Autumn 2006: Two FEASTA Courses

The Cultivate Centre for Sustainable Living and Learning hosted two FEASTA courses in autumn 2006. Cultivate is located in Temple Bar (address below) and bookings can be made at Cultivate 01 6745773

Joined Up Thinking and Sustainability
Wednesday nights from the 13th September -18th October 2006
€65.00 Members €55.00

This was a 6 week course designed by FEASTA to explore the root causes of unsustainability: how our society and economy fails to think about and plan for its own long-term health and survival. The course fostered joined-up thinking in considering how to tackle the problems and frame potential solutions.

The 6 sessions used Feasta's 'Community Learning Toolkit', a CD ROM containing readings, videos and audio recordings that enabled a community of learners to explore the issues further. Starting on 13th September, Davie Philip from the FEASTA Education Group facilitated the 6 evenings of presentation and discussion, which explored the issues of... Money, Growth, Climate and Oil, Energy, Food, & Community

Understanding the Economics of Sustainable Development

A part time course by FEASTA: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability in association with Cultivate. Supported by Trocaire.

Tuesday Nights from the 26th September to the 31st October 2006
At the Cultivate Centre for Sustainable Living and Learning
This series was designed to take as a 6 week course or as individual lectures
FEASTA/ Cultivate Members plus concessions: €60 for course or €12 per
lecture.
Non Members: €80 for course or €15 per lecture
To book call 01 6745773

Many people are beginning to question the conventional wisdom that both the key to rich-country prosperity and the solution to global poverty is for international trade and investment to generate global economic growth. Such people feel that current growth is widening the gap between rich and poor, both within countries and between them, and that in any case, continuous economic growth is impossible in a finite world. They also recognise that much of the rich countries' wealth has been accumulated through the appropriation of the 'environmental space' and resources of the poorer ones.

By the end of the course, participants could expect to have clear ideas about why the present economic system is so damaging and unsustainable, and suggest what changes need to be made to it to correct its flaws and bring about a more equitable and sustainable world.

Tuesday 26th Sept 2006- 19.30 - 21.30
Richard Douthwaite - "The Economic Challenge of Sustainability"
Richard Douthwaite is an economist and a founding member of FEASTA. He is the author of The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet, The Ecology of Money, and Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies for Security in an Unstable World, which can be read in an online edition here.

Tuesday 3rd Oct 2006 2006- 19.30 - 21.30
Alistair McConnachie - "Stopping the Debt Driver - why reforming the way our money is created holds the key to halting unsustainable growth."
Alistair McConnachie has been involved in the field of Monetary Reform for the last 12 years. He is the Editor and Publisher of PROSPERITY: Freedom from Debt Slavery, which is a 4-page journal, based in Glasgow, and dedicated to reforming the money system and campaigning for publicly-created, debt-free money. It also has a website at ProsperityUK.com.

Tuesday 10th Oct 2006 - 19.30 - 21.30
Oisin Coghlan and Gerard O'Neill - "The Economic Implications of Climate Change and Peak Oil."
Oisin Coghlan is the Director of Friends of the Earth Ireland and Gerald O¹Neil is Chief Executive of Amarach Consulting and co-author of a report for Forfás on the challenges for Ireland of peak oil and our high oil dependency.

Tuesday 17th Oct 2006 - 19.30 - 21.30
Tom Campbell and Patrick Marren - "An introduction to Environmental and Ecological Economic thinkers and theories"
Tom Campbell and Patrick Marren are lecturers in the Kimmage Development Studies Centre. Teaching /Research interests include Political Economy of Development, Development Economics, Sustainable Livelihoods and Environment and Development.

Tuesday 24th Oct 2006 - 19.30 - 21.30
Anne Pettifor - "Costless money, costly credit and the coming first world debt crisis".
Ann Pettifor is executive director of Advocacy International. In the 1990s she helped design and lead an international campaign, Jubilee 2000, which succeeded in persuading a large swathe of world public opinion, as well as world leaders, to cancel $100bn of debt owed by 42 countries. As well as campaigning and advocacy, Ann Pettifor has contributed to academic debates about international finance. She is editor of "the Real World Economic Outlook".

'The Coming First World Debt Crisis' by Ann Pettifor

In this book, Ann Pettifor turns her attention away from the debt crisis affecting low-income countries and examines the issues of debt affecting the 'first world' or OECD countries. She examines the history, politics and ethics of the coming debt crisis, including 1970s financial de-regulation - and restructuring of the international financial system. The book explores the implications of high international indebtedness for governments, corporations, households, individuals - and the ecosystem.

For more information, please click here: www.palgrave.com/email/firstworlddebt.htm.

Tuesday 31st Oct 2006 - 19.30 - 21.30
Emer O'Siochru - "Global Commons: Your Inheritance"
Emer is Director of EOS Architects and a founding member of FEASTA. She specialises in sustainable settlement design and development.

Cultivate - Sustainable Living & Learning Centre Essex Street West, Temple Bar, Dublin 8
www.cultivate.ie
Information: +353 (0) 1 6746396