It was an innovation in low-carbon conferencing by using video links between five centres; Christchurch, Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington, and Dunedin. The conference was also viewed live at venues in Invercargill and Keri Keri.
Just in case you were unable to attend, the statement of change as presented by Dr Susan Krumdieck, is reproduced here.
"The following is a statement acknowledging the source of the emerging sustainable path, and the core ideas that guide our way forward.
The path of Business as Usual does not go where we want to go.
We believe in a sustainable future.
In 100 years, the currently accepted "business as usual" will be irrelevant. When our great-grandchildren look back at this time, they will see the beginning of thenew business. The path of emerging sustainability looks like heresy today. These are the Signs of Change that tell us the truth about the future. Here is what our great-grandchildren are telling us, and what us heretics are starting to understand.
- We have enough.
- We can share what we have.
- If we used less, it would be fine.
- We can move ourselves.
- The economy does not need to grow in order for us to thrive.
- Business can be ethical and fair.
- Business can express and nurture cultural values.
- Health is the care of humans.
- Public space in our cities belongs to humans.
- Open space belongs to wild things.
- We can meet at the market face to face.
- We can have humane relationships with the animals we depend on.
- We can work with Earth's systems.
- We can build our homes and buildings to last for 600 years.
- We look upstream to manage our waste.
- We derive wealth from our waste.
- We protect what nature creates, and we restore what we have damaged.
- We listen to what Earth's complex systems tell us.
- Our leaders listen to us and derive power from the mana of ethical behaviour and decisions.
- The powerful protect the weak.
- We are learning that this place is our home.
- We are weaving all the threads together.
- The most important people in our village are those who will be us some day,
- and we are listening to them.
My own journey to this new path starts in the past and the grief I have felt for what has been lost. But I am a thinking person, and I can choose a new way.
I am shocked by too much of the history of my people - the way people, land, and other creatures have been treated.
Unbelievably, it once seemed like a grand idea to mill every Kauri, kill every whale, and enslave other people as servants.
My normal day is carried out in denial of the impossibility of the Business as Usual that is my lifestyle.
I want to be a good person, so I bargain for the future with solar panels, wind turbines and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
I feel guilty that I have participated in a system that does so much harm.
I feel anger at the people who profit the most from the way things are, and the leaders who are beholden to them.
I have struggled with the depressing prospects of failure, for how can so many things possibly change in time?
But I also accept that I can't change the past, and I can't save the world with 10 consumer choices.
I have discovered hope where the world least expects it - in myself. I have seen the light of hope in others here.
We have the ability to move on to a new path because we have an inner compass. I know what is right, and I exercise the freedom to choose a divergent path.
I claim the honour of being a heretic."
Source: http://www.signsofchange.org.nz
Videos of the presentations are also available on the source web site.
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