The theme for the third day of the conference was how to make transformation just, deliberative and equitable. Asun St. Clair from CICERO held a framing talk where she pointed out that transformation can be for the better or for the worse and that it is we as humans who will decide, bringing our values into decision-making.

Download high-res pictures from the conference here

Related articles:
First day summary: Setting the scene
Second day summary: How do we do transformation in practice?
Extreme dialogue: "Hell doesn't sell"
An introduction to the conference "Transformation in a Changing Climate

Stuck in a rut?
"How to Transform an Oil-Based Society into a Sustainable Society?" The title of the first plenary discussion on the transformation conference’s third and last day offered a fitting topic for a conference taking place in Oslo.

On the panel were; Helge Ryggvik, senior researcher at the Center for Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo, Stein B. Jensen from Den Norske Veritas, Paul Hawken, environmentalist, entrepreneur and author, and Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, MA student at Center for Development and Environment, Uni of Oslo. Representing research, business and future generations.

"Norway became famous for environmentalism with the publication of the Brundtland report in 1987. In the thirteen years that followed, the country tripled its oil production," Helge Ryggvik explained.

Now with election coming up next year, it was brought up several times during the conference that climate and oil are treated as non-issues, and are still not addressed in political debate.

"People I talk to often say that "It’s great that you care so much" and my answer to them is; Yes, why don’t you?" said Lan Marei Nguyen Berg.

Changing tracks
Karen O’Brien said in her framing talk on the first day of the conference that all it takes is a ten percent change in a network to start a transformation of the whole. This means that we have good chance – if the politicians aren’t ready, others can get engaged.

"We keep looking for love in the wrong places," Paul Hawken said, quoting the song with the same title. It is time to start listening to new tunes: "We are moving into a world where the energy sources are not dense, in the way that coal and oil is. So we need to reimagine what a society looks like in this new energy regime."

As much as we need politicians and activists, we need people more.

Ignite the fire
In the session "Towards a New Science of Transformation" María Heras from Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) talked about the use of theatre and performative methods in science. The review includes 34 cases in a broad variety of sciences and 10 cases of applied theatre in environmental projects.

The main conclusion from the study is that theatre can be a tool for unique dialogues and social learning connecting emotions and different forms of knowledge.

"If we want to engage people in transformation we have to create spaces where people can combine scientific knowledge with other layers of understanding, to create new meaning; new ways to frame their reality."