I wasn't going to go to the 2012 UN Jamboree in Rio anyway, as my personal carbon budget will not bear the cost. However, had I been looking for an additional reason (other than avoiding the existential horror of yet another UN Gabfest), the fact that the infinitely networked Walter Leal [Filho] is organising a conference in parallel to the main event would have done the trick.
Details of this – the World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities (WSSD-U-2012) – can be found here, and it looks pretty typical of conferences organised by Walter down the ages.
The event is organised through two main strands:
Displays
Participating universities and organisations will be able to put-up displays describing their works and projects and to distribute the relevant information to the participants. The displays will be the backbone of the event and will allow close, one-to-one contacts between the participants and the exhibitors.
Presentations
A set of presentations, divided into three sections will be organised, dealing with issues of strategic value in reviewing the state of art of education for sustainability today. These are:
"Implementing Sustainable Development in the Curriculum"
"Implementing Sustainable Development in Campus Activities"
"Implementing Sustainable Development in Research and in Outreach Programmes"
These will be complemented by a round-table with some key experts.
Question: why (on Earth) would you want to traverse the Atlantic to be at an event that separates campus, curriculum, and community in this egregious fashion? And what is there to research, I wonder, that does not bear in some important fashion on these and their inter-relationship?
Respond