Nov 20, 09
Vancouver Makes a Bright Green Future its Official Goal
Vancouver just released its new city strategy, titled Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future (PDF), and it's a bold step forward (as well as a flattering adoption of our bright green frame): We envision a bright green future that couples economic prosperity, health, and happiness with decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. We envision less pollution and cleaner air, less machine noise and more birdsong, less pavement and more green space, fewer sick days and healthier people. We want to send a...
Indonesian Activist Targets Community Waste
Six relatively unknown grassroots activists from around the globe receive a moment in the spotlight when the Goldman Environmental Prize announces its list of annual recipients. The prize, now in its 19th year, is considered the Nobel Prize for the environment. Past recipients include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva, and Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was killed seven months after his recognition. The...
The Street as Platform
I realize now that I've been delinquent in recommending Dan Hill's truly excellent speculative essay The Street as Platform, which explores a cross-section of all the ways that urban environments have become suffused with data. It's one of maybe 25 things I read this year that actually changed the way I see things in daily life: We can’t see how the street is immersed in a twitching, pulsing cloud of data. This is over and above the well-established electromagnetic radiation, crackles of...
Book review: “The Bottom Billion” by Paul Collier
I’ve got a hip-high pile of books by my bedside, including several manuscripts written by good friends. But after Paul Collier’s talk at TED, his book moved to the top of the pile, and I spent a rainy Saturday diving into his new book, “The Bottom Billion”. It was time well spent. Collier has dedicated the last thirty years of his life to the study of African economics, as director of the development research group of the World Bank and now as Director of the Center...
Kenya, M-PESA and Independent Media
by Nancy Scola The stories coming out of Kenya since last month's disputed presidential election have been upsetting ones, pitting the young and ignored against both an aging political class and an establishment press that kowtows to the urban elite. One bright spot? In the midst of the turmoil, Kenya's media activists are using cutting-edge mobile technologies to give voice to the voiceless. They're aiming to prove to their compatriots that an "alternative press" can challenge the politics...
Tata Nano: The Paradox of Global Innovation
By Sanjay Khanna The launch on January 10, 2008, of the US$2,500.00 Tata Nano “People’s Car” is a watershed moment in Indian industrial achievement, no less significant from India’s perspective than the 2004 launch of the EDUSAT educational services satellite. It is the culmination of the efforts of India’s most powerful industrialists to compete for market opportunities on their home turf, opportunities that Western multinationals rushed to take advantage of as soon as India’s...
Mainstreaming Clean Energy in Rizhao, China
On June 15, the city of Rizhao, China, received a 2007 World Clean Energy Award (WCEA) in the category of “Policy and Lawmaking” for its popularization of clean energy. The award’s presenters noted that in a nation known for its heavy dependence on coal, Rizhao represents an inspiring example of the mainstreaming of renewable energy sources. Large-scale solar power and marsh gas applications in the city directly benefit more than 1.5 million residents, dramatically reducing their yearly...
Principle 8: Leapfrogging
In the industrialized world, we've gone through many phases and iterations of innovation to reach the level of technological advancement we currently enjoy. It took well over a century, for example, to get from Alexander Graham Bell's historic first telephone call to ubiquitous mobile phones and VoIP. And, indeed, in our societies, the old and the new are everywhere intertwined: we may use Blackberries and take genetically-targeted medications, but many of us still drink water delivered...
Ory Interviews Mama Mike's Founder
Worldchanging book contributor Ory Okolloh has posted a short, casual but informative interview with Mama Mike's founder Segeni Ng’ethe. It's really worth a read: There’s been an interesting debate going on in the Kenyan blogosphere about the dearth of investment opportunities in Kenya (esp. for Diaspora-based Kenyans aka KT’s) beyond the overdone real estate market and the stock exchange - what’s your view on this? Where else could guys be putting their money? I can’t comment on...
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