This year, we are offering six conferences in English (see below). The
full schedule (in French only) is available here.
CONFERENCES IN ENGLISH
SATURDAY
Sustainability - Creating Change
Chris Adam
Tent #3 – Saturday 11:30 am
This presentation will focus on how a large educational institution planned and created the change in thinking needed to implement a sustainability assessment framework with over 150 indicators. The challenges of clear communication, cooperative efforts, solid policies and personal validation will be reviewed. Many specific examples of action projects will be emphasized.
Chris Adam, executive director, Earthvalues Institute; Project Development, Sustainable Dawson, Dawson College
SUNDAY
Your environment = your health
Rohini Peris
Tent #4 – Sunday 11 am
The conference will cover briefly the following topics : the history of chemicals released into the environment; laws that do not protect; health effects of some chemicals found in everyday products ; chemical sensitivity and alternatives for everyday living.
Rohini Peris, president of the Association pour la santé environnementale du Québec/Environmental Health Association of Québec (ASEQ-EHAQ). She has a background in early childhood education, owns and operates an organic daycare. Since her family was poisoned by pesticides – which showed up in laboratory tests –, she has been working on legislation and bylaws on pesticides since 1996.
A successful green building project for your home
Tent #1 – Sunday 11:30 am
Where does one start? Success of a green building project is dependent, foremost, on what you think that house should be and how you set out imagining it. The second important consideration is site selection and knowledge of its attributes. Third is Integrated Design. Everything else — materials and systems selection — flows from these.
Michel Durand, communicator, speaker, sustainable development specialist and author of Guide de la maison verte : pour une habitation responsable (La Presse)
Radon : An unwanted gas in our buildings
Isabelle Vézina
Tent #4 – Sunday 1 pm
Radioactive, colourless, odourless and natural, radon can seep into and accumulate in buildings. Come to this session to be informed about radon, to learn about the health risks that are associated with it (second cause of lung cancer) and to know what to do to protect yourself.
Isabelle Vézina, Regional radiation specialist, Safe Environments Program
Health Canada, Quebec Region
isabelle_vezina@hc-sc.gc.ca
An Unconvenient Truth
Karel Mayrand
Tent #2 – Sunday 1:30 pm
In April of 2008, former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Al Gore trained 275 Canadians in Montreal to present across the country the conference on climate change that constitutes the core of his Oscar awarded movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. Karel Mayrand, director general for Quebec of the David Suzuki Foundation is one of these volunteers. He will offer an updated and locally adapted version of this exceptional conference that has already contributed to raising awareness of millions across the world on the need to solve the climate crisis.
Karel Mayrand is Director general for Quebec at the David Suzuki Foundation and a member of the organisation’s management team. Before joining the Foundation, he was co-founder of Unisfera International Centre, a sustainability think-tank, where he created Planetair, a leading Canadian provider of carbon offsets and climate solutions. In the past twelve years, Karel has advised various United Nations agencies on sustainability issues, as well as Pierre Marc Johnson, former Premier of Quebec, on globalization and sustainability. He is regularly invited to comment environmental issues in the media. Karel is co-author of Governing Global Desertification, published in 2006 by Ashgate Aldershot (London). He is an Action Canada fellow (2005) and was finalist in 2008 for the Arista Prize as Social entrepreneur of the year in Quebec.
Living off grid
Roy Milwid
Tent #1 – Sunday 3:30 pm
How to build wood and solar hot water systems, solar electric, and passive solar heating. Presentation and discussion with the audience of the advantages and difficulties of “living off grid…”
Roy Milwid studied physics at Stanford University in the mid-1960's. In the early 1970's, he lived 200 km back in the mountains of B.C. In the late 70's and early 80's, he lived in a community, where for 2 years he looked after the electrical system for 100 households which had 12 volt lighting run off batteries. Since then he has done electrical and plumbing, log house building, and tree planting contracting. He now spends a lot of time volunteering, helping to maintain and build meditation centers.
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