Greening the Planet to Cool the Planet – More Details about the Global Earth Repair Conference II
More details about the 2nd GLOBAL EARTH REPAIR CONFERENCE & FESTIVAL –
Where:
Port Townsend, Olympic Peninsula, Washington State
Fort Worden and Jefferson County Fairgrounds
When:
May 9-13, 2025
What:
A hybrid conference. In-person & online
Organized by:
* Global Earth Repair Foundation does networking, education and advocacy, Michael Pilarski
* EcoRestoration Alliance is an international alliance with over 100 members representing a large number of organizations. Their focus is on greening the planet to cool the planet. Jon Schull.
* United Earth Networks is based at Fort Worden and has decades of experience organizing large events. Rick Lukens.
* Permaculture Action Network has hosted many Permaculture Action Days and has deep connections with youth movements. Ryan Rising.
* Earth Regeneration Fund, Design School for Regenerating Earth. Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple.
* Collaborators will include 100+ organizations, international, national, regional and local.
What the event is about:
* How to cool and stabilize the global climate.
* We will bring together some of the world’s leading experts who understand the role of vegetation and hydrological cycles on climate.
* Education with workshops, keynote talks, and hands-on.
* Developing an action plan for global climate amelioration.
* Building collaboration
* Food sovereignty
* Social justice
* Solutions which are low-tech instead of high-tech and can be implemented locally with local resources.
* These fast acting solutions can cool the planet in 20 years.
* The most cost-effective solutions, especially compared to geo-engineering
* A conference by the grassroots for the grassroots, although we do invite representatives from funders, corporations and governments.
* Experience an event with local, regional, national and international perspectives and scales of action.
* The goal is to network as many diverse parts of this far-flung movement as possible and create collaborations to scale up the global movement.
Indigenous Involvement:
* We commit to involving many indigenous people
* Indigenous wisdom, world-views and traditional stewardship practices are key to humanity coming back in harmony with Nature.
* Highlight indigenous contributions to global regeneration.
* Everyone should support the rights of Indigenous Peoples and look for opportunities to support Indigenous people.
* Ilarion Merculieff of Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways and Wisdom Weavers of the World is coordinating indigenous participation as he has done for our previous Global Earth Repair events.
* There will be an Indigenous caucus.
Youth:
* Young people of all ages are invited to participate. Children, teens, 20s and 30s.
* There will be an educational children’s program.
* Youth restoration organizations are invited to help with planning.
* We offer a space for elders and youth to teach each other.
The Festival aspect of this event will include art, celebration, entertainment, bands, music, singing, dancing, hands-on activities, demonstrations of restoration techniques, vendors of restoration tools & trees, and outreach booths for earth repair organizations. We are celebrating the growth of earth repair movements worldwide. There is a growing international clamor for ecological regeneration.
Keynote Speakers:
Rob de Laet
John D. Liu
Ilarion Merculieff
Others to be announced
We are bringing together representatives from many global coalitions working for climate stabilization and ecosystem restoration including:
* EcoRestoration Alliance
* Ecosystem Restoration Communities/Camps
* Global Evergreening Alliance
* Global Restoration Collaborative.
* Global Earth Repair Foundation
* United Earth Network
* Regeneration International (tbc)
We encourage international attendees. We expect to help with travel expenses for some international guests but encourage people to come up with their own funding for travel expenses.
Steps toward a global plan of action:
(The plan needs a formal name). “Global plan of action to cool the planet and calm the weather via the water cycle”, or something along those lines.
1) Outline how to develop the plan
2) Gather together a group of experts (this is in process).
3) Compile a list of the best plans developed so far. I have compiled a beginning list. Phoebe knows of others. Our participating experts will know of others.
4) Make a list of supporting documents. This will be extensive so will have to be a database. Mostly these will be supplied by the group of experts.
5) Put out a call for proposals as to what to include in the Plan.
6) Collate responses in another database. Includes proposals by expert members and general public.
7) Divide proposals (and supporting documents) into various categories.
8) The group of experts divide themselves into various teams to consider specific parts of the plan.
9) The experts in invitation teams send in their main points before the event.
10) Groups meet at the Conference to further develop proposals. These will be in-person, sometimes meeting with experts at a distance via Zoom. Groups to convene probably once a day. Each group will need a facilitator. There may be two kinds of groups. A) Invitation-only groups of recognized experts and B) self-selected groups of general attendee (in-person only, no Zoom).
11) Compile proposals at the end of the Conference.
12) Follow-up to refine wording and further append supporting documents.
The goal is to have something at the end of the conference that is presentable to the world at large. Something to build on, but coherent enough and bold enough to serve as a global call to action and the steps to achieve success.
PS. In 1984, I was part of the 1st North American Bioregional Congress. NABC I was held in the Ozarks and involved about 300 people. We put together a plan/list of recommendations for North America. The final document was extensive, about 100 pages. There were many teams working on specific areas of interest. I was part of the forestry team. Each team made a list of recommendations which were then read to the whole group plenary and received feedback. Each team considered the feedback and refined their proposals. These were read back to the entire group again for more feedback. At the end of the 3rd round we reached consensus on all the points (or they were left out). It was an exhilarating process with a final product at the end. It was an incredible example of democracy in action. It was made possible by the skill of a great facilitator named Caroline Estes. It felt like a new Declaration of Independence, seceding from the national governments. It is one example of a group process to develop a plan. We can learn by examining others.
