From Van Jones to Peter Senge - On Sustainability

Can you sustain 14-hour days at a sustainability conference? "G. Rendell" provides an initial overview of the AASHE conference by connecting the opening plenary by Van Jones with thelater plenary by Peter Senge:

Both Jones and Senge depicted the current sustainability crisis as having origins dating back to the 19th century, and both indicated that the solution lies in a return to the basic human values which all religions teach, but which modern social paradigms have perverted. In Senge’s terminology, there is a disconnect between who we really are and how we’re currently living; we need to remember how we want to live, and ask ourselves how we should educate our children in order to live that way. Both speakers were clear that the real problem we face is based in the fact that we haven’t been living, or educating, that way.

Between the opening and pre-prandial plenaries, however, the message got less philosophical and more directly encouraging. Reports from the front — from colleges and universities which have found ways to encourage faculty members to incorporate sustainability principles and examples into their curricula, from schools who have taken significant strides towards decreasing transportation demand, and from universities which have had remarkable success in facilitating and supporting active student leadership towards various forms of sustainability.