Nov 22, 09
Coping With Climate Change: Which Societies Will Do Best?
By Gaia Vince As the world warms, how different societies fare in dealing with rising seas and changing weather patterns will have as much to do with political, social, and economic factors as with a changing climate. Following the disastrous tsunami of December 2004, the government of Bangladesh embraced upgraded storm-alert systems that warn communities in a coordinated way and improved social support networks, resulting in a drastic reduction in typhoon deaths. In neighboring Myanmar,...
Worldchanging Timeline: 2003-2009
We here at Worldchanging just celebrated our sixth anniversary! In addition to publishing a series of "101" posts, highlighting some of the iconic pieces we've published over the years, and a primer on blogs and other resources we lean heavily upon, we though that it might also be useful to share a timeline of the project so far, noting some representative events, to give the interested reader a sense of where we came from and how we got here; perhaps knowing something of the evolution of...
New York City Girds Itself for Heat and Rising Seas
By the end of the century, New York's climate could resemble that of present-day Raleigh, North Carolina and its harbor could easily rise by two feet or more. Faced with this prospect, the city is among the first urban centers to begin changing the way it builds its infrastructure — and the way it thinks about its future. by Bruce Stutz While computer-generated visions of floodwaters sweeping across Wall Street and inundating Manhattan island have come to represent apocalyptic predictions...
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...
Solar Power from Space: Moving Beyond Science Fiction
by Michael D. Lemonick For more than 40 years, scientists have dreamed of collecting the sun’s energy in space and beaming it back to Earth. Now, a host of technological advances, coupled with interest from the U.S. military, may be bringing that vision close to reality. Despite the enormous promise of solar power, the drawbacks of the technology remain significant. People need electricity every day, around the clock, but there’s no part of the United States that is cloud-free 365 days...
Worldchanging Essay: Creating Responsible Voluntourism
In 2006, when David Clemmons added a 150-word blurb on voluntourism to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, it was a concept that had yet to take off, even in sustainability circles. We couldn’t have guessed that a few years later, voluntourism — planning a vacation to include short-term charitable work — would be featured in luxury travel magazines, or have a buzz worthy of its own backlash. Now lawyers on furlough head out into the world with a stack of Lonely Planet...
Global Green
Global Green is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, the organization created by Mikhail Gorbachev to promote a more sustainable world. Run by Matt Petersen, Global Green has helped design homes for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, operates a green building resource center, and runs programs on green cities and schools, climate action, water conservation and other critical elements of a sustainable future. This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library....
The Struggle Over Local Media: An Interview With Eric Klinenberg (Part One)
By Henry Jenkins Earlier this summer, I moderated a panel on "News, Nerds and Nabes': How Will Future Generations of Americans Learn About the Local" as part of a conference which the MIT Center for Future Civic Media hosted for the Knight Foundation. My panelists were Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University and author of Fighting for Air:The Battle to Control America's Media. Our...
How Local Rebuilding Efforts are Working in New Orleans
By Anisa Baldwin Metzger Four years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the struggle to rebuild continues. In the days after the 2005 storm, when the levees were breached in several locations, about 80 percent of the city was flooded. While the area is going through a painful recovery, it is giving everyone lesson after lesson on how to undertake such a massive effort. It’s no surprise that the volume of rebuilding activity is high: federal funds are pouring in for just this...
IPCC Chief: Benefits of Tackling Climate Change Will Balance Cost of Action
by Damian Carrington The cost of tackling climate change will be paid for by benefits that would come from better energy security, employment and health, Rajendra Pachauri says ahead of major announcement on 2013 reports.Measures needed to tackle global warming could save economies more money than they cost, the world's top climate change expert said today.Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian: "The cost could undoubtedly be...
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