World Association of Young Scientists

I just watched a TED talk by Johan Rockström that nicely sums up the current situation of our species on our planet.

I really recommend watching the video in full, but since I know that some of you will hesitate to do this, here is a brief travel guide through the video (times in min): The Earth is a complex system (7:15), and it faces multiple pressures (3:46) that are driving it away from its current equilibrium state. Such complex systems have multiple states of equilibrium, and the transitions between them may be sudden (5:36-5:38). The human contributions are nicely symbolized at 4:02 and detailed between 4:35 and 4:55.

This is a comment on We scare people off by talking about 'degrowth' in The Ecologist — copied here for self-archiving purposes, keeping in mind that all comments previously made to the Times were recently lost when they erected their new pay wall.

Nice take on a crucial problem: If resources are limited (and they are), so is growth - how do we communicate that?

A few issues, though:

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The Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University's Center for International Development invites applications for resident fellowships in sustainability science for the University's academic year beginning in September 2010. The fellowship competition is open to advanced doctoral and post-doctoral students, and to mid-career professionals engaged in research or practice to facilitate the design, implementation, and evaluation of effective interventions that promote sustainable development. Applicants should describe how their work would contribute to "sustainability science," the emerging field of use-inspired research seeking understanding of the interactions between human and environmental systems as well as the application of such knowledge to sustainability challenges relating to advancing development of agriculture, habitation, energy and materials, health and water while conserving the earth's life support systems.

Winners will be presented at the International "Water and Film" Events in Istanbul (18 to 21 March 2009, cf.
announcement).

Submission deadline: Aug 15, 2008. Details at
http://www.expozaragoza2008.es/WaterTribune/Watercinema/seccion=634&idio... .

The Charles University in Prague is organising ConAccount 2008: “Urban metabolism: measuring the ecological city". Abstract submission deadline is March 15.

Details via
http://www.czp.cuni.cz/conaccount/search.php?rsvelikost=sab&rstext=all-p... .

Take a look at this journal - it is dedicated to the scientific study of what is today's most urgent topic (sustainability), approaches it from a cross-disciplinary perspective and in a way that stimulates collaboration between scientific generations, and is most appropriately (and ambitiously) named Consilience:
http://consiliencejournal.readux.org/ (full name: Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development).

As any ordinary journal, Consilience will accept research papers, but like Eduzendium, it will also accept manuscripts written for coursework.

Finally, it is entirely Open Access.

Ever wondered what films can contribute to an era of global thinking and local action? Here comes an ambitious but well-structured initiative in this direction:

May 10, 2008 has been renamed into Pangea Day, as "sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be videoconferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music."
In doing so, "Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future."

Details via
http://www.pangeaday.org/ .

The Open Access movement now enters education. After the well-known Budapest Open Access Initiative ( http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ ) and a number of related initiatives for for Open Access to scientific research, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration now extends this approach to education and calls for endorsement of the following (excerpts):

1. Educators and learners: First, we encourage educators and learners to actively participate in the emerging open education movement. Participating includes: creating, using, adapting and improving open educational resources; embracing educational practices built around collaboration, discovery and the creation of knowledge; and inviting peers and colleagues to get involved. Creating and using open resources should be considered integral to education and should be supported and rewarded accordingly.

2. Open educational resources: Second, we call on educators, authors, publishers and institutions to release their resources openly. These open educational resources should be freely shared through open
licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they should also be available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet.

3. Open education policy: Third, governments, school boards, colleges and universities should make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Accreditation and adoption processes should give preference to open educational resources. Educational resource repositories should actively include and highlight open educational resources within their collections.

Details and the full text is available via
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration , individuals and organizations may sign.

An initiative named Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) has compiled a comprehensive list of power plants and their CO2 emissions around the globe. Easy to navigate, to search and to sort. Details at
http://carma.org/ .