AGM 2011

Friday May 20, 2011 Toronto

Making the Desired Future Real

9:00 to noon — Clarifying Our Mission and Honing Our Voice

Toronto Chapter (Toronto First, Don Heights & Mississauga) welcomes you

CUSJ members and friends will engage in an interactive process to develop and strengthen who we are and what we are doing.

12:00 – 1:00 — Networking lunch — on your own with friends.

1:00 – 1:45 — AGM

2:00 -4:00 — Speakers Mike Nickerson, Mairy Beam, and Judy Velland will stimulate a discussion and sharing on all the ways forward and how people are working towards the New Economy.

 

5:00 CUSJ Dinner at Spring Rolls, 40 Dundas St. West

Mike’s Website

Living On Earth as If We Want To Stay

Mike Nickerson will present the challenge that we face as a species, now that we understand that the old goals and structures of our society are at the root of many social, ecological and environmental problems.
As a species we have been living through a period of childhood and adolescence.  We need to grow up. Having never been mature as a species before, we have little precedence for a mature cultural form.
That said there are a large number of organizations that have seen the problems unfolding in the various areas and have done extensive work at pioneering how they can be resolved.  As M. K. Hubbert, the father of the Hubbert Curve upon which the concept of Peak Oil is based, said, “Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.”
Mike calls us to gather our common concern into a wake up call to the human family, to make it clear that we now have to use what we know and design our society and its structures with the health of the planet in mind.

Judy Velland

Judy worked for the Recycling Council of Ontario in the 1970’s-80’s doing education on the 3 Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Compost. She then went on to do very different work for one of the Out of the Cold programs in Toronto.
But in her retirement, she felt compelled to respond in some way to the pressing environmental and energy challenges that we face. In February of 2007, she helped launch a group in her neighbourhood called Green Neighbours 21. It holds regular meetings with speakers and films, and hosts larger events such as conservation fairs and all-candidates’ meetings. It also undertook a major 18-month project called Green Together that helped homeowners through the process of getting an energy audit and making energy-saving changes in their homes.

Mairy Beam

I have long been concerned with lessening my environmental footprint.  Currently I live in an eco-village, Whole Village.

Whole Village is an intentional community where we attempt to live in harmony with each other and with nature.  We grow a significant amount of our own food and buy the rest in bulk from an organic food coop.

We share resources and perhaps, more importantly, information amongst ourselves, with our neighbours, visitors, and with school groups to increase the level of our awareness and encourage one another to a more sustainable life.

CUC Workshop — The New Economy

At the CUSJ workshop during the Canadian Unitarian Council Conference, Saturday May 21st, Session C, we want to share the latest ideas on how we can build an economy that is sustainable for the long haul.

Dr. Peter Victor, Author of “Managing without Growth. Slower by Design, not Disaster”
Dr. Peter Victor  is a professor in environmental studies at York University. He has worked for over 40 years in Canada and abroad on economy and environment as an academic, consultant and public servant. Dr. Victor was the founding president of the Canadian Society of Ecological Economics and a past-president of the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science. Currently he is a member of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation and several advisory boards in the public and private sectors.  See his Website: www.pvictor.com

Managing without Growth. Slower by Design, not Disaster

Economic growth is the over-arching policy objective of governments worldwide. Yet its long-term viability is increasingly questioned because of environmental impacts and impending and actual shortages of energy and material resources. Furthermore, rising incomes in rich countries bear little relation to gains in happiness and well-being. Growth has not eliminated poverty, brought full employment or protected the environment. Results from a simulation model of the Canadian economy suggest that it is possible to have  full employment, eradicate poverty, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and maintain fiscal balance without economic growth. It’s time to turn our attention away from pursuing growth and towards specific objectives more directly relating to our well-being and that of the planet.

Ann Emmett, Member of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform:

Ann Emmett

* Retired secondary school teacher

* Began to be politicized while working in the Canadian High Arctic for the Department of Northern Affairs.

* Bumped into economics in the early seventies, as a branch representative in the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) when the government began to shrink the education budget.

* Came to realize that education was not the only issue related to economic policies.

* Campaigned vigorously against “FREE” trade.

* Became better informed as co-chair of the Toronto chapter of the Council of Canadians

* Improved my understanding of economics as a member of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (Comer), thanks largely to the late Dr. John Hotson, professor of economics at Waterloo University

* Ran in two federal elections for Paul Hellyer’s Canadian Action Party.

Speaking to:

* The urgent need for monetary reform if we are to solve any of our outstanding problems, and to the threat to our national sovereignty posed by Paul Martin’s call for “global economic governance”.

* The present system is obsolete, dysfunctional and unsustainable. It DEPENDS on growth, exploitation, waste and the destruction of human and environmental capital

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