Here are the articles that I wrote for TriplePundit.com during and after the 2009 Net Impact Conference at Cornell University.
I am excited to be covering this event for TriplePundit.com. I am hoping to cover bigger trends surrounding lifecycle analysis, supply chain and water scarcity/quality. Please contact me if you have any ideas for juicy stories!
Have you ever seen a flock of birds or a shoal of fish change direction very quickly? This is called an emergent behavior; according to Wickipedia: An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective.
Think of how we are becoming more and more interconnected. My social networks are growing everyday. While I am not totally sold on social networks, they are setting us up so that we will be able to quickly organize and coordinate.
We may not think that our society is moving quickly enough towards solving the problems of our time, but look at the birds and get inspired!
We need more efforts like this here in the US. This one was done for India.
Anyone want to put together an ad campaign?
Watch this video called “Greensumption”. This is something that needs to be discussed. We think we have it all figured out, don’t we???
“Socialism collapsed because it did not allow prices to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow prices to tell the ecological truth.”
— Oystein Dahle, retired VP of Esso Norway
Consumers expect all types of food, with no concession to season or geography. This used to be mainly a habit of the richer countries, but now the developing world is taking our example.
Why is this like this? Well part of the reason is that there was a little-known international treaty signed in Chicago in 1944 called the Convention on International Civil Aviation to help the (then) fledgling airline industry. This was basically a tax exemption on fuel for international transport of goods, unlike what we pay for cars and trucks. Also, the exemption extended to ocean freighters.
This is only part of the reason, the other part is that the labor in the developing world is so cheap.
There is much debate about the carbon footprint of a good versus the distance it traveled. They are not always the same. Sometimes, people argue, that the locally produced good has a higher carbon footprint than an imported good. I would think this is a rarity, and if this is the case, I think that we can find ways to minimize the locally produced footprint much easier than the one from across the world.
I would prefer to just reinstate the tax on all of this transported food from all over the world. We need the cost of food to reflect the distances covered and energy used to get the food to us. Firstly, we should have labels about where everything comes from, which I am starting to see more and more although you really have to have good eyes! Secondly, we should have a carbon footprint label on the item. Maybe they could be the same label.
Meanwhile, as a food shopper, I would suggest to buy as locally as you can and to buy in bulk as much as you can to minimize packaging. Now that I know better, I will change my much-ingrained habits. Or do my best…that’s about all any of us can do.
In Memory of my sister, Jessica Brigida Stevens.
When my sister died last summer suddenly, I was struck by the most amazing realization. She had lived in Alaska with her family, my brother lives in Sydney, Australia with his family, and the rest of the family lives here in San Francisco. It seemed ridiculous to be so spread out as a family. How could the most important people in your life be the ones that you saw the least?
Asian cultures view the family differently. It is not uncommon to support your parents in China, for example. Actually, many people don’t have a choice. But, in our western culture with everything at our fingertips and supposedly little free time, how did we separate so much from our families and friends?
Everything can change in an instant. I know that when I came into close proximity with death, my priorities changed. My whole outlook changed, actually. I wanted to be close to family and friends. I wanted to get more involved in the community and build something special right where I lived.
Imagine a utility grid that is smart, distributed and more localized. What does that mean? Well, think electricity combined with the technology and structure of the Internet.
In our current electricity grid, the electrons flow from huge, centralized power plants, sometimes quite a distance from the end user, and simply go one way; picture thousands of one-way streets that branch off of a freeway. It hasn’t changed fundamentally for more than a hundred years, except for the capacity of the grid, that is, an increase in the number of power plants. But, the grid is outdated and in need of an update.
There are fundamentally two major problems with the existing grid:
1. Current transmission lines are incapable of transmitting electrons very long distances. For example, we cannot get our electricity in California from a wind farm in Texas.
2. Inaccuracy of the real-time usage data which makes it hard to predict patterns and troubleshoot.
The loss of electrons in transmission is something that only a technological breakthrough will be able to fix. We will have to wait and see on this one. But this is a long way off considering that the transmission lines will have to be replaced.
Now, what if the intelligence and structure of the Internet was a model for our electricity grid? Well, suddenly power companies would be able to track with accuracy, how much power was being used and where. Currently, much of this data is vague and inaccurate. For example, when there is a downed power line, the utility must wait for a blackout or for someone to call it in to diagnose the problem. What’s more, thousands of homes can go out when there is just one problem on the line. In the new grid, troubleshooting would not be a problem.
This new “smart-grid” would be controlled by thousands of wireless transmitters that could “talk” to each other and give the utility accurate data on real-time energy usage. This has many added benefits including:
With this accurate information, the utility could begin to more efficiently handle the power loads during peak times. For example, the new smart-grid would be able to turn up the thermostats in thousands of homes by one degree in the middle of summer. Collectively this would make a huge difference in power needs, but on a user-level this would hardly be noticeable. One of the more interesting areas is the “smart appliances” that would be able to power on and off according to the power needs of the grid. Think of a washing machine that turned off on-demand by the power companies if you weren’t using it.
It is amazing that the grid has not changed much since the times of Thomas Edison. This is a huge growth area and very exciting when you consider that much of this will be powered by renewable energy and distributed. Traditionally, the electricity industry is very slow to change, considering the infrastructure changes that are required. However, the “smart grid” will soon be a common household phrase.
In some ways, however, China is way ahead of the ball in protecting the environment. One prime example: China just placed a nationwide ban on plastic bags. The move is designed to prevent litter and save millions of barrels of oil each year. In a country where up to 3 billion plastic bags are used each day, the significance of this legislation is huge.
By comparison, the U.S. is still struggling to move away from plastic bags. San Francisco banned plastic bags last year, and last month Los Angeles became the second city in the U.S. to enact a plastic bag ban.
Certainly, change can sometimes be easier accomplished when dictated by an authoritarian government such as China’s. The beauty of our democracy, and the reason most of us would prefer to live in the U.S. than China, is that we can all play a part in making change. Frustratingly, though, this can all too often lead to political gridlock, or the hijacking of our future by narrow business interests.
The challenge is on. Let’s show the world that our democracy can bring about the changes that are needed for a sustainable future.
The spark that started in SF and LA needs to move across the country. Talk to your friends, family, and neighbors about ways to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic bags. Express your opinion in your local newspaper, and persuade your city council or state legislature that this change is needed. Our future depends on it.
