From: Mathis Wackernagel [mailto:mathis@...]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 5:58 AM
To: Mathis Wackernagel
Subject: Want to join me at a UNESCO event on " 21st Century Talks" late November?

Dear Friends of Global Footprint Network:

I have been invited to participate in one of UNESCO’s 21st Century Dialogues and 21st Century Talks on Saturday November 25 2006 at the UNESCO headquarters. There might still be an opportunity to get tickets to the event.

This is a series of conferences contributing to a global debate on some of the key issues of the future, to look ahead to emerging trends and problems, and to pave the way for policies designed to address them.

I will be sharing a session entitled “Saving the planet: consume less to live better?” with Nicolas Hulot (a leading environmental educator in France) and Haroldo Mattos de Lemos (former minister of environment of Brazil). This session will take place between 4:00p.m and 5:30p.m. But the event will be on for the entire day.

Apparently, among the participants already confirmed are Edward O. Wilson, Dominique Voynet, former French Minister of the environment, Mostafa Tolba, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Dennis Meadows, co-author of the Report to the Club of Rome, Limits to Growth, Syukuro Manabe, Jean Margat, Michel Loreau, Nobel Prize Laureate Paul J. Crutzen and Michel Serres, a leading philosopher, Professor at Stanford University and member of the French Academy. The Conference will be opened by the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, and by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

While the event is not yet advertised on the UNESCO site (and only reports of former events are available there) it is open to the public. These dialogues are designed to encourage interdisciplinarity at a global level, and a dissemination of a high level forward-looking thinking to decision makers, thinkers, philosophers, experts, academics, creators, the media and the general public from different regions of the world, in a spirit of forward-looking interdisciplinary inquiry. Anthologies of these 21st Century Talks and Dialogues are published by UNESCO. Two volumes are already available: Keys to the 21st Century (published in 7 languages), and the Future of Values (published or in print in 10 languages).

If you are interested in attending, they suggest you contact Caroline Descombris by email at c.descombris@... as soon as possible (participation is limited to 500) so she can send you an invitation card for the conference and the reception at 7:30p.m. Without the invitation cards it will not be possible to attend the conference.

Warmest wishes,

Mathis

PS: By the way, don’t know if you saw: the Living Planet Report 2006 launch last week went very well. It was produced in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian (and summaries in Chinese, Hindi, German, and Swahili), and generated more press and media responses than any other WWF report in the organization’s entire history. On Google alone, we tracked over 500 media stories in several languages, cutting across every conceivable geo-political boundary: from Al-Jazeera to hyper conservative Fox News in the US, from India to Brazil, Japan to South Africa. Some other tidbits of success: The main French newspaper in Belgium Le Soir produced a 24-page supplement for the launch; overall, there were hardly any cynical press comments or reactions; and the report is still reverberating in editorials of mayor newspapers (e.g., in the International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/01/news/europe.php). I was particularly inspired by the Bloomberg story (a mainstream finance news service), which recognized the significance of the Footprint findings for the investment community. see http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=asybYkLBp_tk&refer=latin_america