Hello Amanda,
Great to get your email, below. I had just been pondering how to connect to ‘you guys’?: Firstly, to thank you for access to the National Footprint Accounts, and secondly, to hopefully formally share my initiative and its synergy with Global Footprint Network. To explore a formal partnering option? So it would seem that your email is timeous?
Below, I outline where and how I have benefited / shared / used Global Footprint Network since 2016.
The first thing is: Without the Global Footprint Network, I almost certainly wouldn’t have started One Point Zero, my activist initiative, back in 2016! I had been on a huge 12 year exploration of the society and the planet, and then came across Global Footprint Network, The Ecological Footprint methodology and approach, just aligned 100% with my anecdotal exploration findings. It was the final piece I needed to stop my global exploring and start becoming an activist for the cause. Those that know me know that its now become my life calling!
Here are some quick links to some of what I have been doing that is closely linked to Global Footprint Network Goals, Methodology, and ‘all’ the Footprint data the organisation has shared with me :
- Inaugural One-Point Zero Mission. Trumped by Nature Here
- Switzerland 2016 Referendum and New Zealand Decisions World First referendum on One Point Zero Here
- Ecological Footprint and 2017 UK Election: Another Critical Election Here
- What Living a ‘One Point Zero Life’ Means? Here
- My February 2018 approach to the newly elected, New Zealand Government. Here
- My Personal Footprint Challenge: One Point Zero Mission Accomplished. Truth to Power Here
The above e-letters / web pages have been viewed by many thousands (not millions!) as I had a good online follower / supporter group from ‘my previous life as a global explorer. (A check on Google will point to this.) Part of my communications challenge has been trying to take people along with me, who sadly to say, are huge footprint people who are personally threatened by a One Point Zero picture. (Lots of valuable exploring feedback here!)
As you hopefully see I have been ‘spreading the message’ around the world! Beyond these few links here is what I believe is important context for understanding my whole initiative, and where I am now at and trying to go? Here we go:.
I’d like to think that I’m fairly unique in that after being a ‘high life’ / ‘high footprint’, successful business person in the nineties, I sensed all was not right, and chose to break free and explore the extremities of the planet, by real adventure, living a simple life, with a philosophy: Without Nature We are Nothing. This huge personal transformation has provided me with huge insights into the challenges Western society faces in addressing our ever increasing Ecological Overshoot challenge. With my simple living, I thought I had found an exemplary life style for the elite, but the global Footprint Network helped me see that, in my extensive flying, I still had an above ‘Fair Share’ footprint. Fair share is what I call a One Point Zero, footprint, Life Style.
Having been CEO and leader of a number of businesses, I have always been a ‘Walk the Talk’ leader, leading by example. As an intrepid explorer must ‘experience the experience’, not read about it, or watch others doing it: To understand the Human side of Change and Challenge. As you would also know: Our Footprint overshoot problem is needing of exactly that: A Cultural Transformation, and particularly by the large footprint ‘Trail Blazers’ . I needed to be able to talk to society from that ‘having transformed’ perspective.
First stop was me getting MY ‘footprint house in order’!: Over the past two years, using Global Footprint Network Ecological Footprint methodology as a reference, I set out to live for a period of 12 months within my fair share of our Ecological Capacity. Read here:
While taking on this personal challenge, I have travelled the world on container ships, as the only passenger, to spread the Ecological Footprint overshoot problem and our One Point Zero imperative. I have written blogs, posted on my website, and had thousands of ‘one on one’ meetings with all sorts of people from wealthy business people, to academics, to parents with their teenager kids, to the average person in the street…..All around the world. The meetings weren’t always easy, but were always honest and .Inconvenient Truth’ challenging. It was here that my Walk the Talk, One Point Zero lifestyle testimony proved invaluable. A real case of Truth to Power!
Two years on, the ‘picture of society’ I have is quite different from what I thought in 2016 when I set out:
To my total surprise, very few, if any that I have met, were aware of the Global Footprint Network, and almost everyone complimented me on the focus I seem to bring to the Global Warming / Climate Change rhetoric which they had come across. This focus / clarity was largely thanks to the Global Footprint Network’s data / graphs, and then combined with the focusing concept that One Point Zero brings to what Success MUST be! There is no doubt that a global, business / non greenie focused educational initiative along similar lines to the ‘presentations’ I did would produce a step change in global awareness. Awareness of what the REAL problem is, and also, very importantly: How really serious that problem is, and where we ‘should be’: A One Point Zero world!! What is also important is that it subtly gets people to have to make a choice: With the clarity, there is no more room to hide. I say that in a problem solving context, that I’m sure you will understand and appreciate
It is so very clear to me that people are just not clear on what this whole climate problem? Yes, Greenhouse Gas emissions, Carbon emissions, etc, IPCC Paris agreements, etc, but it all seems to abstract and far away from people.
Midway through 2017, I concluded that ‘everyone’ is crying a Climate Problem, blaming capitalism, complaining about the Wealth Gap, etc, yet there is no alternative to today’s ‘System’ being proposed. Well not one that starts with a One Point Zero goal? I had to confront myself and accept that I was also just an ‘Alarm Bell ringer’. I concluded that ‘The World’ is needing a New Vision presented to it. A whole new ‘System of Society’. (Definition of Success, Economy, Cultural re-alignment) . One that starts with a mandatory One Point Zero, world goal. So behind the scenes I have been working on that, and progressed quite far (with others who are very well known to your organisation) to the point I now want to establish a formal partner link with your organisation. I have ‘conceptual technology’ that I believe could be instrumental in enabling change. (My own personal transformation and experience moving from an elitist Good Life, to a simple One Point Zero world has been hugely valuable. )
Anyway all a long story… Apologies, but I hopefully it finds some connection with you? Thanks again for opening up this communication opportunity.
Look forward to your response.
Best regards,
Howard Fairbank
Tel.: UK: +44-777-1357-199 NZ +64-212090486
skype:howard.fairbank
Without Nature We are Nothing..!
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