Nov 22, 09
High Entropy? Moi?
When I first came to Tokyo, fashionable parts of the city would be lined with hundreds of heavy taxis sitting in queues with their engines running, for hours on end. Every powered item was always on, 24/7. Tokyo Metropolitan Government has passed a law against idling cars - but this hall of mirrors atrium is a reminder that high entropy Tokyo will not disappear without a struggle. This picture is by way of context for my lecture yesterday at the International Design Symposium which was...
Will Allen and the Urban Farming Revolution
Ethan Zuckerman is blogging from Camden, Maine, at the wonderful Pop!Tech conference. Will Allen is redefining farming. His farm is a set of greenhouses in a corner of Northwest Milwaukee, walking distance from the city’s largest housing project. His farm doesn’t just feed 10,000 local residents – it’s a source of jobs, of training in polyculture and transformation of waste into food, and a model for the future of urban farming. Will’s a soft-spoken guy, a...
Geoengineering the Planet: The Possibilities and the Pitfalls
Interfering with the Earth’s climate system to counteract global warming is a controversial concept. But in an interview with Yale Environment 360, climate scientist Ken Caldeira talks about why he believes the world needs to better understand which geoengineering schemes might work and which are fantasy — or worse. Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira first became known for his groundbreaking work on ocean acidification, a phrase originally coined as a headline for one of his papers. Of...
What Will Tourism Be Like In The Twenties?
By Anna Simpson Is long and luxurious replacing the no-frills minibreak as the tourist trend of the future? Anna Simpson packs her bags. Two drifters, off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. (Johnny Mercer, 1961) There’s something gloriously slow about the sort of tourism evoked in Moon River. It’s impossible to sing the song at a lick, with its lyrics stretched out over long bars towards the distant dream of a stylish, ‘some day’ trip. You imagine the two...
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
I thought I knew William Kamkwamba’s story. I was in the audience at the TED Global conference in Arusha, Tanzania when William took the stage to introduce himself and the remarkable windmill he’d built at his family’s house in rural Malawi. Like dozens of others in the audience, I was moved first to laughter, and then to tears by William’s explanation of how he turned some PVC pipe, a broken bicycle and some long wooden poles into a machine capable of generating...
The Lessons of Katrina: Global Warming Adaptation is a Cruel Euphemism and Prevention is Far, Far Cheaper
I’m updating this post from August 29, 2007, along with pieces of the adaptation trap — Part 1 and Part 2 from March 2008. The L.A. Times has brought to prominence (and fallen for) what I call the “adaptation trap”: The adaptation trap is the belief that 1) “it would be easier and cheaper to adapt than fight climate change” [as the Times puts it in the sub-head] and/or 2) “adaptation” to climate change is possible in any meaningful sense of the word absent an intense...
A Bright Green Argument for Geoengineering
Jamais wrote an excellent opinion piece in the WSJ arguing for geoengineering research and experimentation. While I disagree with his conclusion and find geoengineering a poor strategy for getting us out the the troubles we're in, his piece is really worth reading. He manages to steer clear of offering political cover to denialists (who have been using the idea of geoengineering to deny the need for emissions reductions), yet make a really cogent, clear argument about what he thinks...
Earth 2100, Tonight
So a ways back I was interviewed pretty extensively by ABC in preparation for their special "television event" Earth 2100. It airs tonight: It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind. It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we...
Scanning The Foothills Of The Future
By Jemima Jewell "A fantastic tool for people to lift their eyes from the daily doom and gloom, to the foothills of the future – where the view is breathtaking." That’s how our recent vision for the West Midlands region was described by Dr Simon Slater, who commissioned the project as Director of Sustainable Development at Advantage West Midlands. But what exactly is a vision, and why are we so keen on them here at Forum for the Future? A vision can take many shapes and forms, but...
"The Rocketship Wonder of Earlier Decades is Gone"
A great round-up of the talks at worldchanging ally and writer Geoff Manaugh's London conference, Thrilling Wonder Stories. Here are some interesting tidbits (all quotes are paraphrases): Peter Cook: "He stood up to talk about “Weird Shit International” as a much-needed movement in architecture across the decades. ... He lamented “up and down” building design philosophy, and laughed that the Oslo school of architecture was pumping out such boring graduates of that philosophy, when a...
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