Dec 3, 08
The Future of Public Lands in the United States
The topic of wildlands is an emotional issue for many residents across the United States. Immortalized in iconic photographs, timeless paintings and oral histories, these lands make up a large part of America’s collective identity. From the boggy marshlands of...
Sustainability’s Talismans
Recently, I gave a reading at an eco-themed fundraiser event for a magazine I contribute to frequently. Along with the other presenters, I received a swag bag: a reusable canvas tote containing (along with various coupons and samples) a stainless steel water bottle. The canvas tote bag and the reusable water bottle – if sustainability can be thought of as a single movement, these appear to be among its primary talismans. At urban planning conferences and green building seminars and climate change confabs, the giveaways are almost always the same. Carry the bag like a banner; hold the bottle aloft like an amulet. Whatever foe we are uniting against, whatever...
Local Food Plus: A Model for Food Citizenship in North America
By Kathryn Cooper The price we pay at the grocery store is not the true cost of our food. Our food systems allow many major costs to be externalized. These externalities include transportation, soil degradation, irrigation-related groundwater depletion, and pesticide and fertilizer misuse. This means that eventually, taxpayers foot the bill for these, without ever making the connection between faux food policy and its social and environmental tolls. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the value of global trade in food has tripled since 1961, and the tonnage of food shipped between nations has grown fourfold, while population has only doubled. In North America food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500...
Graphic Series: Earthly Ideas, Week 9
Editor's note: This post is part of a series. We'll be releasing one of Worldchanging ally Andy Lubershane's original comics each week until the end of the year. While many of the issues covered in the comics have been discussed on Worldchanging in the past, we hope that you'll be able to use this new medium in a different way … whether it's in your classroom, on your office wall, or to help explain ideas to friends and family. This week's cartoon describes Wild Lawns. As we've discussed several times here on Worldchanging, the manicured, green grass lawns that are popular across the U.S. are inappropriate for many climates, and...
Peak Population and Generation X
The babies born between 1965 and 1970 were historic. They were part of the highest global population growth rate ever achieved, 2.1 percent a year. As Joel Cohen writes, Human population never grew with such speed before the 20th century and is never again likely to grow with such speed. Our descendants will look back on the late 1960s peak as the most significant demographic event in the history of the human population even though those of us who lived through it did not recognize it at the time. Put another way, you might say that the birth of Generation X (which more or less book-ends those years) was the...
Pulling Water from the Air: The WaterMill
I'm in London, watching snowflakes fall amidst early morning rain flurries, reading David Grann's new book The Lost City of Z, and getting ready for the Barbican event tomorrow night...
Clinton Picked to Oversee Population Policies
We often discuss the sustainability implications of peak population. Read more about this topic here and here . Reproductive health advocates are praising the nomination of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton...
New Inaba Project on Display in Rome
Waiting Room [Image: The Waiting Room, Rome, by Jeffrey Inaba/Inaba Projects].Jeffrey Inaba of Inaba Projects has a new pavilion on display now in Rome, sponsored by Enel, Italy's largest utilities...
Worldchanging Book: Korean Edition
We just got a peek at the cover design for the Korean edition of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. The edition will soon be produced by Seoul-based...
Green Venture Capital
Can "green tech" have a dark cloud? This New York Time Magazine article on green venture capital makes me simultaneously hopeful and nervous. Kleiner Perkins is one of the giants...
Why Does Poznan Matter?
UN-led climate-change talks in Poland this week are a key step in one of the most important – and complex – negotiations the world has ever seen. by Tan...
Carbon Detectives
We talk a lot about reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, but how do we know what strategies are working? Some dedicated souls with the right cutting-edge technologies will have to track...
Resource: Midnight Regulation Watch
It's midnight at the White House, and as usual, the outgoing administration is doing its best to leave its final mark. The non-profit newsroom ProPublica is helping to create...
Andy Revkin: Climate Change Is Not the Story of Our Times
Andy says, as we say here, it's all one big problem with millions of interlocking solutions needed to solve it: Q. Obviously climate change is the biggest story on your...
Thanks
This poem hit me deep the first time I read it, back when we were just starting Worldchanging. Simran Sethi reminded me of it today, and since it is so...
Stuff I Find Interesting
It's a holiday weekend, so this is a lazy post: I was recently asked what kinds of technological developments I found interesting. Here's the list I sent back. URBAN TECH...
WWF Living Planet Report 2008
The Living Planet Report 2008, a study published by the WWF, offers the organization's most in-depth study of global ecosystem decline to date. The report combines data from the...
Obama Embraces Green-Collar Stimulus
by Alan Durning $100 billion for green jobs. Billion! The Associated Press reports plans for a massive new green-collar federal stimulus package: Obama has also embraced calls for a "green...
OSI - Social Media in Closed Societies
My friend and colleague Evgeny Morozov is spending a year as an Open Society Institute fellow, working through some of his ideas about cybernationalism and cyberwarfare, and organizing events to...
On-the-ground Reports From Mumbai
Worldchanger Dina Mehta's doing an amazing job providing information about the Mumbai crisis on her blog and on her Twitter feed. A remarkable woman, with remarkable things to say. Our...
Buy Local or Buy Nothing?
The day after Thanksgiving, when I wake up from my Celebration Roast-induced food-coma, I'll be playing football in the park. But I know lots of people who will be...
Food and Fuel
Prices for corn and oil are falling in tandem. If you've driven by a gas station recently, you've probably noticed that gas prices are tumbling. What you may realize is...
More Provinces May Agree to Protect Boreal Forest
Photo credit: International Boreal Conservation Campaign Original and remaining intact forests of the world - the Boreal Forest in Canada contains 25% of the world's last intact forests This...
Compostmodern 2009
Compostmodern is beginning to roll out its 2009 line-up, and it looks like a winner. Worldchangers Dawn Danby and Joel Makower, and allies Allan Chochinov and Emily Pilloton have already...
Climate Protests Escalate Worldwide
Photo courtesy Evergaldes Earth First! Members of Everglades Earth First!, a Florida-based environmental group, block the construction site of a natural gas-fired power plant in February. Lynne Purvis and...
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worldchanging was founded on the idea that real solutions already exist for building the future we want. it's just a matter of grabbing hold and getting moving.
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