journalist for Reuters and so on and so forth. It's intense.
I'll be networking like mad looking for a good gig and already have a few leads and I'll be following the water events and communication events predominantly. I'm partaking of three learning opportunities, one on participatory video and community mapping, another on creating social networks, and a third on business for sustainability.
Again, it's wonderful to be around so many interesting and passionate people as well as being in Barcelona, one of the most stunning cities in the world. More to follow in the coming days and hours.
Fotos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=162459&l=756cd&id=882695536
Monday, October 6, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Switzerland, Fussball Fans
Hello dearest readers,
I've just returned, again, from travels. This time I was at a weekend wedding on a mountaintop in Switzerland. My friend Arthur, who I met when living in Buenos Aires in 1997, married a Swiss woman, Mirina, from the Zurich area.
There exists in Germany a very efficient system of ride-sharing. The word for ride-sharing in German is Mitfahrgelegenheit, or directly translated, "with-drive-possibility". It's one of those fantastically ridiculous German compound words that make the language extremely precise. The MFG (mitfahrgelegenheit) system is online and has been up and running effectively through agencies since the oil crisis in the 70's. Because of the relative strength of the social contract, the lack of violence, and the relative homogeneity of the population here, the system works very well on simply on trust and the good behaviour of the people of this region of the world. There is a ride-share culture in America, but it is very elementary in comparison. I have done it through craigslist and it's not the same. The MFG websites here include all of the basic features of social networking sites, such as profiles, pictures, and review sections for qualifying drivers and "with-drivers". It's by far the cheapest way to get around in the area and one often meets interesting people.
I got a bit of a raw deal on my way to Switzerland over the weekend. My ride was a very nervous driver who, it seemed, had never driven on a highway before. This is not typical of German drivers, who love their Autobahn and their fast cars. This woman was slow, had bad taste in music, and was extremely nervous behind the wheel. I hate this. It makes me very nervous driving with someone who'd afraid of the the other cars. At least she had a mostly pleasant disposition.
When she finally got up the nerve to change lanes in Zurich, due mostly to me saying, "Please just let me out of the car!", it was a bit later than I had expected. I missed the train I wanted to catch in Zurich to get to Zug, where the civil wedding was happening. I got my ticket and had a few minutes to check out the Zurich train station scene.
This might not seem like a productive occupation of time, but the place was awash in soccer jerseys of the national teams competing in the European Football Championships. This is, along with the World Cup, the most important tournament in the sport and features many of the world's best teams, including seven of the top ten teams in the FIFA world rankings. This year the tournament is being co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria. This means, everyone in Europe has flocked to these two small countries for the games and atmosphere. It's one of the few times when the flags fly and people go a bit crazy with the car horns. It's also the time for hooliganism and nationalistic violence. Before the Germany-Poland game two days ago, about 150 people were arrested for violent behaviour.
After checking out the scene, I boarded a train, made it to Zug, ran to the City Hall, I was late, for the Civil Wedding, only to discover that I wasn't allowed in the City Hall and wasn't really late at all. The rest of the weekend was a mix of British humor, booze, and no visibility on top of Mt. Rigi. It was good fun and excellent to see some old acquaintances who I met at Arthur's 30th four years ago in England. I discovered some common acquaintances between London and New York people, showing how small the world really is.
My ride back to Bonn was much better than the ride down. The driver was confident and fast. He dropped me off in Siegburg and I found a public screening of the German-Poland match, drank a beer, and cheered the German victory.
Until the next time.
I've just returned, again, from travels. This time I was at a weekend wedding on a mountaintop in Switzerland. My friend Arthur, who I met when living in Buenos Aires in 1997, married a Swiss woman, Mirina, from the Zurich area.
There exists in Germany a very efficient system of ride-sharing. The word for ride-sharing in German is Mitfahrgelegenheit, or directly translated, "with-drive-possibility". It's one of those fantastically ridiculous German compound words that make the language extremely precise. The MFG (mitfahrgelegenheit) system is online and has been up and running effectively through agencies since the oil crisis in the 70's. Because of the relative strength of the social contract, the lack of violence, and the relative homogeneity of the population here, the system works very well on simply on trust and the good behaviour of the people of this region of the world. There is a ride-share culture in America, but it is very elementary in comparison. I have done it through craigslist and it's not the same. The MFG websites here include all of the basic features of social networking sites, such as profiles, pictures, and review sections for qualifying drivers and "with-drivers". It's by far the cheapest way to get around in the area and one often meets interesting people.
I got a bit of a raw deal on my way to Switzerland over the weekend. My ride was a very nervous driver who, it seemed, had never driven on a highway before. This is not typical of German drivers, who love their Autobahn and their fast cars. This woman was slow, had bad taste in music, and was extremely nervous behind the wheel. I hate this. It makes me very nervous driving with someone who'd afraid of the the other cars. At least she had a mostly pleasant disposition.
When she finally got up the nerve to change lanes in Zurich, due mostly to me saying, "Please just let me out of the car!", it was a bit later than I had expected. I missed the train I wanted to catch in Zurich to get to Zug, where the civil wedding was happening. I got my ticket and had a few minutes to check out the Zurich train station scene.
This might not seem like a productive occupation of time, but the place was awash in soccer jerseys of the national teams competing in the European Football Championships. This is, along with the World Cup, the most important tournament in the sport and features many of the world's best teams, including seven of the top ten teams in the FIFA world rankings. This year the tournament is being co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria. This means, everyone in Europe has flocked to these two small countries for the games and atmosphere. It's one of the few times when the flags fly and people go a bit crazy with the car horns. It's also the time for hooliganism and nationalistic violence. Before the Germany-Poland game two days ago, about 150 people were arrested for violent behaviour.
After checking out the scene, I boarded a train, made it to Zug, ran to the City Hall, I was late, for the Civil Wedding, only to discover that I wasn't allowed in the City Hall and wasn't really late at all. The rest of the weekend was a mix of British humor, booze, and no visibility on top of Mt. Rigi. It was good fun and excellent to see some old acquaintances who I met at Arthur's 30th four years ago in England. I discovered some common acquaintances between London and New York people, showing how small the world really is.
My ride back to Bonn was much better than the ride down. The driver was confident and fast. He dropped me off in Siegburg and I found a public screening of the German-Poland match, drank a beer, and cheered the German victory.
Until the next time.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Another continent, three cities, bike lending for sustain ability, and Biodiversity Conference
Well dear readers,
Since I last blogged upon you I was far away in Costa Rica. It's been several weeks since I last wrote and I've changed continents again, twice. First, I was back in NYC for a few days with fam and friends, and then back to Germany.
My arrival in Germany on Saturday morning, May 17th was excellent. Picked up by a former colleague from the UN, out to breakfast in the sun, back home for some unpacking, and then another E-GLO session. My friend Ashley from DC, who works at the US EPA had been doing a short stint as a reviewer at the UNFCCC, came back to my place where she had been staying and using my bicycle (more on that), and we went out to meet lots of my Bonn friends for a welcome back drink in the Doener Haus Biergarten in the Altstadt of Bonn. Lovely.
On sharing of sustainable transportation: While I was in NYC I sublet my apartment to a German student named Ingo. I also let him borrow my bike. While I was in Costa Rica, after I had been living in NYC for two months, I let Dominic borrow my bike in NYC while he was up from Costa Rica in NYC for the Commission on Sustainable Development. And while Ashley was staying in my flat and after Ingo had left, Ashley rode to the UNFCCC every day on my bike. I actually own three bikes, one of which I have given to my brother in Brooklyn. I am very proud that my bikes were used in my absence and that it may in some way make up for my nasty carbon footprint from flying around the place so much.
Anyway, after another day in Bonn, on Monday I took a train to Hamburg, stayed with a former theater colleague from Munich days, Marck, went out with him, his partner and Jean-Luc, also a Munich era friend, and his partner, Tina. Hamburg is wonderful. A port city has a special vibe, and Hamburg fits the bill. On Tuesday Jean-Luc, Tina, and I took a boat tour through the harbor and in the afternoon we picked up our gear from respective places, got a pile of film equipment and then drove all the way to the Danish border to a city on a fjord called Flensburg.
Flensburg is a bilingual city and Jean-Luc and I were there to film a day of events, including a theater show made especially for the power company of Flensburg, a private enterprise and net exporter of energy to other parts of Germany. The event was somewhat ridiculous, corporate trying to be creative and motivational, but mostly soulless and dull.
That evening three of us drove back to Hamburg, dropped off our gear at the couchsurfer connections of Jean-Luc and Tina, and then we went to the Kiez, the dirty port area with the sex shops and prostitutes, the cinemas, theaters, tourist traps, bars and restaurants, and freaks, where we found a decent spot to watch the Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United. I was happy ManU won.
The following day it was back to Bonn on an early train and immediately into Conference on Biodiversity meetings, specifically an event by the Countdown 2010 program of the IUCN. I showed up late, did an afternoon workshop on local initiatives and municipal action facilitated by Monika Zimmermann of ICLEI, an organization I admire but which always rejects my work applications because I have no European citizenship. Countdown 2010 threw a party afterwards at the Chinese Tower restaurant in the Rheinaue Park and I did a lot of networking and yapping with IUCN folk. Very productive.
Two days later it was more IUCN and UNEP sponsored side-meetings, Forum on Biodiversity, in the Maritim Hotel, where the CBD is being held. There were several interesting presentations, including one on a Stern-like report for biodiversity, doing cost-benefit analysis and other such economic tools about biodiversity. The report is acronymized TEEB ( The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). Google it. I particpated with some commentary in the afternoon and was very aware of the lack of younger people either participating or giving presentations.
On this note, I'd like to write a few words. When senior professionals discuss environmental issues, they often have a perspective of looking backwards at the progress in their lives, about the short time they have left, and the impact they can have in their remaining time in the field. I find this to be very disturbing as I expect to actually be here in 2050 and be active working on environmental issues. So often the senior pros discuss year numbers like 2010, 2015 and they're passionate, sure, but the perspective for me is a limited one in time frame, and one that is less relevant to me as a junior professional with 40 years of work ahead. I would love to be able to refocus a lot of the energy of senior pros from reaching short term goals to buidling capacity in younger professionals and the youth.
Sunday last, I left Bonn again for Prague and spent three days with my best friend from NYC, Alex, watching theater, both traditional style, and site-specific performance.
Yesterday I got back to Bonn again and have been at the CBD since. I just got out of a press conference given by WWF's James Leape and IUCN's Julia Marton-Lefevre. It was not a bad summary of major events and movements here at the CBD. Through the optimism, however, the speakers related that apart from Germany's financial commitment over the coming years, nothing really has been signed or sealed, that the roadmap to 2010 is better than expected, but no agreements have actually been made, that Brazil and Canada are resistant to biofuel standard agreements, that Assets and Benefits Sharing is still a major unresolved issue, and that forests haven't been properly integrated into biodiversity strategy.
There is also a fascinating debate as to how positive or negative the supremacy of the Climate Change discourse may affect the biodiversity agenda. Will climate change simply push the biodiversity agenda to the side? Or can the biodiversity agenda use the force of climate change activity to its benefit? Will UNFCCC come to be the central power point of all environmentally related conventions? What does this mean for the biodiversity agenda?
The results will be in tomorrow as decisions get pounded out, or not, in the night by States' parties. Will any hard agreements or commitments be made? Probably not, but we'll have to wait and see.
Sorry for this bizarre melange of news and opinion. I need to write more often. Until the next time.
Since I last blogged upon you I was far away in Costa Rica. It's been several weeks since I last wrote and I've changed continents again, twice. First, I was back in NYC for a few days with fam and friends, and then back to Germany.
My arrival in Germany on Saturday morning, May 17th was excellent. Picked up by a former colleague from the UN, out to breakfast in the sun, back home for some unpacking, and then another E-GLO session. My friend Ashley from DC, who works at the US EPA had been doing a short stint as a reviewer at the UNFCCC, came back to my place where she had been staying and using my bicycle (more on that), and we went out to meet lots of my Bonn friends for a welcome back drink in the Doener Haus Biergarten in the Altstadt of Bonn. Lovely.
On sharing of sustainable transportation: While I was in NYC I sublet my apartment to a German student named Ingo. I also let him borrow my bike. While I was in Costa Rica, after I had been living in NYC for two months, I let Dominic borrow my bike in NYC while he was up from Costa Rica in NYC for the Commission on Sustainable Development. And while Ashley was staying in my flat and after Ingo had left, Ashley rode to the UNFCCC every day on my bike. I actually own three bikes, one of which I have given to my brother in Brooklyn. I am very proud that my bikes were used in my absence and that it may in some way make up for my nasty carbon footprint from flying around the place so much.
Anyway, after another day in Bonn, on Monday I took a train to Hamburg, stayed with a former theater colleague from Munich days, Marck, went out with him, his partner and Jean-Luc, also a Munich era friend, and his partner, Tina. Hamburg is wonderful. A port city has a special vibe, and Hamburg fits the bill. On Tuesday Jean-Luc, Tina, and I took a boat tour through the harbor and in the afternoon we picked up our gear from respective places, got a pile of film equipment and then drove all the way to the Danish border to a city on a fjord called Flensburg.
Flensburg is a bilingual city and Jean-Luc and I were there to film a day of events, including a theater show made especially for the power company of Flensburg, a private enterprise and net exporter of energy to other parts of Germany. The event was somewhat ridiculous, corporate trying to be creative and motivational, but mostly soulless and dull.
That evening three of us drove back to Hamburg, dropped off our gear at the couchsurfer connections of Jean-Luc and Tina, and then we went to the Kiez, the dirty port area with the sex shops and prostitutes, the cinemas, theaters, tourist traps, bars and restaurants, and freaks, where we found a decent spot to watch the Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United. I was happy ManU won.
The following day it was back to Bonn on an early train and immediately into Conference on Biodiversity meetings, specifically an event by the Countdown 2010 program of the IUCN. I showed up late, did an afternoon workshop on local initiatives and municipal action facilitated by Monika Zimmermann of ICLEI, an organization I admire but which always rejects my work applications because I have no European citizenship. Countdown 2010 threw a party afterwards at the Chinese Tower restaurant in the Rheinaue Park and I did a lot of networking and yapping with IUCN folk. Very productive.
Two days later it was more IUCN and UNEP sponsored side-meetings, Forum on Biodiversity, in the Maritim Hotel, where the CBD is being held. There were several interesting presentations, including one on a Stern-like report for biodiversity, doing cost-benefit analysis and other such economic tools about biodiversity. The report is acronymized TEEB ( The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). Google it. I particpated with some commentary in the afternoon and was very aware of the lack of younger people either participating or giving presentations.
On this note, I'd like to write a few words. When senior professionals discuss environmental issues, they often have a perspective of looking backwards at the progress in their lives, about the short time they have left, and the impact they can have in their remaining time in the field. I find this to be very disturbing as I expect to actually be here in 2050 and be active working on environmental issues. So often the senior pros discuss year numbers like 2010, 2015 and they're passionate, sure, but the perspective for me is a limited one in time frame, and one that is less relevant to me as a junior professional with 40 years of work ahead. I would love to be able to refocus a lot of the energy of senior pros from reaching short term goals to buidling capacity in younger professionals and the youth.
Sunday last, I left Bonn again for Prague and spent three days with my best friend from NYC, Alex, watching theater, both traditional style, and site-specific performance.
Yesterday I got back to Bonn again and have been at the CBD since. I just got out of a press conference given by WWF's James Leape and IUCN's Julia Marton-Lefevre. It was not a bad summary of major events and movements here at the CBD. Through the optimism, however, the speakers related that apart from Germany's financial commitment over the coming years, nothing really has been signed or sealed, that the roadmap to 2010 is better than expected, but no agreements have actually been made, that Brazil and Canada are resistant to biofuel standard agreements, that Assets and Benefits Sharing is still a major unresolved issue, and that forests haven't been properly integrated into biodiversity strategy.
There is also a fascinating debate as to how positive or negative the supremacy of the Climate Change discourse may affect the biodiversity agenda. Will climate change simply push the biodiversity agenda to the side? Or can the biodiversity agenda use the force of climate change activity to its benefit? Will UNFCCC come to be the central power point of all environmentally related conventions? What does this mean for the biodiversity agenda?
The results will be in tomorrow as decisions get pounded out, or not, in the night by States' parties. Will any hard agreements or commitments be made? Probably not, but we'll have to wait and see.
Sorry for this bizarre melange of news and opinion. I need to write more often. Until the next time.
Friday, May 2, 2008
New week, new continent
This week I find myself in Costa Rica, presently at my former University, the University for Peace. I'm up very early to participate in another session of Earth Charter Global Learning Opportunity (EGLO), for which I am a facilitator. I will be facilitating a session on Environmental Documentary production. I have been producing documentary videos for several years now and have had a modicum of success, some awards and festival selections.
It's great being back in Costa Rica and at the UPEACE. The vibe here is wonderful and it's physically beautiful too. There is something exciting about being in an atmosphere of learning and growing, and EGLO is also a space like that. I always feel a sense of euphoria and elation whenever I get into the EGLO classroom and am connected to people all over the world. Several years ago, I heard a speech from an Information and Communication Technology guru in which he said that the present developments in tech were collapsing time and space. That didn't mean much to me until my first EGLO session.
EGLO and the Heart in Action tech platform is wonderful. Part of the the elation I experience has to do with the extensive array of simultaneous communication methods. These allow for a person such as myself to truly be myself in the interactive digital space. This I find amazing. I have a large personality and presence and it is not uncommon for me to dominate a room with my voice and humor. I had not imagined that this would be possible in a digital space, but I have noticed that I have done exactly that in the EGLO room. This blows my mind.
Part of the euphoria I experience I believe comes from the sense that I have that by participating in this digital space, collaborating with people with common interests and goals, with people from many countries, religions, latitudes and longitudes, and time zones, that I am on the cusp of human evolution.
It's great being back in Costa Rica and at the UPEACE. The vibe here is wonderful and it's physically beautiful too. There is something exciting about being in an atmosphere of learning and growing, and EGLO is also a space like that. I always feel a sense of euphoria and elation whenever I get into the EGLO classroom and am connected to people all over the world. Several years ago, I heard a speech from an Information and Communication Technology guru in which he said that the present developments in tech were collapsing time and space. That didn't mean much to me until my first EGLO session.
EGLO and the Heart in Action tech platform is wonderful. Part of the the elation I experience has to do with the extensive array of simultaneous communication methods. These allow for a person such as myself to truly be myself in the interactive digital space. This I find amazing. I have a large personality and presence and it is not uncommon for me to dominate a room with my voice and humor. I had not imagined that this would be possible in a digital space, but I have noticed that I have done exactly that in the EGLO room. This blows my mind.
Part of the euphoria I experience I believe comes from the sense that I have that by participating in this digital space, collaborating with people with common interests and goals, with people from many countries, religions, latitudes and longitudes, and time zones, that I am on the cusp of human evolution.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Latest project
Dear Readers,
This is my first post.
I recently finished my latest documentary video. It was a good but frustrating experience. The film's title is "Independence at home: The Roosevelt Doctor". The film was a situation study of a health care issue on Roosevelt Island in New York City. I followed around a doctor who treats many of his patients at home although many are bedbound, need constant attention, require machines for continued survival, and/or are severely disabled.
The film consisted of interviews with five patients, each of whom demonstrated a specific point in both the advantages or challenges of treating such patients at home within the current medicare/medicaid system. There was also an exclusive interview with the doctor, Jack Resnick, and he gave onsite interviews along with all the patients and their relevant family members or home health aids when relevant.
While it might seem depressing or sad to interview homebound patients with problems such as multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, or serious health challenges requiring respirators, I found that these patients were mostly upbeat and with it as a result of being at home in familiar and personal environs. All of them had had negative experiences in hospitals or nursing homes and preferred to be independent and at home.
Part of the film was showing the advantages of home, but there were a couple of points about the disadvantages or challenges of keeping people at home under the present system. For instance, it is hard to get homebound people intravenous medication in a timely manner unless it is an expensive medication. Or, the present system does not support maintenance physical therapy for patients.
Many of the film's storylines lead to the conclusions that it would be better for patients and more cost efficient for the system (taxpayers) to keep patients at home instead of in institutions.
The film will be primarily distributed to doctors, patients, and lawmakers in an effort to change the system and get more doctors and patients to operate care in the manner of Dr. Resnick.
This is my first post.
I recently finished my latest documentary video. It was a good but frustrating experience. The film's title is "Independence at home: The Roosevelt Doctor". The film was a situation study of a health care issue on Roosevelt Island in New York City. I followed around a doctor who treats many of his patients at home although many are bedbound, need constant attention, require machines for continued survival, and/or are severely disabled.
The film consisted of interviews with five patients, each of whom demonstrated a specific point in both the advantages or challenges of treating such patients at home within the current medicare/medicaid system. There was also an exclusive interview with the doctor, Jack Resnick, and he gave onsite interviews along with all the patients and their relevant family members or home health aids when relevant.
While it might seem depressing or sad to interview homebound patients with problems such as multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, or serious health challenges requiring respirators, I found that these patients were mostly upbeat and with it as a result of being at home in familiar and personal environs. All of them had had negative experiences in hospitals or nursing homes and preferred to be independent and at home.
Part of the film was showing the advantages of home, but there were a couple of points about the disadvantages or challenges of keeping people at home under the present system. For instance, it is hard to get homebound people intravenous medication in a timely manner unless it is an expensive medication. Or, the present system does not support maintenance physical therapy for patients.
Many of the film's storylines lead to the conclusions that it would be better for patients and more cost efficient for the system (taxpayers) to keep patients at home instead of in institutions.
The film will be primarily distributed to doctors, patients, and lawmakers in an effort to change the system and get more doctors and patients to operate care in the manner of Dr. Resnick.
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