Conscious Landscapes

This interview aired in 2011 and is still relevant today, Sister Kelleher passed on Aug 16 2013 and her life continues to be an inspiration to all***Gives us all something to think about at this time of year**

We speak to Sister Elizabeth Kelleher, an 85 year old nun with the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, we talk about her efforts to stop more gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside the poorest postal code in Canada.

Sister Elizabeth is a pillar in the Downtown Eastside where she tirelessly gives of her time and continues to be a source of inspiration for many, many people. She operates a soup kitchen that feeds between 300 and 500 of the city’s most poverty stricken each day.

It is estimated that there are over 10,000 homeless people in BC , of which 32 percent are aboriginal, and amongst women, 50 percent. A homeless person dies every 12 days in B.C. Conservative Estimates put the national homeless numbers at close to 300,000. The annual cost of homelessness in Canada in 2007 was approximately $4.5 to $6 billion in emergency services, community organizations, and non-profits. The cost both financially and morally of doing nothing is tremendous. Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing plan or poverty reduction strategy.

Host Stuart Richardson interviews Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and publisher of a blog called Organizing Notes. We speak about why Bath Iron Works ship yard (a shipbuilding yard in Maine that builds US Naval destroyers) needs to be converted into a plant that builds Green technology, how  US military spending is out of control globally and how that steals from the American people. We speak about the new Biden administration and how social change happens, how we cannot sit on our hands and hope things change for the better.

Philip McMaster is a social Entrepreneur and experienced co-founder of many social enterprises over the years … the most important and timely in the last decade and a half, the McMaster Institute for Sustainable Development in Commerce and the Peace Plus One World Sustainability Project in Switzerland.

Co-Host Stuart Richardson speaks to Philip about the global sustainability movement and the power of young people and all people of conscience as well as his newest project the One World Sustainability Project Cooperative. for more info go to ExtinctionSolution.com

Activist and radio legend and my good friend Charles Boylan  did this interview while in the late stages of his cancer, he will always be in my heart , he never stopped trying to make a better world

Charles Boylan was a Canadian radio broadcaster and political activist. He was the former producer of Wake up with co-op and the program Discussion, on CFRO 100.5FM; a community-run, co-cooperatively-owned, non-corporate radio station broadcasting from Vancouver, British Columbia. Boylan  also run for political office federally and provincially as a representative of the Marxist “Leninist Party of Canada and People’s Front respectively.

We spoke about the upcoming year 2017 which Charles coins the “The Year of Resistance”, we speak about the struggles and challenges ahead and the hard work that needs to be done to realize the new horizon where ordinary people get together and  chart their own future taking back power from the monopoly interests, a bright future where the working class rises up with communities of interest to deal with the issues of our time, real action on the environmental, social and democratic crisis can be accomplished when we work together. A most importantly how to create an anti war government that respects human dignity with social love for our brothers and sisters.

Host Stuart Richardson speaks to Dr Li about how Forest Bathing works, the many health benefits and how often you need to forest bathe.  How this practice can improve you health , vitality and assist with many mental health issues of depression, anxiety and confusion. With most of humanity living in big cities we desperately need to let nature heal us.

Hunter Madsen become know  through his work to organize the Save Bert Flinn Park initiative (SaveBertFlinnPark.ca), an expansive movement of residents and outdoors enthusiasts that has sought to keep the city’s largest park intact as a sublime natural getaway (without a traffic corridor transecting it) and that works to preserve the tranquil quality that has drawn so many to Port Moody’s north shore.

He has also been active locally in both provincial and federal politics, with a strong longstanding commitment to green values and sustainability economics.

Host Stuart Richardson speaks to Hunter about his quest to Save Bert Flinn and how we should go about developing while protecting our green spaces that are so vital to our well being and how to organize to protect was is sacred in your communities.

For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard has investigated global warming for outlets including the New Yorker, NPR, Time, Vanity Fair, and the Nation. But the full truth did not hit home until he became a father and, soon thereafter, learned that climate change had already arrived?a century earlier than forecast?with impacts bound to worsen for decades to come. Hertsgaard’s daughter Chiara, now five years old, is part of what he has dubbed “Generation Hot”-the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption. (Order Book)

Mark talks about his newest book “Hot Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth”, he speaks about the dire consequences of inaction and what we need to do as citizens to take ownership of this role.