Co-presentation with Christina Cook at Dawson College showcasing the avenues to engage sustainability in posit secondary education and career opportunities. Februar 2, 2017

1. research for global sustainability
NASA
Dawson College
David Oram & Christina Cook
2 February 2017

2. • What are some sustainability challenges and successes within
your field of study or community?
• What is absent from the local sustainability community that you
would like to see?
• What is your favourite sustainability grass roots initiative? What
sets them apart?
• How do we make the changes we need to in order to get to
sustainability (however defined!)?

3. Thank you to the Montreal Global Hub
Funders & supporters!

4. Who are we?
•Sector of work
– Science/Academy
– Private sector
– NGO
– Policy/Government
•Sustainability / environment area of work
– Main
– Secondary
• Do you know Future Earth? 100, 50, 1%

5. What is Future Earth?
INRA/C. Maitre
Erik Pihl
Erik Pihl
NASA

6. Sources:
Photo: Fishing in the Mekong © Tan Someth Bunwath / WWF-Cambodia
Societal Challenges
Resilient
Cities
Health Consumption &
Production
Food,
water, energy
Decarbonisation
Rural
landscapes
Natural
capital
Risk &
Governance

7. • By building global
communities of practice
around key themes in
sustainability
• By promoting research that
informs solutions to real
problems around the world
• By bringing together
researchers, policy experts,
businesses, leaders in civil
society and more
How can we address these challenges?

8. Planetary
Boundaries

9. Epoch Acceleration

11. Continuing
Computing
Acceleration:
- Robotics
- Cloud
Computing
- AI
- Blockchain
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page70.htmlhttp://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_Atlas.html

12. BioTech Accelerations
With direct implications
towards:
- DNA Synthesis
- CRISPR and
related gene editing
technologies
- Stem cell derived
animal products

13. Social
Aspirations &
Human Agency

14. How can we use the understanding of various
planetary & technological accelerations to build
Montreal into a beacon of sustainability?

15. Science-Policy-Society Interface
In the Context of
Sustainability
Science

16. Why SPS?

17. UNESCO: S-P-S
“Today’s complex problems
…require a society where
knowledge is co-created through
science-policy-society interfaces,
processes that connect and allow for
fertile exchange…”

18. UNESCO: why?
To create societies “where policy-
and decision-makers and citizens
alike have the capacity and power
to choose the future we want for
our planet and all its
inhabitants.”

19. ScienceSociety
Policy
Fertile Exchange?

20. International science-policy*
Research
Observation Policy
Assessments

21. Biodiversity Policy: CBD

22. Biodiversity Assessment: IPBES
Plenary 7-10
March 2017
Stakeholder Day
6 March 2017

23. Some limits to the SP interface
•Maybe/not binding
•Hard to enforce/implement
•‘de-globalization’ and
defunding
•Science minimally integrated in
policy* (why?)

24. Trends in Sustainability Work
•Scales
•Co-design
•New Funding
•Multiple Risks
•Uncertainty

26. Volunteer Opportunity 17-24 March 2017
Deadline to apply: 10 February 2017
Looking for teams of 2-4 to conduct 15 minute interviews with prominent
sustainability scientists and practitioners in the Future Earth Community.
Visit the Open Network or email David Oram at david.oram@futureearth.org