Philosophers to Engineers talk sustainability in France

Lately in class we have been addressing meaningful communication in talking about sustainability. Some of the focus has been on promoting optimism through empowering individuals to effect change by joining forces with their communities. We've also discussed the gains in social capital that can be made with sustainable practices--strengthening communities, decreasing isolation, etc. I was therefore intrigued by a post on WorldChanging about an annual "inter-disciplinary colloquium" in France. It's hosted in a castle in Normandy for a week and is called Cerisy-la-Salle. It gathers thirty to fifty disparate minds together to form week-long colloquiums to dicuss diverse topics. The post's author, Alan Atkisson, participated in a colloquium on called "Changer pour Durer" or change to last, where durer implies "développement durable", sustainable development. It was organized by representatives of the French institute Cenagref, the Reims Business School, and Oxford University. Cenagref stands for "Le Centre National de Gestion des Réserves de Faune" which translates roughly to the national center of management of fauna reserves. These three organizers give a sense of the diversity of influences.

Atkisson notes that in France all students take a year of philosophy, and it is enormously popular in France relative to other countries. Café Philo events take place throughout the country, and I've even listened to them in my Alliance Francaise house back in Berkeley. There is unfortunately a dearth of philosophers present at the sustainability conferences that Atkisson attends, and so he finds their presence among practitioners, scientists, and computer model builders as exceptional. The effect of hearing philosophers discuss in French the topics of sustainability with which he is very familiar strikes him as unique, especially the dichotomy between the philosophers and computer modelers. The philosophers view the modelers as ignorant of the negative impacts that their simplified models might have, and the modelers retort that the philosophers simply don't understand nor desire to understand what they are doing. Debate, Atkisson notes, is welcomed in France and need not end in consensus.

Other interesting themes where revealed during the colloquium. Practitioners of different disciplines remarked on working outside their normal mode of thought when dealing with sustainability issues. A performance artist was compelled to inhabitually discuss her work, and modelers who had worked in Senegal with farmers spoke of using intuition and empathetic feelings to make their project succeed. There was also a contrast in optimism between older and younger attendees; the younger attendees were perplexed by the pessimism of the elders.

Taking a brief look at the Cerisy program of events (http://www.ccic-cerisy.asso.fr/programme.html), it's worth translating one of the listed programs to give a sense of the colloquium

The modern city is a type of living entity in full mutation/change, in which the daily trips and public transport play a predominant role. The great agents, direct and indirect, of these multiple forms of mobility can no longer content themselves with transporting users: they are obligated to ask the question of the way in which the travelers "inhabit" their different modes of transport. From the passenger-mile, one is thus passed to "services of the movement of people". It is in the context of this new change that will be confronted, in growing theoretical contributions, concrete productions and artistic performances, the points of view of philosophers, socialogists, architects, urban developers, designer, artists, elected officials, and transport professionals. We will examen the rules and the conduits of sociability that develop, by their technical, social, architectural, aesthetic, ethnic and political dimensions, in the areas of mobility. This colloquium has the objective of defining/outlining the nature of urban areas, being continuously reordered, that engender the world city, up to the point of intimacy of these faces, in short to capture the nature of the links that the places evoke.

Original-
La ville moderne est une espèce de corps vivant en pleine mutation, dans lequel les
déplacements quotidiens et les transports en commun jouent un rôle prépondérant. Les grands acteurs, directs et indirects, de ces multiples formes de mobilités ne peuvent plus se contenter de transporter des usagers: ils sont obligés de se poser la question de la manière dont les voyageurs “habitent” leurs différents modes de transport. Du voyageur-kilomètre, l’on est ainsi passé aux “services à la mobilité des personnes”. C’est dans le contexte de cette mutation nouvelle que seront confrontés, en croisant apports théoriques, réalisations concrètes et performances artistiques, les points de vue de philosophes, de sociologues, d’architectes, d’aménageurs urbains, de designers, d’artistes, d’élus, de professionnels du transport. L’on examinera les règles et les conduites de sociabilité qui se développent, selon leurs dimensions techniques, sociales, architecturales, esthétiques, éthiques et politiques, dans les espaces de mobilité. Ce colloque a pour objectif de cerner la nature des urbanités, sans cesse recomposées, qu’engendre la ville-monde, jusqu’à l’intimité de ses figures, bref de saisir la nature des liens que les lieux suscitent.

I probably didn't quite get the sense of all the words, but it's interesting to look at their approach to a subject as, if not mundane, practical, as public transit and movement of people. It notes that the colloquium is supported by two French transit agencies RATP (Parisian) and SNCF (the national railroad.)

All in all, this article and the event fascinate me, because they expose the French way of thinking with respect to sustainability. They espouse many of the values we talk about in class--bringing together diverse interests and thinking outside the normal constraints of the issue. As a language-lover it also makes me think about the importance of creating forums for non-English discussion about sustainability. Most international conferences are necessarily constrained to English, which unfairly handicaps non-native English speakers (especially philosophers) by limiting their ability to express themselves.