Author: Stuart Thorp

In this article I will focus on the Climate Crisis initiative that we are progressing together with our colleagues across PMI European Chapters. I will give an update on the Climate Fresk pilot workshops we have successfully completed, describe sessions to share awareness across other PMI Chapters as well as sharing the early-stage plans for a "Sustainability Community of Action" event for all PMI European Chapters in November 2023.

I will follow-up my comments of last month on the weather as May has unfortunately been another dramatic month!

Climate Fresk

Climate Fresk is a platform aimed at raising awareness of the Climate Crisis through the delivery of 3-hour participative workshops.

We held 2 pilot workshops on 20 and 25 May with participation of 11 members across 9 PMI European Chapters.

On 31 May we held a review of the workshops. The outcome was a recommendation to proceed with rollout across PMI European Chapters based on the following positive review feedback:

• 9.8 (out of 10) average review score
  (for suitability as a tool to raise Climate Awareness in PMI)
• Would help reduce climate-knowledge gaps in our members
• Based on the definitive science of the IPCC Reports
• Action oriented – includes “what to do about it”
• Complex information made simple
• Innovative and engaging
• Well prepared, self-contained, high quality
• Immediately accessible “out of the box”
• Scalable (already 1.1 million attendees, growing exponentially)
• “Train-the-Trainer” part of the philosophy – to support scale up

Next steps on this initiative are the presentation of the recommendations to PMI European Chapter Presidents (3 July) with, subject to agreement, follow up with the individual Chapters.  I hope to bring news in next month's newsletter of what opportunities this will bring for PMI Belgium and PMI-NIC Chapter members.

Sharing thoughts with PMI Northern Italy & UK Chapters

I was delighted to be invited by PMI Northern Italy Chapter (NIC) to present at one their lunchtime sessions "A PRANZO CON IL NIC". On 13 June I shared my thoughts on: "What can we do as individuals (and together) to fight the climate crisis?"

The call was well attended, with a total of 101 attendees.

I was delighted to receive positive feedback with a significant majority liking the event a lot. This was important to me as my aim was to present a hopeful message despite the sometimes-concerning message.  

A video of the event (30 mins) is available here.

I have a similar opportunity with the PMI UK Chapter on 19 June in one of their Sustainability Community of Action events where we will also further discuss next steps for Climate Fresk for PMI UK. 

These opportunities have arisen from our initiative to promote cross-Chapter collaboration on the theme of Climate Crisis.

Sustainability Community of Action

Led by PMI-UK Chapter and together with colleagues from other Chapters, we are in the early stages of planning a Sustainability event under the banner of “Sustainability Community of Action” (final event title to be communicated).

This will be a cross-Chapter online event leveraging the same conference platform ("hopin") that was used for the “PM4TheWorld” event of 29-30 March 2023 in support of the Turkey / Syria Earthquake Disaster as well as the “International Women's Day” event hosted by PMI UK on 8th March.

The target date is 8 Nov 2023 so please put this in your diaries as we are aiming for significant attendance across all PMI European Chapters.

We already have some very interesting sessions starting to take shape so this should be a great opportunity to progress our activity together relating to the Climate Crisis.

Let's talk (again) about the weather!

I issued my last newsletter article on 16 May. In that article I referred to the regional drought situation being faced in France and Italy. I was shocked with the sad news of 17 May that there had been severe flooding leading to loss of life in Emilia Romagna region of Northern Italy. I updated my article to provide an accurate view and out of respect to the victims of the flooding.

 

I referred to the "luck" we have recently had in Belgium, although since writing the last article we have been facing a "blocked" weather situation with very little change and minimal rain. This is an example of a consequence of a slower and more "meandering" jet-stream caused by global warming. 

Whilst this has been for a relatively short period, with the situation not yet generally serious in Belgium, the first forest fires of the year have been reported.

Unfortunately, May was much more serious in other global regions as reported by Carlos Garcia on LinkedIn.

The current weather patterns are nothing short of extraordinary.
🔥 Siberia: Witnessed its hottest day in recorded history.
🔥 Canada: Over 28,000 sq. km devastated by rampant wildfires.
🔥 Antarctic: Recorded the lowest sea ice extent for the month of May.
🔥 Global: May observed the highest sea surface temperatures on record.
🔥 Japan: Over 100 rainfall records shattered.

Expanding on the situation in Canada, the situation seems to be very serious as reported in this post from World Meteorological Organization Climate and Energy leader Roberta Boscolo.

This is an example of international impacts as the forest fires in Canada are leading to major disruption in USA.

I was in a call, with a USA based colleague on 8 June. Air quality was poor in Minneapolis, MN but other areas of North-Eastern USA were facing much worse impacts:

In conclusion

Faced with the reality that Climate Change is already happening, it can sometimes feel a little scary - what can we do to maintain a positive and purposeful outlook?

I find Greta Thunberg's words on this very helpful:

 

"Yes, we do need hope - of course, we do. But the one thing we need more than hope is action.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere." Greta Thunberg 2018

Let's take action together and be hopeful.

As always, I welcome any feedback & comments on this and my other articles.

Stuart Thorp