The THIERRY Programs in Environmental Leadership (Climate Change Impact Anticipation) TERRA

The Terra Programmes

The Certificate, Graduate and Postgraduate Courses and Curricula

with a special focus on Leadership and the Natural Environment

"Caring for nature, for our Earth, is the most crucial issue in the coming decades. It is about our most basic needs. It is about the viability of the next generations. It is the leadership issue, ultimately at the root of any other contemporary issue. It is about survival of our whole world, not about survival of the fittest." (Jean-Pierre Bal, 2001)

Newswire '06

Newswire '07

1. Introduction

"On the prospect of, in retrospect"

by Jean-Pierre Bal

July 2010. On renewing the introduction for the TERRA programme, some eight years after its pioneering launch, the message has become more pressing still. It is in today's society, in the here-and-now, every day, as well as in the coming years, almost relentlessly, that individuals and societies alike have to act upon all of the crucial environmental challenges and crises that can already be envisioned today. Such as the many impacts of climate change, the rapid changes that are occurring, amongst a series of issues arising. Many foresee this 21st century to be one of, mildly stated, continuously straining life environments, and at all levels of our worldwide societies. Changes will increase exponentially in the decades ahead, and the manageability of local, regional, and global factors will be highly complex.

The individual or community perception and interpretation of environmental factors, or of mother earth in general, is subject to varying degrees of sensibility or importance, and bound to be influenced by a myriad of factors of many types and natures. Some events seem far away from our homes, they are perhaps difficult to picture, to grasp, such as the accelerated melting of Arctic ice caps, or deforestation in the middle of a jungle, or an almost unstoppable oil spill in an ocean, thousands of miles away. Nevertheless one can be directly or indirectly exposed to its impacts: physically, mentally, pecuniary, professionally, and so on. Whether we wish it or not, all of us are in effect exposed to such effects, to a higher or "lesser" extent.

For a whole series of past events a large number of people around the world has to search for details in history, as recent as the late 20th century, for instance the acid rain alerts in the 1960s, or the mercury poisoning of fish in the seventies, or a dramatic nuclear accident in the early eighties. That a number of major trigger events, or signals, are unknown or non-experienced by many, opens the particular chapter on the successive generations of people, on the content and value of retrospect, of individual and collective memory, and also on the legacy and the transmission of environmental values.

At times I am being asked about the reason of my being a leadership educator, the why. Or on the taking of initiatives, the what, including unimplemented projects or inaction. Or about the question when, the time dimension. Let me briefly address here some of those questions.

About ideas and initiatives, in retrospect. Some thirty-five years ago, during my high school years, I was working on a pilot project called Biotope 2000, an envisioned series of environmental awareness publications that focused on the next decades. For diverse reasons, plus my lacking experience, and self-confidence, the project did not come to fruition, the prototype remained on the drawing board. And so did the Guide to automotive fuel economies, some five years later. Twenty years later, in 2002, as if it all emerged from a long dormancy, while adopting a different shape, and with a few persons awaiting the practical use or experiencing of it, the comprehensive and leader-oriented EnviroLead curriculum programme was launched (the programme was later renamed into Terra, the Latin word for earth).

About leadership education, on the prospect of... our Earth. Returning to the time dimension: it is never too late to act. When by attending the Terra programme a person feels "stronger", more competent in taking or continuing to take initiatives, to lead other persons, teams, organisations, to enact change, to share environmental values, to persevere in projects coming to fruition,... then the aim of the programme will have been met : the embodiment of its purpose, that of grooming leaders who have the environment more than on their minds, the ones who have it in their souls.

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© Copyright 2002-2010, TERRA Thierry Graduate School of Leadership, Ardennes eco-campus (OLA & OAA/ALA Units Europe). All rights reserved for all countries. Introduction "On the prospect of, in retrospect", © copyright 2010 Jean-Pierre Bal. Note: the TERRA programmes were previously called EnviroLead.

Updated: 23 July 2010