Conversations That Matter

Episode 105

Graham Baldwin - Senior High, A New Approach

Conversations That Matter features Graham Baldwin on why it’s time to treat high school seniors with respect. Baldwin contends that if we “treat people in grades 10 through 12 a little bit more like adults than high school children, in an attempt to get them ready for not only going to university, but succeeding there. We want them to be ready for success.”

He created what he calls a “Miniversity” where seniors study intensive 20 day blocks of only one subject. Baldwin says, “we’ve re-imagined everything really back to the bare bones and knowing what we know now about learning, knowing what we know now about universities, what would grade 10 through 12 education look like for people

who are preparing for that?”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 104

Dr. Rhonda Low - Live long and well

Conversations That Matter features Dr. Rhonda Low who points out that British Columbians have the highest longevity in Canada. She says the key to how long you live is how you live, “we know a small proportion of longevity is due to your genes, around 10 to 15% and then another 15 to 20, 25% depends upon where you live. But, the vast majority of longevity can be attributed to your lifestyle habits. Being proactive minimizes the chance of getting chronic diseases.”

Dr. Low says you need to arm yourself with data about your body, she says, “you need to ask questions of your family, what do they have? What are you more at risk for? What's gotten grandma and grandpa in the end? Know your personal risk factors are for diabetes or heart disease, high blood pressure. Everyone needs to know their blood pressure, their cholesterol levels, their fasting blood sugars because if your mom or dad had Type II diabetes you have a 20 to 25% chance of having Type II diabetes. But the good news is that you can prevent all that by lifestyle.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 103

Dr. Patrick Moore - A Dearth of Carbon?

Conversations That Matter features Dr. Patrick Moore in part 2 of our Conversation where he takes issue with NGO’s over climate, genetically modified organisms and what he says is the truth about carbon.

Dr. Moore says we were literally running out of carbon before we started to pump it back into the atmosphere, “CO2 has been declining to where it is getting close to the end of plant life, and in another 1.8 million years, life would begin to die on planet Earth for lack of CO2.”

According to Moore it is life itself that has been consuming carbon and storing it in carbonaceous rocks. He goes on to say, “billions of tons of carbonaceous rock represent carbon dioxide pulled out of the atmosphere, and because the Earth has cooled over the millennia, nature is no longer putting CO2 into the atmosphere to offset this.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 102

Daphne Bramham - Reflections on the Arctic

Conversations That Matter features Daphne Bramham who just returned from an eye-opening voyage through the Northwest Passage. “We went through the southern Northwest Passage, the famous passage that Franklin couldn't get through, that hundreds of people died looking for Franklin, every year clogged up, even ten years ago clogged up, we never saw ice. That was the most shocking thing for me, to never see ice.”

Bramham points out that life in the arctic revolves around ice, without it, the cycle of life changes for all living creatures. On the same journey were scientists from the Vancouver Aquarium testing for microplastics that are invading the oceans like a fog and every species is consuming them. If you eat fish that includes you.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 101

Scott Doney - Under the Sea

Conversations That Matter features Scott Doney of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts on the state of the world’s oceans. According to Doney everything you’ve heard about the oceans is true, the temperature is rising, acidification is increasing and sea levels are up.

He says, the speed that it’s happening poses the biggest challenge because it is causing havoc with the cycle of life. It’s called, “phenology and it basically just means seasonality. Most organisms have adapted so that if their young need prey, they're going to breed in time so that their young are there right when the prey come out. And if the prey have shifted in time, so the prey are coming too early, you know, the salmon might breed, release their young, or other fish might breed, and the young come and there's no food.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 100

Kathy McLaughlin - To the outer edges of life and back

Conversations That Matter features Kathy McLaughlin who was one or two heartbeats this side of death and survived. Her journey is harrowing, it’s gut wrenching, it stretches your imagination to the brink and leaves you wondering if you could have survived.

What did she learn along the way and how did it change her? Did it change her philosophy, her routine, her priorities? Kathy says the biggest lesson and hardest challenge is, “being in the moment. How do you choose to act at this particular moment in time to be fully present to whatever presents itself.  And for me, I was never about that. And I still struggle with it, and then I think, okay, that's not why I'm here, that’s not why I survived.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv

Episode 99

Nathan Gilliland - The promise of Fusion?

Conversations That Matter features Nathan Gilliland who says the promise of fusion energy is now tantalizingly close which means about 5 years to proof of concept. Gilliland says the advances in fusion production are consistent with “Moore’s Law”, a doubling of capabilities every 18 months, which means the sector is getting close but says, “The biggest challenge is having the capacity to create enough energy to ignite even more energy”.

When that happens, Gilliland says the benefits will include lower cost power, a reduction in carbon emissions and an inexhaustible source of energy. In other words they will have harnessed the power of the sun.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

Please become a subscriber and support the production of the program atwww.conversationsthatmatter.tv