We are starting to get a head of steam here folks.
The Business School will be working on pragmatic ideas of how to get more traction here on PEI. UPEI is committed to get behind this trend.
Wade MacLauchlan UPEI's President is one of the few University Presidents that can see how a University could be the pivot for a renewal of the economy and our society:
"It's never been more important to do what we do and do more of it - in terms of moving to the emerging economy and what will pay the bills in the 21st century. This leadership will have to come from areas where you have really good universities connected to their communities and doing really strong things."
Phil will give us more on the context of the trends and then Ian Petrie will interview me as if it were 2020 and we had got through a crisis in about 2011 and had had to go local.
Outside the auditorium we will have stands for the projects and we will be showing 2 very good films:
- Rebecca Hosking's Film Farm for the Future. Rebecca, an award winning nature film maker, returns to her family farm and sets out on a voyage of discovery to find out how such a farm can make it in the next 20 years as we face Peak Oil etc.
- The Power of Community - a film about how Cuba coped with the loss of nearly all supplies of oil after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuba is the only place so far that has had to make this adjustment and their story is a powerful lesson for us
In the afternoon the students will return and show us their response.
I lie awake at night wondering what kind of world my grand daughter will grow up into. I pray that a place like PEI could find out how to become self sufficient and get outside the food system that contains so much risk and harm.
