We talked a lot about responsibility in this course. We talked about how businesses and NGOs offload responsibility for the climate crisis. We looked at the "weasel words" companies employ to weaken their project commitments. Our posts called for businesses, governments, or other organizations to take more responsibility for their actions. But are we willing to do the same? I can't help but feel that our weekly posts have also been an exercise in offloading responsibility. Yes, we are raising awareness about these issues. Yes, we are presenting possible solutions. But are we really looking at these issues in depth? Are we content to suggest interventions but let other people implement them? The main value I leave this course with is perspective. It is easy to criticize governments and business leaders for their actions. We should criticize them. But we also need to understand where they are coming from. I envision a world where our suggestions for leaders are well-informed, respectful, and take the leader's perspective into account. Ultimately, I am glad I took this course. While I expected to learn more about theories of change and the process of devising solutions to environmental problems, the experiences I had while working on the final project with my group members were invaluable. My final intervention is for myself. In future discussion-based courses, I will try to sit with different groups of students every two-three classes. I gained a lot from this course by interacting with many different students, both through in-class discussions and engaging with their posts on CoSphere. Adopting the same approach in future courses will help me hear from a wider range of perspectives.

Hello everyone! Our team recently gave a workshop about Indigenous water accessibility issues to a class of Grade 7s students at St. John's School. Rather than letting our material go unused, we thought it would be best to share it with all of you! Below are our links to the script and slides we used for our workshop! We hope they can be of use for future education on this important topic. Thank you! Workshop Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qMDylwlZc7Q_YTelmj98gPAxPwhmKMWJ0a99Qn-XAJQ/edit?usp=sharing Workshop Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AMhdoyx8J5LxwVO1DV4fRxXBmiA1OWHx-fJzJg76yjc/edit?usp=sharing

What is a "significant" adverse environmental effect? Is it determined by scientists? Governments? Proponents? If determined by thresholds, how do we decide those thresholds? Environmental impact assessments raise many difficult questions. We can debate all we want about how to assess projects, but one value must inform our decisions: consistency. I envision a world where all public servants and government officials strictly adhere to the thresholds in environmental legislation. If a proposed project surpasses a threshold, regulatory approval should only be granted in the rarest cases. Currently, nearly every project that undergoes an environmental assessment receives regulatory approval, even if it surpasses thresholds. If regulators enforce existing thresholds, companies will adhere to the new regulations if they are enforced consistently. My proposed intervention is legislation that caps the number of federally approved projects annually. The biggest barrier to my vision is conflict of interest. Governments depend on projects to generate short-term economic growth and win re-election. However, if governments were limited in their ability to approve projects, there would be more public scrutiny on the approval process for each individual project, incentivizing governments to approve projects below existing thresholds. #UnleashValues @CoSphere

What if more companies were willing to "stick their necks out"? I envision a world where all companies are motivated to lead on sustainability issues. Leadership requires vulnerability and transparency. As we saw in class, transparency, and the financial vulnerability associated with it, is often not in a company's self-interest. Volkswagen increased profits by cheating tests, while Unilever and Patagonia's reputations suffered when they were honest. So, how do we incentivize transparency? By reducing the vulnerability associated with it. My proposed intervention is a mindset shift in NGO strategy. Instead of targeting transparent companies, the primary goal of NGOs should be evaluating and ranking actors, with transparency as a key indicator. Once actors are ranked, NGOs would promote the best. Promotion tactics would include endorsements or brand awareness campaigns. Endorsements would be given, even if the company was involved in a "dirty" industry (e.g. oil or mining), to encourage transparency in all sectors. #UnleashValues @CoSphere

How do we achieve balance? I tend to think of balance in terms of daily habits. Did I get enough sleep last night? Did I take enough steps? Did I have healthy meals? But, maybe balance isn't achieved through day-to-day decisions. Maybe it's something achieved in the long term. It takes trial and error. It involves learning and evolving. It requires comfort with complexity. My values this week are persistence and adaptivity. As we discussed in class and saw in The Biggest Little Farm, farming is far from an easy profession. You have to get up early, do hard physical labour, and manage new problems every day. Even when you do everything right...there is no guarantee of success. You can lose everything. But when you persist and adapt, the results eventually come. In both The Biggest Little Farm and Kiss the Ground, independent farmers were successful when going against traditional wisdom. While an unconventional rewilding approach resulted in significant early setbacks, John and Molly Chester ultimately built a successful, self-regulating farm. After four seasons with virtually no crops, Gabe Brown changed to a more productive regenerative ranching approach, without tillage or the use of any synthetics. I envision a world where policy encourages adaptive long-term farming practices. One of the main pitfalls we fall into when addressing environmental issues is providing short-term solutions. However, the potential of long-term solutions, such as rewilding and regenerative ranching, seems quite limited. How can we implement such practices at a larger scale? Won't more land be needed? We won't know until we try. My proposed intervention is for governments to provide subsidies for local farmers engaging in long-term agricultural experiments. By incentivizing experiments that test the efficacy of sustainable agricultural practices at a local level, more cost-efficient yet sustainable solutions may be identified that can be adopted at an industrial level. The money to fund such experiments would be drawn from subsidies given to major industrial agricultural companies. While such companies would lobby heavily against this idea, it would be an effective compromise. Companies may suffer financially in the short term from less subsidies, but will recuperate costs in the long-term from the insights gained through experimentation. @CoSphere

One theme united many of the stories we heard this week. From the push back of Day Zero in Cape Town, to "Sanivation" in Kenya, to the decision of Costa Rican farmers to transition from coffee to pineapples, pressure drove change. My values for this week are recognition and discipline. Every day it seems we are bombarded with the same message: Act Now! We see the UN climate clock get closer to midnight, hear about another natural disaster related to climate change, or simply have a conversation with a friend. Yet...after a while...the message doesn't hit us as hard anymore. We get numb to it. We have to account for this. I envision a world where we are able to put enough pressure on ourselves to address issues like water conservation...without having to even think about Day Zero. On the surface, this seems like an impossible challenge. I think about how often I procrastinate on my major assignments. Only when I face significant pressure do I usually get started. How can we possibly be this disciplined on a large scale? The answer lies in imposed conservation. My proposed intervention follows a similar water pricing model to the one discussed in class. Regional governments would make the first 5,000 gallons of water a household uses per month free, then impose a charge of 25 cents/additional gallon used. A progressive pricing scheme could be applied, where lower-income households get a lower cost per additional gallon while higher-income households pay more. The exact costs would need to be worked out and likely adjusted to best incentivize water conservation. A similar pricing scheme could be used to limit corporation water usage. Think again about our assignments. When we have a deadline for a portion of our larger assignment (e.g. a proposal or outline for a paper), we start working on it earlier. If we place initial barriers on usage, we don't get into a situation like Cape Town. We can recognize the issue early and be disciplined enough to avoid a crisis. @CoSphere

What does socio-ecological justice look like? I envision a world where we are open and honest with one another...where we are all willing to share how we think and feel. At UBC, sometimes I feel that we don't provide enough room for dissenting voices. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a friend last year. His political views are much different than mine, but he was willing to share how he truly felt. I got the sense that he didn't get this opportunity very often. I also remember some of the comments made during my environmental sciences classes. One stands out. I was placed on a team that represented the Albertan government on a debate about the TransMountain Pipeline. Upon meeting my team members, one of them remarked: "Hey, guess we're playing the bad guys!" Striving towards socio-ecological justice must involve the inclusion of traditionally marginalized voices. But it also requires us to confront our own limitations. This is where the value of courage comes in. Do we really listen to those who rely on resource extraction? Do we really understand their perspective? Are we willing to accept that we can sometimes be wrong? Once we have these hard conversations, we can start to understand. Once we start to understand, our own views evolve. My proposed intervention this week is to try and spend a week reading stories (at least 5) about local communities dependent on resource extraction projects. By reading these stories, I hope to get a better sense as to why others place so much value in these projects. #UnleashValues @CoSphere

Last October, I started calorie counting. It helped me realize how many meat, cheese, and other animal-based products I consumed every day. I wasn't able to keep up the habitat, and eventually stopped counting the following January. This summer, I moved away for the first time and started grocery shopping for myself. I was able to buy healthier food, and wasn't as tempted to buy many of the sugary treats my parents usually purchase. As a result, I lost quite a few pounds. Since I have moved back with my parents, I've started to develop the same unhealthy eating habits. Today, I am committing to start calorie counting and buying my own groceries again. I envision a world in which every individual finds their own way towards becoming more sustainable, while also achieving personal goals (e.g. health and fitness). I also value honesty. Change starts with vulnerability and honesty. Through this commitment, I hope to motivate others to do the same. @CoSphere #unleashvalues

My name is Philip! I am a fifth-year student, majoring in Environmental Sciences and minoring in Political Science. As with many others here, I am taking ENVR 430 this term and am I excited to join CoSphere! Through this course, I hope to learn about the role of individuals, organizations, and governments in finding sustainable climate change solutions. How can we ensure governments hit scientifically-informed climate targets? Do we have unsustainable habits because they are easier, or just because they appear easier? Is "voluntary simplicity" an effective intervention in urban areas? Is social media an effective medium for motivating real change? These are just some of the questions I have so far. I'm eagerly looking forward to connecting and conversing with all of you! I find significant value in honest discussions with people who see the world differently than I do. This is how we learn the most. This is how we find solutions. This is how we find happiness. Through connection, not consumption. #unleashvalues