gregblee – Sustainable Gabriola

Regenerating Gabriola

Sustainable Gabriola co-hosted a special event featuring Joe Brewer at The Surf Lodge on Oct-25. Gabriola was the 11th of 14 stops around the region on Joe’s “Regenerate Cascadia” tour.

Snuneymuxw wisdom-keeper David Bodaly started the evening with a welcome and song. About 65 participants filled the Compass Room to hear Joe speak about the regeneration movement and bioregionalism.

Brewer, the author of Pathway to Regenerating the Earth, is a complexity researcher, former atmospheric scientist, and co-founder of a regeneration project in Barichara, Colombia. He was joined on the tour by several colleagues, including Brandon Letsinger-Brown, from Washington’s Cascadia Department of Bioregion, and Clare Atwell, a multi-media textile artist in Victoria, BC.

Many stayed after the program to talk watersheds, overshoot, and fostering hope and community action in a time of unprecedented challenges. We left with a sense that we on Gabriola are moving in the right direction with our multi-faceted climate and community sustainability initiatives.

If you missed it, Gabriola TV recorded most of the Gabriola event, here: youtube.com/watch?v=7kAbb1X2iPs&t=7s

“Regenerative design can bring a river back to life. It can restore the health and vitality of an individual and their family. It can transform grief and trauma into vital pathways of healing for people, community, and ecosystems. Combining Indigenous lifeways with the best scientific knowledge about human behaviour, cultural evolution, and the dynamic Earth, a path can be made by walking it throughout the rest of this century and beyond.” —Joe Brewer

Other informative talks, including an interview with Gabriola Climate 12-12-12 organizer Fay Weller , are linked here: RegenerateCascadia.org/

For more about regeneration or the Cascadia Department of Bioregion, see cascadia.community and Design School for Regeneration.

October: world climate news

Here are five significant developments in environmental news over the past month, as tracked by Sustainable Gabriolan Deb Ferens and presented at October’s SG meeting.

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Avaaz has partnered with some of the best international lawyers to file a powerful submission on climate change with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Regenerate Gabriola: Wed. 25 Oct.

poster for Cascadia bioregional Tour's Gabriola Island stop, Wed-25-Oct, 7pm at the Surf

Good news on climate!

Sustainable Gabriolan Deb Ferens tracks worldwide climate news. At September’s SG meeting, she presented a heartening list of SIX recent good-news climate stories. The group thought it would be a good idea to post these for the community’s linking and reading pleasure.

Youth environmentalists bring Montana climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent

It’s the first trial of its kind in the US, and legal scholars around the world are following its potential addition to the small number of rulings that have established a government duty to protect people from climate change. nbcnews.com/science/environment/youth-environmentalists-bring-montana-climate-case-trial-12-years-seek-rcna88927

Climate 12-12-12 wraps, rolls into action

Gabriola Sounder, 20 Sep. 2023 — The Climate 12-12-12 project held its final event at Agi Hall on August 24th. The event was a wrap of the previous year, where we focused on a specific climate change topic each month. The project brought us together and directed the community’s collective wisdom and experience to address 12 wicked problems of climate change.

Fall Fair, the C-12 booth

Climate-12 Action had a table at the 17-Sep Fall Fair, where a hundred people stopped to talk, and many cast their dot-vote on the most important “Action area” for the project. Interest all round, but Food Security and Water were, not surprisingly, the top picks.

Action area priorities, dot-voted by the community at the Fall Fair

To inquire about joining one of the Action Teams, email us at Climate12Action@gmail.com.

SG featured on Life on Gabriola TV

Newly hatched local news outlet Life on Gabriola TV took an interest in Sustainable Gabriola in September. LoG TV lead journalist Theresa O’Leary interviewed longtime Sustainable Gabriola participant Steven Earle, who tells about SG’s structure, activities, and initiatives past and present. The interview runs about 27 minutes.

For more programming, check out Life on Gabriola TV’s community media portal, their YouTube channel, and their Facebook page.

CBC features Climate 12-12-12

CBC Radio’s climate-change show and podcast What On Earth talked to Sustainable Gabriolan Fay Weller about SG’s beginnings, and the Gabriola Climate 12-12-12 initiative in particular.

Episode 429, The power of hope in a climate changed world, aired on August 11, 2023. It can be streamed anytime from this page. The whole episode is worth a listen, but host Laura Lynch interviews Fay starting at about the 24:30 mark.