The Worlds We Want

Today's show explores the notion of creative reuse. Reuse is something of the ugly duckling of the 3, 4, or 5 Rs of Conservation. While not as easy as simply throwing something in the green bin, one person's trash really can be another person's treasure, in that there is a two way benefit of reusing material - firstly, you avoid it ending up in the landfill, and secondly you can save both money and additional materials by putting something to another use.

Today's guests are

Atom Cianfarani, sustainable designer and artist.  Be sure to check out video of the DIY green project.

And

Anna Timm-Botos, founder of the  Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR).

Mentioned in show

ArtJunktion in both Toronto and Winnipeg

Concordia's big hairy ideas competition

Music/sounds:

• Podington Bear's Solidarity
• Podington Bear's Sneaker Chase
• EricsSoundschmiede's open door
• Sinatra314's footsteps down stairs
• bulbastre's foley footsteps walking in room indoors
• Setuniman's  piano loop 0Y83
• Podington_Bear's HasPluck
• Jay_You's music elevator
• Podington Bear's Curious_Jungle

Thank you for making your music free for non-commercial projects like ours!

 

Today's show looks at the idea of making cities.... intelligently. We look at the case of Batiment 7 a self-organized community-run space in Point St. Charles. We learn about the context that made it 1) needed and 2) possible. We learn about how the University is learning to work with and in the community with their project. 

You can subscribe to the show on all your favorite podcasting platforms (links available here), or download the show here — and while you are doing that please rate and share with your friends! As always, if you have an idea of a person or project we should feature, let us know by email.

We have a little bonus episode for you — this is the full interview with Pascal LeBrun, which was conducted in French. He gives quite a bit of background on the neighborhood and the Bâtiment 7 project.

If you liked this show, you might be interested in listening to one of our previous programs on a related topic — the social economy available here.

Our guests today

Alex Megelas is a Programs and Communications Coordinator for the Office of Community Engagement at Concordia University where he oversees the University of the Streets Café popular education program, and acts as the main liaison with B7. He's also a PhD student in Educational Studies at McGill University, under the supervision of Profs. Henry Mintzberg and Naomi Nichols. His research considers the role of informal spaces in fostering social movements. Alex also works with the Centre for Community Organizations (COCo) as an associate facilitator, collaborates with Shane Watt on the Paper Places project, affiliate member of the Institute for Urban Futures and Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University, and a member of: the Alternative Education Resource Organization and l'Assocation francophone pour le savoir.

Pascal Lebrun has been a resident of the Pointe-Saint-Charles community for 18 years, anarchist activist for 20 years with groups such as La Pointe Libertaire, and current PhD student in Political Science at the University of Ottawa where his research focuses on the economic philosophy of anarchism. Pascal authored L'�conomie participaliste (2014), published by Lux Éditeur.

Shauna Janssen is a Montreal-based urban curator with a background in professional theatre practice and performance studies. Shauna works at the intersections of site-responsive, critical, spatial, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged art practices. As assistant professor in the Department of Theatre at Concordia University, Montreal, where she also holds a University Research Chair in Performative Urbanism (new scholar, 2018–2023), Shauna is the Director of the Institute for Urban Futures, a core member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, and research associate with le Parc (Performing arts research cluster) based at Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology. I am also a core working group member and researcher with the international research platform for Performance and Design. 

Referenced material Some background on Bâtiment 7 (B7)

Check out their webpage for more details on their mission, services, history and more

Some other media coverage of B7 in French: Le Devoir, Radio-Canada, La Presse, and CBC.

Mentioned by Alex Megelas

Simon Fraser University's Vancity Office of Community Engagement

Station 20 West, a community enterprise based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

CityStudio Vancouver, a multi-stakeholder collaboration for urban change

Mentioned by Pascal Lebrun

La Pointe Libertaire

"Place à l'audace : l'�conomie anarchiste d'hier à aujourd'hui", an essay in POSSIBLES, a French-language digital magazine

"L'�conomie participaliste" (2014), Lux Éditeur

"The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting" (2017) by Alexander Vasudevan 

Mentioned by Shauna Janssen

Performative urbanism 

"Performative Urbanism: Generating and Designing Urban Space" (2015), edited by Sophie Wolfrum and Nicolai Frhr v. Brandis, JOVIS Verlag GmbH

Sounding Griffintown: A Listening Guide of a Montreal Neighbourhood

Music and sounds featured in this episode

Intro music "R U Well" by Best Fern

Various Freesound elements: Space Love Attack (by UltraCat), Dying Planet Sends Christmas Message to Earth/ whose soul is electricity! and banks (by The Fucked Up Beat), Twosome (by Podington Bear), Piano, Bach Fantasia, A (H1).wav (by Inspector J), Lode Runner (by Podington Bear), Elephants on Parade (by Podington Bear), I Should Never Have Left El Paso (by The Fucked Up Beat), and record scratch, (thanks for making your sounds free for non-commercial projects like ours!).

 

Today's show is something of a continuation of our last show on the Social economy. Today we tackle the topic of social entrepreneurship. We present a clear definition of the term and talk with Daniela Papi-Thornton, who presents a strong case for "mapping the system." 

Check the companion episode on the social economy in our series for bettering "business as usual" here. 

Our guests today

Daniela Papi-Thornton is a Lecturer at Yale School of Management on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems-led Leadership. Previously, Daniela taught at Watson Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and prior to that, Daniela was the Deputy Director at Oxford Saïd Business School's Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. There she launched educational programming designed to help incorporate systems thinking into social entrepreneurship education, including Map the System, a contest now running at 30 global universities. Her report and subsequent article, Tackling Heropreneurship, have been widely referenced, and from that research she designed a tool called the Impact Gaps Canvas, used at universities around the world. Daniela's work in education design builds upon six years of emerging market entrepreneurial experience in Cambodia, running a hybrid social enterprise. She co-authored a book, Learning Service, released in 2018 which is focused on shifting mindsets and practices related to volunteer travel. Her TEDx talk on Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship highlights some of her more recent thinking.

We also spoke with Ankit Kumar and Emily (Zijing) Meng at the Sustainable Business Case Competition. 

Guests from our last show that made an appearance on this show Marguerite Mendell, Eric Steedman and Nadra Wagdy. Check out their details and interviews in episode 12.

Referenced material

Check out the Seven Sins of Greenwashing 

Click here for Martin and Osberg's research paper entitled "Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition", or listen to Sally Osberg speak about this research paper:

Martin and Osberg (2007)

References from the Sustainable Business Plan Competition

The Flourishing Enterprise Innovation Toolkit and Flourishing Business Canvas 

Net Impact network 

Mentioned during Papi-Thornton's Interview

Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford 

Check USAID's technical note on the 5 Rs Framework in the Program Cycle

Check out Roisin Dillon's presentation at Map the System 2018, University of Oxford:

Tackling Heropreneurship's Impact Gaps Canvas tool

Read Donella Meadows's "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System"

University of Oxford's Global Challenge hosted by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School 

Check out this Sierra Leone value chain research project called Mami's Tamatis 

Check out Cultural Trauma & Resilience in the Pacific: Ho'owaiwai 

Baljeet Sandhu's The Lived Experience

Music and sounds featured in this episode

Greenwashers' (2011) intro clip on Greenwashers Consulting

Intro music "R U Well" and Best Fern

Various Freesound elements: Harp Glissando Up.aiff (by Cunningar0807), Harp Glissando Down.aiff (by Cunningar0807), record scratch, Wall Street Gas Panic/ who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue (The Fucked Up Beat), OldVinyl_128.aiff (by DWSD), drawing fast lines with pencil on paper (by 123jorre456), Strumstick open fret strum & pluck.wav (by mushroomjesus), Kitty In The Window by Podington Bear - (thanks for making your sounds free for non-commercial projects like ours!)

For the next two shows we are going to explore the idea of "doing business differently." Rather than consider particular one-off solutions to the climate change crisis, we're going to be looking at how we organize can address systemic issues. Today's show is going to focus on the notion of the social economy and on our next show we are going to explore social or sustainable entrepreneurship.

Our guests today

Marguerite Mendell (PhD McGill) has been teaching at the School for Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University, since 1986. Her current research and teaching are on the social economy in Quebec and internationally, social finance and impact investing, social innovation, the commons, economic democracy, and the work of Karl Polanyi whose influence continues to grow today. Margie Mendell is participating in a growing international dialogue on innovative economic initiatives to reduce inequality and develop new collective forms of wealth creation through her participation at scholarly conferences and international meetings of the OECD, the European Commission, the Global Social Economy Forum (GSEF) and civil society gatherings. She also participates in consultations in Canada (federal, provincial, municipal) and abroad on issues related to social finance and impact investing and the social and solidarity economy. Her work, published in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and most recently in Korean, has generated international interest. Dr. Mendell is also the co-founder of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy established at Concordia University in 1988, the repository of the entire Karl Polanyi Archive.

Nadra Wagdy is a Social Economy Consultant at PME Montréal — Centre Est. She has a bachelor's degree in food science and a master's in sustainable food supply chain management. Her experience in the food system and her passion for social entrepreneurship pushed her to co-found Season Jars, where she develops and facilitates food preservation workshops that bridge theory with practice. Nadra also managed Concordia University's Sustainability Action Fund, where she coached students in developing sustainable business models and drafting funding proposals.

Eric Steedman works at Cooperative Interface, and is a coach at District 3, or D3. He has over 20 years experience as a consultant and entrepreneur, having developed, launched and managed a variety of projects, both for and non-profit. Eric's expertise is largely focused on solving business challenges, including business planning, market research, and organizational and financing strategies. After starting his career in responsible investment management in New York City, Eric returned to Montreal to complete an MBA at McGill. Eric also holds an M.Phil in politics from the University of Glasgow, and a Honours BA in political science from Carleton University in Ottawa. 

Referenced Material

Afrique au Féminin, check their videos here 

"Coops stronger together" an organization started by the American National Co+op Grocers

Check out the CHNGR project, especially their podcast series

"Y'a quelqu'un l'aut'bord du mur" (YQQ)

3rd Global Social Economy Forum in Bilbao, Spain

Coop Cycle Alimentaire 

Learn more about the conceptual and regulatory differences regarding the social economy, social entreprises, and more in the province of British-Columbia (Canada), the province of Nova Scotia (Canada), and the United Kingdom

Ecto Coworking space

Café Velours (check out their Ulule page)

A report on the social economy in Montreal by the Québec government, including statistics (in french)

Music featured in this episode

Various Freesound elements: Sesame Street Big Bird sings That's Cooperation, Lee_Rosevere_-_05_-_Affirmation, What's to love about Food Coops, Podington Bear's Climbing_The_Mountain; Podington_Bear_-_Twosome — (thanks for making your sounds free for non-commercial projects like ours!)

Intro "R U Well" and "Lay it on me" by Best Fern, "Plans fall through" by Alexia Avina

The last show in our series on Indigenous Futures, we present an interview and public lecture with Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot - UBC Professor, is Anishinaabe, a citizen of the Lake Superior Band. She shares with us her ideas around the role of Global Indigenous politics in the initiation of a subtle revolution that may change international relations for the better.

Our guest today Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot, UBC Professor, is Anishinaabe, a citizen of the Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe, enrolled at the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Baraga, Michigan. In 2018, Sheryl was appointed to the role of Senior Advisor to the President on Indigenous Affairs, a position within the First Nations House of Learning. She is an associate professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and the Department of Political Science.

Sheryl is Canada Research Chair in Global Indigenous Rights and Politics. She holds a Master's Degree from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, with specialties in Foreign Policy and International Affairs as well as Economic and Community Development. She also has fifteen years' volunteer and contract experience with a number of American Indian tribes and community-based organizations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including nine years as Chair of the Board of the American Indian Policy Center, a research and advocacy group.

Her book, Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution, was published in May 2016 by Routledge Press in their "Worlding Beyond the West" critical international relations book series.

Referenced Material

• Dr. Lightfoot's book Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action
• Outcome Document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples
• C107 - Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (№107)
• C169 - Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (№169)

 

Music featured in this episode:

• Intro "R U Well" and "Lay it on me" by Best Fern, "Plans fall through" by Alexia AvinaMusic
• Think by Lee Rosevere on FreeMusicArchive.org
• Various Freesound elements: Dr_skitz's Yay; Shady Dave's Mystical glades piano loop.mp3; Shady Dave's feelings of twilight loop; Ispeakwaves' Wonderful - Calm Beautiful - (thanks for making your sounds free for non-commercial projects like ours!)

In this episode we continue the conversation we had in June and bring in some new voices as we discuss issues related to indigenous self-governance. The reason that we want to explore this this topic is the clear tie that indigenous rights has on issues related to resource extraction and preservation. Further we consider how  issues of governance moves the conversation from the idea of empowerment towards access to actual power for these communities.

Music/Sound featured in this episode:

• Intro "R U Well" by Best Fern (https://bestfern.bandcamp.com/track/r-u-well)
• We also used some tape from The Kitigan Zibi Traditional Pow Wow — you can find a list of drummers that were there this year on their website, http://www.kzpowwow.ca/
• Various Freesound elements: Dr_skitz's Yay. Shady Dave's Mystical glades piano loop.mp3; Lemoncreme's Ambient Piano Music #5; Shady Dave's feelings of twilight loop; Ispeakwaves' Soft Piano Loop #2 and Wonderful — Calm Beautiful — (thanks for making your sounds free for non-commercial projects like ours!)

About the community Kigitan Zibin Anishinabeg (KZ)

KZ is a community part of the Algonquin First Nation. To learn more about the community click here. To learn more about the Algonquin First Nation click here.

People interviewed

https://carleton.ca/cu75/profile/gilbert-w-whiteduck/)

Gilbert Whiteduck is member of KZ, and celebrated activist for First Nations rights. He was elected Chief in 2008 until 2015. Learn more about the history of chiefs of KZ here.

Norm Odjick has been director general of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council since 2004. The council delivers technical and advisory services to six Algonquin communities in Quebec, and Norm is responsible for the management of all operations within the organization. Prior to accepting this position, he served three years as the assistant community services director for Kitigan Zibi. He is currently president of the Board of Directors of the Native Benefits Plan, president of the Maniwaki Native Friendship Centre and a member of the Executive Committee of the First Nations Executive Directors of Quebec. In the past, he served on the board of directors of the Caisse populaire Desjardins de la Haute-Gatineau for a period of 10 years, and as the national co-chair of the First Nations Police Governance Authorities. Norm holds a bachelor's degree in Social Science from the University of Ottawa, and a master's level certificate in Public Administration from the École nationale d'administration publique.

Additional Reading

Check out the Anishnabe Nation website here: http://www.anishinabenation.ca/en/about/

Read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report's calls to action here: https://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Learn more about the Indigenous Guardians Program by visiting this website: https://www.ilinationhood.ca/our-work/guardians/

Videos 

Here are the videos featuring Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Check em out.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXjGPR41zhk
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=42&v=VSebV0NInmg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgBqgSkWV5o

This is the unbeeped version of the show - for a beeped version please listen here: https://medium.com/@worldswewant/episode-9-todays-indigenous-futures-culture-edition-fda66137ccd5 

You can subscribe to the show and while you are doing that please rate and share with your friends! As always, if you have an idea of a person or project we should feature, let us know by email.

Music featured in this episode:

• Intro "R U Well" by Best Fern
• We also used a lot of tape from The Kitigan Zibi Traditional Pow Wow — you can find a list of drummers that were there this year on their website.
• Various sound effects and royalty free music include "Piano, Bach Fantasia" by InspectorJ, Soundcrate's Reflection, Setuniman's etude 0V31m

Kigitan Zibin Anishinabeg (KZ)

KZ is a community part of the Algonquin First Nation. To learn more about the community click here. To learn more about the Algonquin First Nation click here.

 

Cheryl showing her excitement as we approach the Pow Wow location, near KZ school

People interviewed

Gilbert Whiteduck is member of KZ, and celebrated activist for First Nations rights. He was elected Chief in 2008 until 2015. Learn more about the history of chiefs of KZ here.

Anita Tenasco is Director of KZ's Education Sector (K.Z.E.S.) and member of KZ. Learn more about the education sector here.

Rene Racine is a member of the KZ community. He's a dancer and drummer at the annual Pow Wow.

 

Rene Racine in action

Julianne Dumont is a member of KZ, a student at Carleton University, works part-time at the Maniwaki Native Friendship Center as well as a substitute teacher.

 

Julianne Dumont and her friend Hunter

Jay Odjick — the man of many hats:

• Black flies is a children's book written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Jay.
• Kagagi — what started as a graphic novel, became the TV show produced by Jay >available on APTN. You can get posters, the graphic novel and more Kagagi stuff here.
• For the Algonquin word of the day, you can purchase some of Jay's posters or follow him on Twitter Jay Odjick where he uses the hashtag #AWOTD. You can also read about it in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) reporting of Jay's initiative.
• You can find and shop for more of his work here.

Skawennati was born in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, and holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, where she is based. You can learn more about her work on her awesome webpage here.

Skawennati is Co-Director, with Jason E. Lewis, of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network of artists, academics and technologists investigating, creating and critiquing Indigenous virtual environments. Learn more about their projects The audio quality for our interview with Skawennati was subpar due to a condition known as "PhD student brain fog" and we reluctantly cut some of the audio that was way too fuzzy to repair/include. There is a quote we want to share with you however, so we will share it here. We asked her about including elements of love in her work — why it was important for her to depict her characters in love:

"You hardly ever see Native people in love or as fully formed beings. You know, I feel silly sometimes saying… love is THE BOMB. It's kind of the thing, right? If you are lucky enough to experience love — it really is something to pursue. It's a feeling to pursue and to cultivate. Because the answer lies in love. The answer to our problems lies in love. I mean, it sounds like the Bible — but it also sounds like the Peacemaker from the Confederacy story. Imagine what could happen if we treat our neighbors as family — you know actually 'love thy neighbor'! I think people are afraid to talk about love — it's also mythical. It's the domain of Hollywood, romantic comedies, or women's novels — you know —it's girly. One of the things I'm noticing, thanks to all the work feminists have done over the generations… now we can bring things that are in our domain and talk about them confidently and without apology…. I'M TALKING ABOUT LOVE…. (also mermaids)…"

For our interview with Skawennati, we used a lot of sound from She Falls for Ages.

 

Description:

Today's episode is a slightly different format compared to the one we've been developing over the last few shows, as we wanted to take advantage of an interesting public conversation that was held at Concordia University a few weeks ago. It was a panel called "What, if anything, is sustainability?" which was a part of the Annual Sustainability Across Disciplines Conference hosted by the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability.

You'll notice that the Brundtland Commission definition (of Sustainable Development) is mentioned quite a few times in the episode. Just in case you need a refresher here it is:

"Sustainable development is the kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

from: Brundtland, G. H. (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. United Nations.

Music featured in this episode:

• Intro "R U Well" and "Lay it on me" by Best Fern
• Outro "Plans fall through" by Alexia AvinaMusic
• Also sampled Parallel Universe, Listen and sound effects: aimless 1C87, Mystery Peak2 + Clean and Pompous Fanfare Trumpet

Speakers:

• Dr. Raymond Paquin, Interim Director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre / Department of Management, John Molson School of Business
• Dr. James Grant, Professor, Biology
• Dr. Amy Poteete, Associate Professor, Political Science
• Dr. Matthias Fritsch, Professor, Philosophy
• Dr. Pedro Peres-Neto, Professor, Biology
• Cheryl Gladu, PhD Candidate

Readings mentioned in the piece:

• Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth. New York, 102, 27.
• Costanza, R., d'Arge, R., De Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B.,& Raskin, R. G. (1998). The value of ecosystem services: putting the issues in perspective. Ecological economics, 25(1), 67–72.
• Jonas, H. (1985). The imperative of responsibility: In search of an ethics for the technological age. University of Chicago press.
• You can read more about elephants migrating to Botswana in a recent article in Quartz.

If you missed the episode we mentioned on managing the commons, you can check it out here.

Description:

In thinking about some of the current challenges that face humanity, such as climate change and the great acceleration, it's easy, but also demoralizing, to shrug these issues off as human nature… you know, thinking that there isn't much that we can do and that we're only going to really face the music when it's playing out in our own backyard.

And let's be real, it's not hard for people to still ignore problems when they are up close and personal… just look at the forest fires on the west coast of the United States and the storms on the east and the intense drive to rebuild in the same spots that were devastated.

With this in mind, we have two interviews to share with you today on the topic of collective action - that is, groups of people getting together to work towards a common objective. First, we are going to share a conversation that we had with Dr. Amy Poteete at the annual Sustainability Across Disciplines conference put on by the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability,

For the second half of the show, we share a conversation we had with author, architect, and community development consultant Kathryn McCamant who shares with us her experience working with and developing cohousing communities, and how she's scaling up her impact with training and collaboration.

Music featured in this episode: 

• Intro "R U Well" and "Lay it on me" by Best Fern
• Outro "Plans fall through" by Alexia Avina
• Back from the Brink, Life Underwater, The Last Fisherman, by K. La Luna for the Radical Oceans Futures Project
• Various sound effects and royalty free music include "Piano, Bach Fantasia" by , and "Plucky Walk," "Bright Future," and "On a Positive Note" found on SoundsCrate.

 Reading:

Some works by Dr. Amy Poteete

• Remember that book we spoke about? She co-wrote Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice (2010) with Marco Janssen and "Lin" Ostrom.
• You can read more about elephants migrating to Botswana in a recent article in Quartz.

Some works by Kathryn McCamant

• She's the president of CoHousing Solutions, where she runs the >500 Communities Program.
• She co-authored THE book on cohousing with Charles Durrett, entitled Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities (2011).

Other ways of building collaboratively: BauGruppen in Germany

• Here's an article in The Conversation that walks us through the concept and applications in Germany.

Check out various cohousing networks:

• United States: the Cohousing Association of the United States.
• Canada: the Canadian Cohousing Network.
• United Kingdom: the UK Cohousing Network.
• Check out this nice Tedx talk by Grace Kim from Vancouver, British-Columbia, Canada.

We gushed about Elinor Ostrom in Episode 3, part 2, and posted a bunch of videos featuring her speaking on these issues back then. You can check it out here (scroll to the end of the post).

Description:

Today we are talking about the Future.

What then of our future? Yours and mine. How do we, as a society, think about the future? How do we think about our future becoming better for more people? How might we think, plan, and work towards the kind of worlds we want - rather than the kind of worlds we just stumble upon?

Well, on today's show we talked to some people who wake up to these kinds of questions every day.

We'll start with a conversation that we had one-afternoon last week, in an unusually warm boardroom in downtown Montreal. We joined a conference call with a few of the folks working at Policy Horizons - namely Marcus Ballinger and Pierre-Olivier Desmarchais. 

Next up is our conversation with Dr. Andrew Merrie from the Stockholm Resilience Centre. We spoke with him about his project, Radical Ocean Futures, which uses science fiction prototyping and mixed media to imagine multiple futures, based on emerging research into oceans.

Music featured in this episode:

• Intro " R U Well" by Best Fern
• Outro "Plans fall through" by Alexia Avina
• Back from the Brink, Life Underwater, The Last Fisherman, by K. La Luna for the Radical Oceans Futures Project
• Various sound effects include "Ambiance, Creepy Wind" by InspectorJ

The people interviewed in this episode are:

• Pierre-Olivier Desmarchais is a policy researcher at Policy Horizons, a think-tank in the federal government of Canada's public service with the mandate "to identify emerging policy issues and explore policy challenges and opportunities for Canada, as well as to help build foresight literacy and capacity across the Government of Canada." He is also a PhD candidate in law at Laval University where his doctoral thesis class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">Marcus Ballinger is Senior Policy Adviser at Environment and Climate Change Canada, currently on assignment at Policy Horizons. He has 20 years of experience in international affairs and policy related to multilateral environmental agreements, trade and development.
• Dr. Andrew Merrie finished his PhD in Sustainability Science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, based at Stockholm University, in 2016 and currently works as a communications officer at the Centre. He's one of the principal authors of the Radical Ocean Futures project which seeks to "explore tools that can help us to think creatively and imaginatively about our future oceans and assess how unexpected changes, along with human responses to those changes, may play out in a complex world that is, at its heart, surprising." You can read more about it in WIRED Magazine here or even in Nature!

A few things referenced in the show

Worth visiting:

• Check out those flying taxis
• Reddit Science AMA: Radical Ocean Futures
• K. La Luna (aka Dr. Kaitlyn Rathwell) website
• Simon Stålenhag's website
• The Bono of Futurism
• Our bet for the next (& best) Disney Princess? That's right: "Pirate Queen" Ching Shih.

Recommended reading

From Horizons:

• Canada 2030: Scan of Emerging Issues-Sustainability
• What if… the Internet of Things facilitated the circular economy?
• What if… self-driving cars were the new mass transit solution for cities?
• What if… consumers took more extreme measures to help build sustainable behaviour?
• Behavioural Insight Brief: The role of narrative in public policy

From Radical Ocean Futures:

• In the scientific journal Futures, "Radical ocean futures-scenario development using science fiction prototyping" (2017)
• The super-duper cool profile of Andrew Merrie in WIRED magazine

Did you miss that show we mentioned on Transdisciplin-whatnow?

• Wondering what transdisciplinarity actually means? Check out our second show, we have some answers.