Schedule
The first Climate Summit event will be a strategy session and familiarization with the technology. Think of it as a 'sound check' moving into 2 hours of substantive planning. We are 'pushing the envelope' with our attempt to use TelePresence for more than we believe it was originally intended to do. We will start patching in our principal set of TelePresence conference rooms from Cisco Systems' San Jose, California location at 8:00 AM on Friday, April 16th. This is equivalent to the afternoon
on April 16th in Europe and Africa, and to late evening in Asia. To determine the time of our initial Climate Summit strategy session in your area, please refer to this international timetable.
Our intent is to discuss how we can 'move the wheel' further and faster from the perspective of civil society, and all of the numerous individuals and organizations that are working towards this end. The ultimate vision of The Climate Summit is to establish a forum, one which is both complementary and alternative to the governmental and diplomatic process, for better planetary stewardship. This is a huge vision. Our April 16th strategy session is a modest first step.
The Peoples' Climate Summit to occur in Cochabamba, Bolivia is pursuing a similar vision. We announced our virtual Climate Summit almost simultaneously with Yvo Morales' announcement of the Bolivian summit. We see ourselves on a convergent path, providing a feed-in to the Cochabamba event to take place the week after our April 16th strategy session. And we would be very pleased to provide both a means for greater participation and reduced carbon-footprint in future Peoples' Climate Summit events.
We should note that the relativity of time zones is, in fact, one of the principal obstacles to establishing such a global forum
like The Climate Summit. But the potential reward of facing this challenge creatively and deliberately is huge, both in terms of the benefit such a durable institution could offer, as well as to set an example for how society can avoid flying countless thousands of people to common locations each year, at great carbon-expense,
simply to be in the same time zone for a meeting or conference. The transition to greater use of telecommunications technology to supplant
carbon-intensive travel is an absolute requirement for our transition to a low-carbon world.
So our first Climate Summit will be a strategy session among representatives of many of the constituencies of civil society, the ultimate stakeholders in the consequence of our current trajectory toward increasing climate destabilization. Please register early for a virtual seat at The Climate Summit, in the comfort of your own home or office, and to stay current as our continuing schedule develops.
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