March 18^th The opening session. I arrived in time for the briefing which I decided not to attend. I went over to the speakers lounge instead and ran into Maurice Strong. Introduced myself. He did not remember me at first, but after a couple of buzz words he seemed to remember We exchanged cards and his eyes perked up when I indicated my 100 Billion dollar strategy. He indicated we should talk back in Toronto but he did not indicate when he would be there. I made my points, and left him to prepare for his session work that day.

The opening session had little to it. Maurice did make an interesting point. The governments of the world are supporting NON SUSTAINABLE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR to the tune of 700 billion dollars in incentives.

I guess it would make sense that we do some sustainable incentives. DUH!. Christine Stewart brought greetings form the government of Canada, and noted that Globe 96 generated 500 million dollars in environmental technology sales. This number in itself had no meaning to me until she also identified that Canada in total does $16 Billion in this field. I learned later on at the conference, the conference organizers are doing their best to attract International business men, even if they have to pay their way there. I found this a rather unique situation to have the conference pay for an industrialist to attend.

The next speaker was from an energy company - in the gas business and he presented a situation that indicated his company was attempting to be an environmentally friendly company. Then Ray Anderson got up to speak. This man is a gem. I knew it was going to be an excellent presentation as he had everyone get up and give the person next to him/her a hug. The rest of his presentation was no less stimulating. He presented a picture of a company that was doing its best to become, not just a model of holism, but profitable in the process. In this second year of activity the company, Interface saved $50 million dollars, and they have turned this saving back into program and activity to make their company as sustainable as one could make it. His presentation, was excellent and the content also.

After these presentation we went on to the floor where the exhibits were. Not too much to report although there were a number of interesting technologies that I am not well informed enough to comment on. I met a number of University educators and passed on my flyer for my upcoming workshop on World Citizenship, Time, Money and Sustainability. I did a telephone interview on the radio with Kelly White in Vancouver, and then Cathy picked me up and we went to a First Nations drumming ceremony. Over three hundred drums were present, and the evening included presentations from a number of different tribes demonstrating their unique ceremonies. I was not given permission to video this experience, partly due to the fact they had some problems recently with another videographer that gave them a difficult time. I accepted their decision graciously and we enjoyed the presentations, waiting for Kelly to show up - she did not.