Arthur Hanson
Canadian global and regional ecologist, professor, Distinguished Fellow and former President, International Institute for Sustainable Development
Arthur Hanson is a Canadian ecologist working globally, regionally and with more than 20 countries on environment and sustainable development science and policy. Much of his work has taken place in North America and Asia, especially China and Indonesia. Dr. Hanson resides in Victoria, British Columbia. He is the former President (1992-1998) and now a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an independent research organization headquartered in Canada. Art lived in Indonesia (1972-1977) affiliated with the Ford Foundation. Later, during the 1980s he established a number of major research and institutional development efforts there. From 1992 until the present he has worked with China and the international community at very senior levels to promote transformative policies and actions consistent with sustainable development. From 2002-2019 he was the International Chief Advisor of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED).
Clips
1:29-2:11
Athur talks about founding ENACT and the reasoning behind the name. #ENACT #BuildingAMovement
4:40-7:23
Arthur recalls the early days of planning the Teach-In and how attending an environmental meeting gave him the motivation and empowerment to get it going. He says that to be able to do something great like the Teach-In you need an enabling mechanism (it was the meeting for him), the ability to trust yourself, and then to just do it. #ENACT #BuildingAMovement #TeachIn
8:15-8:59
Arthur discusses the initial mission of ENACT and how they had a strong focus on transformative change. #ENACT #BuildingAMovement #transformation
9:00-9:30 & 30:06-30:57
Arthur talks about ENACT's strategy 'mainstreaming' which was an effort to raise enough awareness about environmental issues that they become mainstream. Later in the interview he explains how climate change was successfully made mainstream. #ENACT #mainstreaming #GenerationalTransformation #climatechange
15:57-17:16
Arthur describes the founding of the Ecology Center and how from the beginning, ENACT saw what they were doing in both the short term (Teach-In) and the long term (EC).
#ENACT #EcologyCenter #BuildingAMovement
20:21-21:34
Arthur discusses the issue of how public interest in environmental issues crests and wanes. He questions if there is way to keep interest more continuous, especially now that issues are urgent. #environmentalism #BuildingAMovement #GenerationalTransformation
30:06-30:57
Arthur talks about how environmental issues have successfully been adopted by younger people and how he feels a breakthrough has been made with the latest generation. #environmentalism #GenerationalTransformation
47:00-49:00
Arthur talks about two things he learned from the Teach In. One, that you have to take action now, not later, and "build the boat while sailing it." Second, that you can make big change and run an organization well with only a small group of people. #ENACT #TeachIn #BuildingAMovement
51:40-53:10
Arthur notes that the thing is most proud of is helping to form the Ecology Center because of the importance of reaching out to the community and bridging the gap between environment and development.
#EcologyCenter #BuildingAMovement #community