Earlier this week, the CRC Research team attended the Ecocity World Summit in Vancouver. Since 1990, this international summit has addressed building cities in balance with nature. With over 1,000 delegates from around the world, presenters shared research and innovations on urban design, bio-geophysical conditions, socio-cultural features, and ecological imperatives. We attended a number of sessions and also gave four presentations.
- Dr. Robert Newell began by presenting his “Spaces, Places and Possibilities” project and detailed his participatory approach for developing and using systems models and visualizations for integrated community planning.
- Professor Ann Dale and Jaime Clifton-Ross gave a workshop, “Moving Climate Change Research out to the Public”, where they shared key strategies from our research curation project and facilitated participatory activities.
- Professor Ann Dale, Dr. Robert Newell, and Dr. Francois Jost then presented "Lessons Learned from Climate Innovators in British Columbia" as part of our MC3 2.0 research project.
- Dr. Jost wrapped up our visit with a presentation on our sentiment analysis research and explored "Whether Local Governments really Embrace Change".
Our main goal was to communicate the urgency of acting immediately on climate change and to inspire people to make a difference. We have enough science, information and technology to address this unprecedented issue. From the micro to the macro, there are many steps that we can take.