Preparing to Embark

World Oddysey, the ship for Semester at Sea

Dear Friends, on September 4 I depart for Amsterdam to begin a 16-week period of service as an Earth Day 2020 Ambassador during the Fall 2019 Semester at Sea Voyage. I will living and working in close quarters with some 600 undergraduate students and 100 or so faculty and staff from universities all across the United States, as well as about 50 of us in the Lifelong Learners contingent.

The purpose of my work is to assist members of the shipboard community to link together and with groups in their diverse communities in order to carry forward plans and programs to make Earth Day 2020 events around the world a truly consequential turning point in human history. This work is supported in part by the Earth Island Institute and by generous contributions from friends and colleagues.

During the first week of the voyage I will convene an initial meeting of interested students, faculty, staff and lifelong learners, and I will work each day thereafter to facilitate regular meetings of the group or groups in order to carry out the following activities:

1. preparing and publishing on various social media and other online pages a weekly blog concerning Earth Day 2020 topics and activities of Semester at Sea members in planning events in the countries along the itinerary and at the universities and communities “back home;”

2. planning and carrying out meetings with local environmental leaders in each of the countries along the voyage itinerary;

3. collecting and sending comments and suggestions to those in Santa Barbara who will be working on the 2020 version of the Santa Barbara Declaration of Environmental Rights;

4. preparing and circulating of a summary report of the Earth Day 2020 activities and achievements of the Semester at Sea shipboard community during the voyage.

Upon the conclusion of the Semester at Sea voyage (we disembark in San Diego on December 23), I will return to Santa Barbara where I will continue to serve as an Earth Day 2020 Ambassador for an additional eight months. During this time I intend to help with the presentation in January of the 2020 Santa Barbara Declaration of Environmental Rights; Earth Day 2020 events in the weeks and months before and after April 22; and to be of service in such others ways that assist in the Great Turning of which Earth Day 2020 events and programs are a part.

For now,

In gratitude and joy,

Marc ❤️🌏