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Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits
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Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits
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Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits
Ebook425 pages5 hours

Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

UNFOLDING DREAMS - Journey beyond the Rio SummitsOn January 1, 1992, carpenter Mario Houle and geography student Patrice Boyer embarked on a journey, planning to cross North, Central and South America in a self-initiated campaign called Green Light to Rio. Their plan was to raise awareness about environmental issues that concerned them personally. Thousands of signatures, slogans, petitions, poems and messages of hope were collected on a giant wooden postcard painted by Patrice, and eventually got delivered to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992. This conference, also called the Earth Summit, was unprecedented, as this was the first time in history where political leaders committed to tackling global environmental problems by involving local communities. The campaign visited 34 Canadian Universities, colleges and organizations from coast to coast. When Patrice decided to leave the project, Mario remained determined to complete the envisioned journey through the Americas to Rio de Janeiro. Harry Kessels traveled from Edmonton to join Mario in completing the mission. In a race against the clock with almost no funds and against all odds the new team made it in time, just before the end of the Summit. After traveling roughly the equivalent of the earth’s circumference, the giant postcard was displayed during the final days of the Global Forum as part of the Earth Summit. Then it mysteriously disappeared, and was never seen again. In its course, Green Light to Rio evolved from an awareness and appreciation of nature into environmental activism at grassroots level, naturally progressing into the journey of a lifetime. Twenty years later, along with the Rio+20 Conference, a mural called We Are All One was created by an international group of renowned visual artists. Addressing the Rio+20 theme The Future We Want the mural began traveling in 2012 and will continue through multiple countries, reviving the question: ‘What is your dream for the future of our earth?Genre: Non-fictionThemes : nature, environmentalism, philosophy, education, art, idealism, sustainability, ethics, community, spirituality, politics, biography
LanguageEnglish
PublisherBookBaby
Release dateAug 15, 2012
ISBN9781623097004
Unavailable
Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits

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Reviews for Unfolding Dreams; Journey beyond the Rio Summits

Rating: 3.976190442857143 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Awesome to find a book that touches on Jasper, Valemount, Mount Robson.. so few recognize their existence. Bravo guys! Thanks for making a difference:)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fascinating book. I admire Mario Houle for wanting a change and stopping at absolutely nothing to achieve his goals. Very inspiring.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A fascinating series of adventures around getting a giant postcard to the UN conference in Rio in 1992. I had a difficult time putting it down. I kept wanting to read how Harry and Mario would get to Rio and the conference, and what an amazing feat it was that they actually did what they set out to do! Complete with beautiful photos of Canada and Rio along with various quotes that are appropriate and inspiring. A really good book!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was impressed with the poster cover and was attracted to the book. The book is promising in being very logical and straight forward in its discussions about the serious topic of environment degradation with frequent interesting tid bits thrown around. However, it starts to get monotonous after a while, as the story building is a little weak and it sounds more as a travel journal. However, if you are interested in the real/hidden story behind these summits and the actual work being done, then no other book, published so far, can paint this picture. It's like being involved in conversation with the author.The quotations at the start of each chapters could have been better selected for delivering the punch. The pictures looked very honest and beautiful on the ebook, and I wish I had them in hard copy for a better effect. Having lived in Canada for two years, I feel a sort of personal connection with those places.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is very interesting. I love how it has the fun facts in it- you know the kind you tell around the water cooler at work? Do you know what the first electric instrument was? It is also heartwarming at watching a man being one with nature. I see a lot of Pagan elements in the beginning of the book. The characters are well developed and although it jumps around a little it is well written and eye opening. This book is a must read!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Last year we barely heard anything from Rio +20 because of other world events (Syria, Egypt and the London Olympics,) so this book made me curious. I always wondered what happens at those UN conferences (most people probably got tired of them) and what makes someone a participant, and now I understand it so much better. Harry Kessels has taken a fair amount of time, twenty years to be exact, to write it down from the perspective of the main character Mario Houle with whom he traveled to the original Rio Summit in 1992. It was quite the adventure! The book reads fluently and is full of documented detail. It would be interesting to find out what happened to the original mural and where it is now. Enjoyable read, highly recommended
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A beautiful story which shows what may happen when one person tries to make a change. The anecdotes are visually rich and allowed me to become immersed in the story. The authentic characters initially seem to be random: the blind man in the café, a man hauling his coffin on wheels, and a man carrying a cross on his shoulder. Like in daily life, the reader is kept alert. We never know which encounter is going to be essential or whom we will be meeting next: it can be perilous, embarrassing or humorous and it can even change our life. Coincidence in this book is scarce, or at least, it is written from the view that everything seemed to happen for a reason. The middle section describes a stressful marathon through Central America and the deadline of making it to the conference. Towards the end, a calmer pace sets in and there is time for reflection. This book displays an overall positive message without losing its sense of reality. Often with the environment, especially through media and politicians there is a lot of cynicism about evil forces, conspiracies and lack of control. The stories in this book show us the exact opposite: the change is from within ourselves and this is how we choose direction to control our situation or respond to circumstances. Someone in the book says “we have to lead and then the leaders will follow.” Towards the end, it says “we co-create our own reality. But we’re not alone in this journey” and this sums it up very well. I found that very inspiring.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have read many books and this one grabbed my attention from start to finish. It's the story that counts and this is a comprehensive, well-written series of identifiable real life stories, well-structured, it has deep content and relevant questions for this day and age. The book will appeal to many and be passed around. What strikes me most in this book is that the stories are interconnected. Initially they seem to be separate short stories but soon various themes surface. Halfway the book, the direction and arch of personal growth of the main character are unequivocal. In his travels he meets many similar characters, many are also on a personal quest. I also liked the way in which it is written in straightforward language without unnecessary embellishments. Although it is 'only' a paperback edition, it has colour pictures and illustrations weaved throughout. The calibre of the book would justify a hardcover edition. On the other hand, I have seen dozens of coffee table books made of expensive paper (not ancient forest friendly, mind you) that are beautifully bound that never get opened, I was in the doctors office a few months ago and in the book rack was a hardcover book on Bateman the wildlife artist, I picked it up and realized that it was in good shape because hardly anyone read it , maybe one out of ten people bothered to pick it up. On the other hand a couple of years back there was a dog eared book called 'the Shack' that was getting passed around, It received no promotion from any publisher, yet made it to several weeks on the New York best seller list , the book was an ordinary paper back.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Unfolding DreamsHarry KesselsEach section of UNFOLDING DREAMS begins with a group of three quotes. One by Victor Hugo reads: How sad to think that nature speaks but mankind doesn’t listen. Mario Houle was listening.While Mario Houle was growing up in Quebec, Canada, he became developed a love of walking and became aware of how people were damaging the environment. The first journey in tells of his walk across Canada. He made stops along the way, starting projects in some areas, hoping to do more in others. As a carpenter, he frequently took on construction jobs to earn money.In Jasper, he found a youth hostel that was in very poor condition. He proposed replacing it with an ecologically sound building, holding a contest to pick the design and hiring unemployed and underemployed people to do the construction, thereby giving them vocational training. He also started an ecological resource center and the first recycling program there. They were able to pay the rent for their office with the money raised from bottle deposit refunds.During this journey, he decides to make a mural to encourage people to take action to save the environment, take it across Canada, have people sign it, and put it on display. With a friend, he accomplishes that and decides to take the mural to a ecology conference in Rio.The second part of the book is the tale of the journey (by car) to Rio through the United States, Central America, and some South American countries. He meets Harry Kessels, who is the author of the book and they face a lot of challenges determining whether or not they are able to display the mural at the conference. The last part of the book relates what happens to them after Rio.My favorite quote, the one I use on my facebook page to describe my philosophy, reads: “The meaning of life is to discover your gifts. The purpose of life is to give them away.” Until reading this book, I didn’t know who originated it. It is one of the section opening quotes and is by David Viscott.He believes that he receives signs that influence his actions. For example, he was planning to enlist in the Army. Just as he got to the base, one of the tires on his bike exploded. He took that as a sign that the Army was not for him so he followed another path. One sign he didn’t recognize is the $18 that three girls gave him to help him on his journey. In Hebrew, letters are used to indicate numbers. The number 18 spells the word chai which means life.The story is augmented by some very nice pictures, maps, newspaper articles, and brochures.My main criticism is that we are told too much. At times it seems he tells everything that happened even if it really doesn’t impact the main story. For example, he mentions one-time encounters including a couple paragraphs about a girl he once dated. It causes the story line to drag.I received this book as a review copy from LibraryThing..
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was the largest environmental conference in history. From it emerged a body of environmental legal principles designed to address the conflict between sustaining economic development and the need for global solutions to pressing environmental problems such as climate change, acid rain, ozone depletion, and nuclear accidents. In this well-researched study,Mario Houle and Harry Kessels argues that the real challenge facing the self-interested nation-states that participated will be to look beyond their own boundaries to the welfare of the planet as a whole and actually implement the Rio environmental principles. Would you please take a moment to consider your level of ecological intelligence. We have to be better stewards of the natural resources that God has so graciously provides for us! “Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.”It's not depressing like all the other environmentalist books. Hopeful and logical.Great book with a great message! If you are interested in climate change or sustainability issues, I recommend this book.