[imc-st.louis] Event Will Take a Different Look at Climate Change

[Don Fitz]

*Gateway Green Alliance
P.O. Box 8094, St. Louis MO  63156*
*314-727-8554  E-mail: fitzdon at aol.com  www.gateway-greens.org*

*For immediate release: June 27, 2008*


        Contact: Don Fitz, 314-727-8554


        Production-side environmentalism


            Event Will Take a Different Look at Climate Change

_June 27, 2008 -- St. Louis, Missouri._ 

A roundtable discussion featuring over 30 speakers from across the US 
will examine climate change from a view rarely, if ever, promoted in the 
US.  The two day event at Webster University will not spend time on the 
causes of global warming or how serious its effects are.  Instead, it 
will devote itself to solutions.  And the solutions discussed will not 
be those people usually hear.  Rather than personal life-style changes 
or consumer choices, panels will focus on political, economic and social 
changes --- deep changes --- that need to be made in America to prevent 
the Earth from burning.

Also unlike most climate change events, the roundtable will address 
hurdles that climate change presents to low income and working people 
both in the US and the rest of the world.  One idea that is not usually 
seen as an environmental plan is whether the US should adopt a 30 hour 
work week and produce fewer goods that last longer. 

Event organizers feel that government, business and even major 
environmental groups are ignoring questions that may not be popular in 
an election year:

·   Would a genuine effort at reducing greenhouse gases require food to 
be grown within 100 miles of where it is eaten?

·   Would a serious climate change program stop funding the 800 military 
bases which ensure a continuous flow of oil to the US?

·   Are the most energy efficient homes ones that have no heating system 
at all?

·   Could the most energy efficient cars be those that are replaced by 
trains, buses, bicycles or feet?

The featured speaker Saturday evening June 28 will be Wes Jackson, 
president and founder of the Land Institute and author of /New Roots for 
Agriculture/.  Jackson will describe how energy used in food production 
can be cut dramatically by using perennial plants and mixing plant species.

Panels will address "Energy conservation and renewable energy," "Quality 
health care," "Earth, air, forests and water," "Redesigning cities and 
homes," "Sustainable food systems," "The economics of less stuff and 
better lives," "Reversing wealth inequality between people and 
countries" and "Overcoming barriers to environmental sanity." 

A get-together at 6:00 pm on Friday, June 27 in Webster's Sverdrup 101 
will provide an opportunity to meet speakers.  Panels will be all day 
Saturday and Sunday in the Emerson Library Conference Room at Webster.  
The roundtable is sponsored by /Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of 
Green Social Thought/ and the Webster University Department of History, 
Politics and International Relations.  Registration is $25.  Details are 
at www.gateway-greens.org

 

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