The Halifax Story
This presentation tells how Halifax, Nova Scotia became a global leader on environment and health awareness. In a series of citizen-lead initiatives, the city adapted Non-Smoking Legislation, a Pesticide Bylaw, Scent-Free Policies, and two Healthy Schools built to the highest environment and health standards. Cole played a central role in these initiatives. For more detail see her report entitled: Healthy Cities for Healthy Life
The Cutting Edge
Sheila Cole has thirty five years of experience as a leading voice, locally, nationally and internationally on a broad range of issues, always seen through the lens of Environment and Health. Here she takes you through the journey by highlighting some of the challenges, the partnerships, and the victories that have kept her deeply engaged and have shaped her rare brand of expertise.
Cole is an inspiring role model at the cutting edge of what can be an environmentally sustainable, healthy and resilient future. Whether she is talking about participating in the establishment of her city’s Pesticide Bylaw or Canada’s highly regarded Chemicals Management Plan, the interrelationship between environment and health is always the focus. She may be addressing international audiences about the subject of healthy, sustainable and resilient cities at UN Habitat conferences, or meeting with workers in the Phillipines distraught about their disintegrating fingernails, high rates of miscarriage and skin rashes from unprotected pesticide exposures while picking vegetables and ornamental flowers for market…no matter the subject, the discussion relates to environment and health. There is much to be learned and many strategies to take away from the large slice of experience that she shares about her journey to date. She illustrates indisputably that health is the real driver of environmental change.
Multi-Stakeholder Engagement for Environmental Change
This speech centres on the How and Why of bringing government and industry leaders, the environmental community and academia together to discuss environmental challenges and develop deep and lasting solutions toward an environmentally healthy and sustainable future. Cole draws on her dynamic successes working on issues at the municipal, provincial, national and international levels to show why this form of partnership is successful.
This form of cooperation and commitment leads to policies and legislation that are both timely and essential to restoring balance and health to the planet and all living things. Learn how you can use this form of decision-making to create deeper and longer lasting solutions in your community or organization.
Changing the World – By Committee
Cole draws on her 35 years of expertise as a successful Chair of numerous environmental committees and caucuses to give you simple ways your team can solve a range of environment and health issues. She shares in considerable detail how a small number of people can create change at the local level that has the potential to ripple out to the country at large and even reach the far corners of the globe. As few as two people can come together to start a committee and then build it into an organized, cooperative and productive group that inspires positive environmental changes for the benefit of the earth and all beings. Discover the efficiencies and habits that keep members positive, engaged and productive over time, ultimately influencing policy initiatives for greater environmental protection, sustainability and prosperity.
Dream Green
All action is preceded by thought. Creating positive environmental change requires inspiring thoughts that come from vision and even courage to dream green and dream big! By changing the dream for the future you can then formulate the thoughts and actions required to manifest the dream and thereby change the current reality. This process will inform changes required by individuals, governments, industry and academia alike to create a green future for all. Cole will give you concrete examples of how this has worked in her long years of working on issues like wilderness preservation, chemicals management, atmosphere and energy, mining, and health. She will inspire you to approach the future with confidence and to dare to dream!
Is Your Home Making You Sick?
Environmental pollutants, air quality, killer viruses, mould….how do you begin to understand how all of these things affect your health? How many of these things may be lurking in your own home? Cole walks you through every room in a typical home, helping you to identify every day pollutants and other irritants that may be responsible for your brain fog, frequent colds and flu’s, or even a serious disease. One of the best ways to stay healthy and resilient in the face of climate change-related disease vectors and superbugs is to boost your immunity by decreasing your overall chemical and pollutant load. Cole is considered a pioneer in the field of environment and health and has been teaching about this very subject since 1990.
Your home is the one place where you have control over environmental exposures. Here you can make easy and immediate changes to achieve protect your health and vitality. This will contribute to a significantly healthier home environment. It will also reduce sick days at school and at work and contribute to the increased productivity, joy and even longevity of the entire household.
Most people spend up to forty hours or more each week at their workplace. Environmental exposures at work can affect your decision-making capacity, your ability to concentrate, and most certainly your overall productivity. If you experience brain fog, get frequent colds and flu’s, suffer from bronchitis or asthma and miss work frequently due to illness, it may be related to exposures at the workplace. Sheila Cole has addressed chemists, teachers, librarians, physicians and various other groups and organizations on this subject at their annual conferences.
Each workplace has its unique considerations. It is in the interest of individuals and employers alike to ensure that the workplace is one which promotes health and well being. An environmentally healthy workplace guarantees increased performance, less absenteeism due to illness, more committed and happy employees, and results in healthier profit margins as well. Responsible employers are showing increased interest in this subject. A healthy workforce contributes to a robust economy and ultimately to significant savings in health costs across the societal spectrum. Health is the real driver of environmental change!
The Environmentally Healthy Workplace
Environment, Health and Spirituality
The merging of these three topics gets to Cole’s core message…” The challenge facing humanity at this time is to understand and act upon the interrelationship of all things”. Aboriginal people have not forgotten these linkages between health, environment and spirituality. It is the developed world that needs to come back into alignment and attunement with this knowledge. Health is the real connector here. This speech explores the interconnection between the health of the earth and that of humans and all living things. Anything we do to heal one of these automatically heals the other, bringing all ecosystems, animals, people, plants, the air and waters of the earth back into balance. Cole will give details of essential, practical and empowering daily actions that each person can take to be a part of the vital, shared role in the
transformation that will weave environment, health and spirituality back into their natural harmonious state.
Create a Topic Customized to Your Needs….
Organizations, hospitals, schools, government buildings and businesses have many different environmental concerns and areas of interest. After familiarizing yourself with Sheila Cole’s expertise through browsing the website, you may want to combine topics from which a customized speech will be created to address your specific interests.