Students, Seniors and Social Biodiversity
Friday, December 5th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffSocial hour at Austin ManorPhoto credit: Joshua Gunter/The Plain Dealer I've recently come across an innovative solution for meeting several societal needs at once: mixed-age communities. Among the best examples is Austin Manor, a dorm at Ohio ...
Yes, We Can Take Swift Action On Climate Change
Friday, December 5th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffYou can sign this letter asking Barack Obama to take action on climate change here. Ian McEwan, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Society of Arts and the American Academy of ...
Reader Report: Sustainability On Campus and Beyond at AASHE 2008
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffBy Xarissa Holdaway Duke University's wetlands restoration not only provides habitat, but also purifies water for local communities. I recently attended the annual conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). One ...
Letter from Entebbe: Which Way is Up?
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffI sat in the petrol station, playing my guitar to the African night, watching the cars, taxis, and mopeds cruise in looking for a couple of liters of fuel, while my driver did his level best ...
Sustainability’s Talismans
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffRecently, 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 ...
Local Food Plus: A Model for Food Citizenship in North America
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffBy 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 ...
Graphic Series: Earthly Ideas, Week 9
Monday, December 1st, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffEditor'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 ...
Peak Population and Generation X
Saturday, November 29th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffThe 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 ...
Selling Sustainability The Mr. Clean Way
Thursday, November 27th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffPhoto by Ashley Bristowe Change is a boutique marketing firm based in Vancouver – or, as per its requisite website mission statement, “a green branding and communications company.” Sounds pretty hazy. Actually, if it sounds ...
The Transformative 120: Text Messages Prove a South African HIV Lifeline
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffTaken together, a handful of numbers are adding up to a powerful HIV/AIDS lifeline along South Africa's northeastern coast. Of the six million South Africans infected with the disease, just one in ten are currently in ...
Graphic Series: Earthly Ideas, Week 8
Monday, November 24th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffEditor'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 ...
Geoengineering, Caldeira and Politics
Monday, November 24th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffSo, my earlier review of Worldwatch's State of the World 2009 report, particularly my comments on the geoengineering chapter ("The editors include a lame chapter on geoengineering that largely ignores the politics of the geoengineering debate ...
Safe and Sustainable: New Sanitation System in Kyrgyzstan
Friday, November 21st, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffWith new technological innovations for humanitarian aid – like the solar powered ambulances in Mumbai, or SMS technologies spreading aid and awareness – it can be easy to lose sight of more basic initiatives to address ...
Open Thread: Sustainability/Innovation Implications of the Meltdown
Friday, November 21st, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffThis morning in Amsterdam the media is reporting a financial "meltdown," with stocks back to the level they were before the Dot.com Boom and international credit markets "seizing." Question: what are the implications of this meltdown for ...
The Last Viridian Note
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffBy Bruce Sterling Recent events have clearly established that the character of the times has changed. The Viridian Design Movement was founded in distant 1999. After the years transpiring – various disasters, wars, financial collapses and ...
The Hot Spot
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffClimate scientists wonder why people don’t do more about global warming. Social scientists have some tough answers By Lisa Bennett Three years ago, I became obsessed with global warming. Practically overnight, my worries about its potential effects outstripped ...
Cutting Emissions in Rural China
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments Offby Jiang Gaoming Mobilizing farmers to use readily accessible, traditional bioenergy sources -- like straw -- may go a long way toward helping the country reduce its carbon footprint. Coal-mining efforts have recently been shifting from ...
Making Social Equity an Issue of Public Health
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffWe expect differences in life expectancy between countries. But how do you explain a 28 year difference in life expectancy within a single city? A city with a universal health care system? Sir Michael Marmot posed ...
Climate Futures: Predicting Where Our Actions Now Might Lead
Monday, November 17th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffClimate foresight is a valuable strategy, both for helping direct our efforts toward coping with climate change, and for helping us fully grasp the seriousness of the crisis. Although we won't know the future until it ...
The Outquisition & The Future of The Ecovillage
Monday, November 17th, 2008 Posted in Columns, Green News | Comments OffAwhile back, Alex Steffen posted an interesting riff speculating on the potential for a new kind of sustainability movement, “a crusade of open sharing” that would spread the brightest green practices to decaying cities and flailing ...