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Worldchanging Review: Doug Rushkoff on Life Inc.

Jon Lebkowsky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:55:48 +0000

Doug Rushkoff had set out, as he told me in an interview on the WELL, to write one kind of book -- "about money as a medium, and the way centralized currency and corporate capitalism were accepted as given circumstances of business, rather than inventions of particular people at a particular time."

Rushkoff, who's made a living as a writer, thinker and speaker who tries to step outside culture and see more clearly the patterns and processes at work, was ready to question fundamental assumptions about money and economies, and look for solutions to problems we all sense but barely understand -- cycles of boom and bust, polarization of economic and political thinking (which are inherently linked), and how commitment to abstract concepts can make humans less human. Also how people can unthinkingly (or other-thinkingly) accept and follow cultural notions that actually undermine sustainable futures.

Then, while Rushkoff was in the process of pulling the book together, a man with a gun robbed him on Christmas Eve, in front of his own apartment. Somewhat shaken by the experience, he posted a note about it on a neighborhood email list, and got a surprising response: some neighbors, concerned about how the news of the mugging might have an impact on their property values, were angry that he had posted where the crime occurred.

"I realized that my neighbors had internalized these sensibilities [associated with corporate capitalism] so deeply that they were behaving like corporations, themselves," he told me.

So he wrote a slightly different book -- about "how the world became a corporation," how authenticity, community, and human intimacy have been compromised by pervasive corporatization and nonstop marketing. The book, Life Inc. includes well and thoroughly researched history of the corporation, which began as a way for monarchs to participate in innovative business models developed by an emerging merchant class, and evolved as a way to organize power around economic engines.

I've been reading Rushkoff's book carefully and thinking a lot about it. He's very articulate and his arguments are compelling. There's no doubt that corporate form really has been foundational in organizing our perception of the world, more deeply generation after generation, and it's not surprising that global citizens of developed and developing nations organize their thinking around those patterns. When we talk about "developed" and "developing," we're talking about corporatization -- the extent to which the corporate model has taken hold, or you might say has colonized a particular locale.

Corporations bring compelling efficiencies along with them -- an abundance of products for consumption at relatively low cost. Food, clothing, shelter, etc. Sophisticated water systems and plumbing systems. Systems and vehicles for transportation. Money and jobs. Better medical systems. This is all what we call progress, and it feels like success, especially for those at the top or the corporate heap. However, Rushkoff points out, we haven't had many opportunities to consider alternatives, since corporations have controlled media, government and schools. Aren't we completely conditioned to accept corporate assumptions as what's real, inherent and incontrovertible? And, given this power over reality, aren't corporations vulnerable to corruption?

Obviously yes, and Rushkoff offers a wealth of well-researched factoids to suggest that corporations readily abuse power and exploit workers and consumers. That corporations seize and control our very sense of what's real, bend it to their will, driven by greed and focused on profitability above all else. The remedy, he suggests, is "the slow subordination of corporate activity to social activity, and corporate behavior to human behavior." We can use the Internet effectively to "connect those looking to reinforce their sense of hope and connection to others," he says, and "by restoring our connections to real people, places and values, we'll be less likely to depend on the symbols and brands that have come to substitute for human relationships."

Are corporations monolithic, opaque, sinister and all-powerful? While corporations are abstract systems, they are also people, and the cultures and values of corporations can be aligned with the values of the individuals who commit so much of their time and energy to work there. Culture change consultants (like Barrett Values Centre or Momentum Consulting) have systems for aligning corporate and human values. And there are other promising models (e.g. bootstrapping, coworking) for business organization and development, and corporate information flows and hierarchies are being transformed by internal uses of social media (with or without C-level acknowledgement and assent). The corporation of tomorrow may be quite different from today's corporation, and certainly different from yesterday's.

There's a sense throughout the book that corporate evolution is a conspiracy of the powerful to exploit the weaker masses, redefined and dehumanized within the corporate mind-set as abstract statistical entities called consumers. There's just so much evidence to support this perspective (again, the book is very well-researched), why wouldn't you go there? But I'm struck by a contrast I noticed recently. Rushkoff talks about the 1939 World's Fair as a platform for corporate rhetoric, a blast of blatant propaganda supporting the vision of "a consumer paradise -- not a worker reality -- in which machines did all the work and the family could enjoy a world filled with entertainment." Not long after I finished the book, I had a discussion with a brilliant designer and futurist whose ears stood up when the subject of the '39 World's Fair came up. To him, that fair was a great moment in our history, a surge of creative optimism as the world was going nuts. I think the story is always complex, that corporatization has been a good thing as well as a bad thing, and what's important is that we learn from our mistakes. And as Rushkoff suggests, we can hopefully learn to put the statistics aside for now and be "real people doing real things for one another - without expectations" again.

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(Posted by Jon Lebkowsky in Features at 10:55 AM)

New Resource: The Living Planet City

Christa Morris — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:00:20 +0000

“Welcome to the Living Planet. It’s clean, it’s efficient — and it’s doable. Today.” This blurb appears on the front page of WWF Canada’s new website, the Living Planet City, which launched on Tuesday. The Living Planet City’s bright animation of thriving urbanism (pictured right, in a screen shot) illustrates 20 big ideas to make any city more sustainable.

In the “west end,” a combined heat and power plant uses “waste” heat energy to provide chilled water for a nearby supermarket. In the “east end,” a municipal waste station feeds into a biofuel plant, complete with solar, green roofs on top. At the waterfront, wave, tidal and wind energy power the city while a rapid transit station ferries people back and forth: all this with plenty of park space.

Clicking around brings up summaries of the technology and provides links to learn more. Once properly informed and inspired, visitors are encouraged to get the ideas out there by sending a link to elected officials, friends, and business owners. You can even send a suggested message to your slated Copenhagen representative.

Good start! But is it good enough?

Maybe, maybe not. Take away the windmills, dull the colors, and it looks just like my pollution-steeped hometown. On one hand, it’s important that WWF wants to promote the Living Planet City as “doable,” suggesting that every city, without changing drastically in function or appearance, can be sustainable and clean. Normal city-dwellers can get behind it, and that is the point.

On the other hand, the Living Planet City could be bigger, bolder, and more beautiful. For instance, although promoting EVs, the cityscape is still a maze of roads. Where are the bike lanes? Where are the inner-city walking-only zones? With 350 ppm as our goal, we have to completely re-imagine our way of life, not simply find alternative ways to power our current one.

As one of the first people on the comment board pointed out, there's no single right answer out there. Toronto is a whole lot different than Copenhagen, the commenter says, and so its future of sustainability will look a whole lot different, and maybe include more cars. How do you adapt and perfect a Living Planet City when there are so many varying starting points, and thus, varying challenges? One solution would be to make the city as interactive as its sister site, “the Living Planet Community.”

In the Living Planet Community, you can commit to any number of thousands of climate-friendly actions or add your own, and the site will calculate the GHG reduction you achieve. You can even create groups -- of friends, coworkers, or strangers -- and set a goal for GHG reduction while engaging in planet-friendly competition.

Why not merge this community and the city? Why not provide a menu of tools, such as wind farms, solar panels, green roofs and bike-sharing programs with which you can remodel your own city? Why not allow users to add their own tools, such as third-place studios or greywater systems? Why not take it further, with a sustainable Sim City-esque program, where, after creating your city, you get realistic feedback on its CO2 output? A well-designed simulation could train leaders (and future leaders) to see the changes necessary to achieve emissions reduction goals in their unique cities.

The Living Planet City is a great idea that will no doubt serve to spread knowledge and inspiration, and for this reason, WorldChanging applauds WWF Canada: it’s only a matter of taking a great idea to its full potential.

Learn more about sustainable cities in the WorldChanging archives:
Sustainable Neighborhood Design
Conceptualizing the One Planet City
My Other Car is a Bright Green City

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(Posted by Christa Morris in Features at 10:00 AM)

The Cruel Cost of Clunkers

Suzie Boss — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Cash for Clunkers, the U.S. federal program that offered rebates to buyers of fuel-efficient cars, sputtered to a halt this week after burning through $3 billion in federal funding. The program wasn’t without controversy, but it did clear the roads of an estimated 500,000 gas guzzlers. Meanwhile, thousands of low-income consumers pay dearly to keep their clunkers running so they can get to work and stay a step ahead of the bill collector. An innovative nonprofit called Bonnie CLAC has discovered that getting these families into reliable, fuel-efficient vehicles can improve everything from their job prospects to family eating habits to children’s health.

Bonnie CLAC (which stands for Car Loans and Counseling) started in rural New Hampshire, where public transportation options are limited. Founder Robert Chambers, a former car salesman, saw how used car dealers routinely prey on the poor. Buyers who come in with spotty credit histories and little cash typically drive away in the worst cars that are almost certain to break down. That sets off a cascade of woes — being late to work, missing medical appointments, adding car repair bills to an already stretched budget.

Chambers started Bonnie CLAC to address the web of issues tied to affordable transportation for the working poor. His initiative has earned him the Purpose Prize, which recognizes social innovators who are over 60, and generated a recent invitation to the White House to meet with President Obama for a summit on community solutions.

Bonnie CLAC acts as a middle man for its pool of clients, negotiating lower interest rates and discounted prices on late-model, fuel-efficient but no-frills cars. Clients don’t have to do any haggling themselves. But before they get their new cars, they do take a practical, six-week course in financial education. Some need more intensive counseling to clean up their credit. Since 2001, Bonnie CLAC has helped more than 1,200 families finance more than $13 million in loans. The organization also maintains a fleet of 80 used cars for a “bridge” program, which helps clients solve immediate transportation hassles while they go through the financial literacy program.

“There are many moving parts to this,” acknowledges program CEO Terri Steingrebe. “We want to demonstrate that, with the right services, people that the banks see as ‘unlendable’ can turn into good credit risks.” Her clients offer a snapshot of the working poor: About 70 percent are female. Many are single parents with child-care needs. Some work two or more jobs. About 30 percent work in health care, often as nurse’s aides or home-health workers. Many come from generational poverty. “We work with people who are trying to better themselves, to build a better life,” Steingrebe says, “and that often means further education — which also requires reliable transportation.”

The program’s successful track record in rural New England has sparked invitations to bring the concept to more communities. Bonnie CLAC is currently laying the groundwork to expand into the Boston area next year.

Steingrebe didn’t expect to find high demand for the program in an urban area, where public transportation options are plentiful. But conversations with Boston-area hospital administrators pointed to the need. To find affordable housing, lower-wage employees often live far from where they work. They do shift work that may involve commuting at hours when public transportation is scarce. Home health care workers typically use their own vehicles to get to clients’ homes. “It turns out that transportation is high on their list of needs,” Steingrebe discovered. “This is what connects them to child care, to health care, and even to shopping for affordable food.”

As Bonnie CLAC moves into its first urban market, other cities will be watching. The organization receives frequent calls from communities interested in borrowing the model. Steingrebe is proceeding with caution. She wants to gather more information before going to a bigger scale. “Before we can create a blueprint that someone else can use,” she says, “we need to understand how this model works in different contexts. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

Suzie Boss is a journalist from Portland, Ore., who writes about education and social change for Edutopia, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and other publications.

Photos courtesy of Bonnie CLAC.

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(Posted by Suzie Boss in Features at 10:00 AM)

The Cruel Cost of Clunkers

Suzie Boss — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Photos courtesy of Bonnie CLAC.

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(Posted by Suzie Boss in Features at 10:00 AM)

New Innovation Makes Vaccines More Resilient

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:35:00 +0000

By Aman Bhandari

Scientists at PATH — a Seattle-based nonprofit organization working to improve global health and well-being — have found a cheap and simple way to tackle the challenges associated with protecting hepatitis B vaccine effectiveness when the vaccine gets too hot or too cold.

Temperature regulation is one of the biggest challenges to vaccine use worldwide. According to Debra Kristensen, group leader of vaccine technologies at PATH, keeping common World Health Organization vaccines at stable temperatures requires the use of a vaccine cold chain — a global distribution network of refrigeration equipment and procedures for maintaining vaccine quality during transport and storage. Cold chain storage and exposure to extreme temperatures presents a critical obstacle to delivering needed vaccines to some of the most at-risk regions around the globe.

Other research teams in addition to PATH's are currently using various strategies to address the problem. A group of researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, for example, is developing a powdered, inhalable version of a measles vaccination that is ready for human testing. Innovations like these could eventually change the game, allowing for more secure and effective disease control with fewer barriers.

I recently conducted an interview with Kristensen to discuss PATH's breakthrough for the Hep B vaccine and the implications of this discovery.

Aman Bhandari: What was the primary breakthrough?

Debra Kristensen: In many parts of the world, the need to keep vaccines cold during transport and storage requires allocation of scarce resources for refrigeration equipment and special handling procedures. In addition, vaccines are frequently damaged when they are accidentally frozen or exposed to heat. Heat- and freeze-stable vaccines are more resistant to damage when temperatures rise and fall due to power outages, faulty refrigeration equipment, or handling errors.

The heat-stable hepatitis B vaccine recently developed by PATH and partners could be kept in alternate storage facilities (air-conditioned rooms) and under alternative transport conditions (insulated packaging without ice packs) for potentially its entire shelf life without compromising the effectiveness of the vaccine. The added heat stability can also facilitate outreach to remote areas.

AB: How did you get this done?

DK: PATH and partners tested many formulation approaches and perfected a particularly promising one that combines a freeze-protection method developed last year by PATH with a heat stabilization method developed by Arecor. The stabilizers used include propylene glycol — a compound that is found in many consumer products, foods and medicines, and protects the vaccine from cold—and an amino acid called histidine, which contributes to the vaccine’s heat-stabilization.

AB: Why was no one else able to do this before?

DK: To our knowledge, researchers have not previously sought solutions to protect vaccine from freeze-damage through formulation methods. The heat protection method arose out of PATH’s vaccine stabilization project to hepatitis B vaccine, which is an important childhood vaccine that is often distributed and used in difficult settings.

AB: What are the barriers to applying this technology to other vaccines?

DK: The freeze-stabilization technology is broadly applicable to vaccines containing aluminum adjuvant. PATH has placed the freeze-stabilization technology in the public domain to encourage uptake.

AB: How does this change the cost structure of delivering vaccines in general?

DK: The costs of both additives are negligible, they cost an extra one-tenth of one US penny per vaccine dose. However, the hepatitis B vaccine is a mature product that has been on the market for some time. To stabilize this vaccine now requires reformulation — plus all the necessary laboratory, preclinical, and clinical work to validate that the new product is still as effective as the existing product and also regulatory approval.

AB: On the surface this appears to be a major breakthrough. Is that how PATH scientists are viewing it?

DK: Yes, it represents a major breakthrough because this shows how we can now prevent the problem from the beginning through the vaccine formulation itself. The application of heat and freeze stabilization technologies to new vaccine products represents a sea change, of sorts, in how vaccine producers could optimize vaccine products — and, in turn, ease logistics for immunization programs as well as expand the reach and ensure the effectiveness of life-saving vaccines.

AB: Have you done projections on the increased number of vaccinations that can be done with this new technology?

DK: It is difficult to project because of the many factors that effect increases in the number of vaccinations, for example, the availability of health care workers and transportation for outreach. That said, PATH has analyzed the projected impacts of introduction of thermostable vaccines into three countries — Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Ghana. (For more information on this, please contact PATH by email at info@path.org.)

AB: Is this something that can be used in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) markets?

DK: Yes, the heat and freeze stabilization technologies have the potential to optimize vaccine products for OECD markets. The challenges associated with maintaining vaccine temperature requirements during storage and transport are not limited to the developing world. No matter the country, heat/cold vaccine damage is not a simple problem — it is hard to detect. You can’t always tell whether or not a vaccine has been rendered ineffective simply by looking at it. The CDC estimates that poor refrigeration wastes hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine every year, costing the health care system millions and, when noticed, requiring reimmunization.

This interview is an excerpt from a longer article written by Aman Bhandari for his blog, Global Health Ideas. The full interview with further details is posted here.

Photo credit: flickr/NathanF, Creative Commons license.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 11:35 AM)

New Innovation Makes Vaccines More Resilient

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:35:00 +0000

By Aman Bhandari

I recently conducted an interview with Kristensen to discuss PATH's breakthrough for the Hep B vaccine and the implications of this discovery.

Aman Bhandari: What was the primary breakthrough?

AB: How did you get this done?

AB: Why was no one else able to do this before?

AB: What are the barriers to applying this technology to other vaccines?

AB: How does this change the cost structure of delivering vaccines in general?

AB: On the surface this appears to be a major breakthrough. Is that how PATH scientists are viewing it?

AB: Have you done projections on the increased number of vaccinations that can be done with this new technology?

AB: Is this something that can be used in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) markets?

This interview is an excerpt from a longer article written by Aman Bhandari for his blog, Global Health Ideas. The full interview with further details is posted here.

Photo credit: flickr/NathanF, Creative Commons license.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 11:35 AM)

Headlines from Worldchanging Canada (August 2009)

Mark Tovey — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:12:17 +0000

BIKE-O-RAMA: A Roundup of the Best in New Bikes, Bike Infrastructure, Blogs, Books and More

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:30:32 +0000

For decades, citizens and officials have been working together to create the infrastructure necessary to change mindsets about who gets to use the roads and why. It's no secret that bicycling is the most eco-friendly, inexpensive and efficient means of going about daily business in your dense community. Still, particularly in North America, it's clear that "streets are for cars" is a meme that won't die without a fight.

But good leadership is proving that it's possible -- even in cities that developed around the automobile -- to reclaim the streets. By gradually establishing separate bike amenities and protective laws, leaders in cities like Copenhagen, Portland, Ore., and Amsterdam have helped bikers and drivers learn how to share the road.

Seeing how this has worked for and benefited the people in these model cities, many leaders and activists in the Global North and South are looking to follow suit to help residents improve their health, decrease air pollution and lower their carbon emissions. Now, new bike infrastructure and bike-sharing systems seem to be appearing almost daily on city streets throughout the world -- signaling to many that the bicycling-as-transportation movement might be on the brink of reaching a much anticipated critical mass.

This weekend, we are highlighting these signals in our Bike-o-rama Roundup, in the hopes of showing just how strong the movement has grown. What you'll find in this collection is a guide to the new and time-tested tools, ideas, infrastructure and resources shaping this revolution. These are the established and emerging voices, efforts and innovations that we believe to be Worldchanging; helping us to grab ahold of our future by the handlebars, and pedal down the path toward a bright green tomorrow.

Though the simple mechanics of the modern bicycle seem to leave little room for improvement, new materials and technologies continue to refine this human-powered machine. Click here to find our suggestions for your next zero-gallons-per-mile vehicle are functional, socially responsible and sustainable.

Increasing the number of bikes on the road is becoming a serious goal for forward-thinking leaders. As Elisabeth Rosenthal recently wrote in the New York Times, there will soon be only two kinds of city leaders: those who are implementing bike amenities and bike-sharing programs, and those who plan to do so soon. But it's about more than just announcing a mission, or even making bikes available for free. A lack of bike infrastructure plagues many cities, causing would-be cyclists to shy away from congested, potentially dangerous roads. City leaders are finding that adding bike amenities, such as sharrows, separate lanes and on-street bike parking to the streetscape works well to encourage residents to use their pedal power.

Click here to find out what some of these infrastructure improvements are, how they work, and what they mean for cyclists and drivers alike.

Interested in learning more about biking or bike culture? Click here to see a list of thought-inspiring books and blogs that will prepare you for the roads, keep you informed of urban cycling achievements and challenges, and give you a glimpse into the minds behind the movement.

Probably the most fascinating part about the bicycle revolution is the people behind the movement. Ideas to Roll With is a collection of innovations from the bicycling community that we'd like to see succeed and spread. Click here to find out more on bicycle film festivals, collective action, online communities and more.

This piece was created by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck, Christa Morris and Kamal Patel

Image credits:
Feature image: ginnerobot; Bike Rack/Light Rail: IrishFireside, CC License; Traffic Sign: Bfick, CC License; Books: SleepyNeko, CC License; Bike Rack: MoBikeFed, CC License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:30 PM)

BIKE-O-RAMA: A Roundup of the Best in New Bikes, Bike Infrastructure, Blogs, Books and More

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:30:32 +0000

Click here to find out what some of these infrastructure improvements are, how they work, and what they mean for cyclists and drivers alike.

This piece was created by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck, Christa Morris and Kamal Patel

Image credits:
Feature image: ginnerobot; Bike Rack/Light Rail: IrishFireside, CC License; Traffic Sign: Bfick, CC License; Books: SleepyNeko, CC License; Bike Rack: MoBikeFed, CC License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:30 PM)

Ideas to Roll With: Bike-Related Innovations We’d Like to See Flourish

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Probably the most fascinating part about the bicycle revolution is the people behind the movement. Ideas to Roll With is a collection of innovations from the bicycling community that we'd like to see succeed and spread. Scroll down to find out more on bicycle film festivals, collective action, online communities and more.

Bikes for All
Across the world, people are working together to build member-owned, community bike programs, places where people can buy, sell, donate and build bikes. These hubs usually focus their energy on donating used bikes to those in need, but also typically offer other services like tune-ups, tool rental and DIY workshops. To find a bike cooperative near you, visit the International Bicycle Fund's Worldwide Directory of Community Bike Programs.

Bike Culture
Entering its ninth year, the 2009 Bicycle Film Festival (BFF) will roll into nearly 40 countries to entertain an estimated 250,000 bike enthusiasts. BFF was started in 2001 to celebrate the bicycle in all its forms and styles. The program aims to present a range of films documenting all aspects of bike culture, from bicycle jousting to Critical Mass. The program for the festival is different in each city, but usually includes bicycling games, art, mixers, film screenings and musical performances. Organizers kicked off the tour in Memphis in May and plan to visit cities in Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand before bringing it back to the States for the final screening in Florida. Check out the tour dates to see when the BFF might be coming to your town.

Youth Empowerment
Bikes for Books rewards youth with an opportunity to earn their very own bicycle through reading. Its premise is simple: read the required amount of books, earn a ticket, and be entered into a drawing to win a new bike. The more books read, the more tickets are earned and the chances of winning a bicycle increase. We love that the program encourages children to explore and expand their world -- through reading as well as through firsthand experience as they cruise around a neighborhood on their shiny new bikes. Talk about empowerment!

Crowdsourced Route Mapping
Getting from here to there on your bike can be a whole lot easier when you have a good recommendation from an experienced rider. If you're new to the bike scene, try out one of these collaborative mapping sites: Map My Ride, Bikely, lonelyroads.org, or search for a site specific to your area. These crowdsourced sites are helping the bike community connect, share information and collectively map out the best route. Jump online, then jump on your bike! Just be sure to add to the collective when you return.

Bike Activism
Bike activism groups are springing up as a way to marry bike culture with some cyclists' commitment to social causes. One great example is the growing non-profit Bike and Build. This domestic voluntourism org sends teams of cyclists on cross-country treks billed as part adventure and part social service. Along the way, they build affordable housing and educate communities. Participants are responsible for raising funds per mile, which are then dedicated to the affordable housing cause. A physical and mental challenge, its a great way of getting involved and in shape.

Collaborative Data Collection
To help make biking safer, we need to make it smarter. Enter Bikewise, a collaborative information site where bike commuters can log reports about thefts, crashes and hazards. In Seattle, Wash., the non-profit Cascade Bicycle Club collaborated with Worldhchanging ally Phil Mitchell to build the site as a place where people everywhere can share their experiences to make biking safer and more fun. The Bikewise team says that the reports will help them collect "good data on the things that sometimes go wrong."

Car-Free Communities
In a small, German suburb residents are pioneering a car-free lifestyle worth emulating. Despite how essential many believe cars to be -- especially for suburbanites -- most residents of Vauban say that the transition was easy and report feeling happier, healthier and safer without their cars. The community's experiment is garnering the attention of local governments around the world who hope to decrease their carbon emissions, improve their air quality, and prepare for a world without oil. In other cities, progressive leaders are tackling the issue one street at a time, by closing prominent thoroughfares to cars permanently, seasonally, or for weekend walk- and bike-ability celebrations.

This piece was written by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck and Christa Morris.

Image credit: MoBikeFed, CC License

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:25 PM)

Ideas to Roll With: Bike-Related Innovations We’d Like to See Flourish

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Probably the most fascinating part about the bicycle revolution is the people behind the movement. Ideas to Roll With is a collection of innovations from the bicycling community that we'd like to see succeed and spread. Scroll down to find out more on bicycle film festivals, collective action, online communities and more.

This piece was written by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck and Christa Morris.

Image credit: MoBikeFed, CC License

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:25 PM)

Bike-frastructure 101: Sharrows, Street Parking, Superhighways and More

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:20:01 +0000

Read on to find out what some of these infrastructure improvements are, how they work, and what they mean for cyclists and drivers alike.

Separate Bike Amenities
It's about time we recognized bicycling as a legitimate mode of transportation with dedicated bike lanes and parking. Bicyclists are hit by car drivers far too often in our cities, and local governments are starting to do something about it. In Copenhagen, for example, grade-separated bike paths make cycling safer, and in Portland, Ore., painted paths and other road coloring treatments keep cyclists visible. Scroll down to check out a variety of some of the best innovations cities are implementing to help people share the road:

On-Street Bike Parking

Street parking for bicyclists is surprisingly controversial, even though parking is a basic and essential part of personal transportation infrastructure. By giving over parking spaces traditionally reserved for one car or motorcycle, cities can provide places to park up to eight bikes. Transforming these 9' by 18' rectangules of urban real estate into bike parking does more than just make it easier to ride, it sends a visual message about the type of change we want to see.

Sharrows

Sometimes letting motorists know to expect cyclists on the road can be a big step toward encouraging safer driving. A 2004 study done in San Francisco revealed that the sharrow - a painted symbol indicating a shared roadway - is an effective way to shift motorists' (as well as cyclists') positing in the streets as to help create a safer, friendlier way to roll. Have you seen these pop up in your neighborhood?

Bike Boxes & Green Lanes

Otherwise known as "advanced stop lines," bike boxes work under a simple concept: provide a colored "box" at the front of intersections where cyclists can wait at a red light. Cars sit behind this line, and are often times required by law to not make a right hand turn on red. These brightly colored boxes succeed in raising awareness of cyclists, and also help to eliminate potential conflicts that may arise at intersections. Read more about the bike boxes in Portland.

On a similar note, bike lanes themselves are going green -- literally. Whether an entire lane is painted, or sections leading into intersections, a brightly colored patch of "green-crete" serves as a reminder to automobile drivers that a cyclist may be right alongside them.

Create Your Own Bike Lane

When your route has no sharrows, bike boxes or green lanes, LightLane can help you keep your personal space at night. With two lines of lasers projected onto the pavement just behind your bike, LightLane both makes cyclists more visible to cars, but also gives drivers a guide showing how close is too close. Finally in production, LightLane may be a lifesaver for those late nights at work and long rides home on unmarked roads. (We're still waiting for someone to invent the DIY chalk route!)

...Or Just Ride Separately

In Copenhagen, bicycle "superhighways" run right alongside major auto-packed roads, giving commuters a healthier, safer alternative way to access the city. Worldwide, places such as Montreal, Bogota and London have long embraced and provided these lanes. As you can see from the video above, separate lanes not only increase cyclist safety, but also encourage more "reluctant cyclists" to hit the streets.

Bike Sharing

A community oriented and civilized system, bike sharing actually originated within a Dutch anarchist movement, the Provos, who painted 50 bikes white and left them for free use around Amsterdam (all 50 were stolen, and their plan to close downtown to all traffic and encourage the government to buy 200,000 white bikes fell flat). Bike sharing has taken a turn for the better since then, and bike sharing programs are wildly successful across Europe and the Americas -- Paris' Velib system has become the most iconic worldwide, but other cities have added their own: SmartBike in Washington, D.C., BIXI in Montreal, Samba in Rio de Janiero and b'easy in Santiago. Bike storage stations are placed in transit areas around cities, and for deposits, fees, or even for free, cycles can be checked out and returned for short jaunts or long treks. From the popular zip-car-esque membership community bike system to "bike libraries" where you can check out a bike for long periods of time for free, people are realizing that it is more convenient to share their wheels.

Bike Storage
Ever ride your bike up to a public bike rack that can only be easily locked to your quick-release front wheel or easy-to-remove back wheel? Seems cyclists could use a few more options. Here are a few public bike storage innovations that we think U-lock and chain lock users alike may find a little more user friendly:

Giken's ECO-Cycle is an underground, automated parking kiosk, currently in use in Tokyo. The kiosk can lock and retrieve bikes in seconds and some installations can hold up to 9,400 bikes. See the short video to see how it works. Also see a more detailed article about the ECO-Cycle here.

Penny Farthings' Green Pod is a great solution for building owners who want to help bikers commute to work. A single parking space can be converted into solar powered showers, lockers, changing rooms and up to 10 bike storage spots. One thought: since garage owners might hesitate to encourage non-car forms of commuting, this might be a good opportunity for a local government incentive aimed at garage operators, developers or employers.

Multi-modal Transportation

By incorporating bicycle-friendly designs within public transportation systems, cities can encourage more people to decide to beat the traffic by jumping on the light rail with their bike in tow.

By combining the best of our transit options we can be multi-modal and super-connected. Just imagine every bit of your trip to work or school being bike friendly: you bike to the light rail or bus stop nearest your house, zip downtown on public transportation, hop off and pedal the rest of the way. And maybe we even go so far as to ensure that every taxi cab has a bike rack, too!

This piece was written by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck and Kamal Patel

Image credits: Traffic Sign: Bfick, CC License; BCycle; Bike Rack/Light Rail: IrishFireside, CC License

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:20 PM)

Bike-frastructure 101: Sharrows, Street Parking, Superhighways and More

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:20:01 +0000

Read on to find out what some of these infrastructure improvements are, how they work, and what they mean for cyclists and drivers alike.

...Or Just Ride Separately

Multi-modal Transportation

By incorporating bicycle-friendly designs within public transportation systems, cities can encourage more people to decide to beat the traffic by jumping on the light rail with their bike in tow.

This piece was written by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck and Kamal Patel

Image credits: Traffic Sign: Bfick, CC License; BCycle; Bike Rack/Light Rail: IrishFireside, CC License

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:20 PM)

Bicycle Reading List: Of Books and Blogs

WorldChanging Team — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:10:00 +0000

Interested in learning more about biking or bike culture? These thought-inspiring books and blogs will prepare you for the roads, keep you informed of urban cycling achievements and challenges, and give you a glimpse into the minds behind the movement.

Books
The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels Instead of Four (Falcon Guide)
by Robert Hurst
Ever wonder why Americans have such a love/hate relationship with the bicycle? Or why this alternative mode of transportation isn't promoted more heavily by local governments? With these questions in mind, Denver author, student and bike messenger Robert Hurst embarked on a journey to explore the history of the bicycle. By examining both achievements and failures along the way, he was able to better understand why we've come to view the most efficient mode of transportation with such suspicion and disdain. From oil independence to "cycling costumes," Hurst's compelling overview -- which could easily be described as Bicycology 101 -- shows that the future of transportation is best powered by our own two feet.

Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance
by Lennard Zinn
Having the knowledge and skills to fix your own bike is not only empowering and fun, its also cheaper and safer than relying solely on the friendly neighborhood bike shop. With clearly drawn and labeled diagrams of every nook and cranny of your bicycle, an emergency repairs section, bike tool chart, and troubleshooting guide, this well-written book deserves a space in every bike bag. If you are into mountain bikes, check out Zinn's guide to the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance too; both are classics suited for beginners to expert riders.

Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
by Jeff Mapes
Amenities and laws that help bicyclists pedal safely through the streets are being implemented rapidly across the United States. But the white and green paint you see on the streets isn't solely the work of bike-loving transit officials, says political reporter Jeff Mapes; rather, this is the work of hundreds of dedicated activists. In his new book, Mapes documents how cyclists have created a movement that is changing streetscapes across the nation.

Blogs
Copenhagenize- The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog
Arguably one of the best blogs out there on all things pedal-powered, Copenhagenize is jam-packed with bite sized posts that may interest any cyclist. Whether you're curious about bicycle superhighways for commuting, finding the best bike for the little ones in your life or using cargo bikes to launch your next business endeavor, look no further. With its awe-inspiring stories and examples of bike culture both in Copenhagen and abroad, Copenhagenize does its best to showcase how the bicycle can provide multiple solutions to many of the challenges facing cyclists (including how to secure rock-star bike parking).

The Guardian's Bike Blog
Serving up a mix of interviews, commentary and resources, Worldchanging content partner The Guardian maintains perhaps one of the most extensive bike blogs around, boasting a little something for everyone. It's on the daily list of blogs we keep up to date with, and we find it to be one of the most interesting blogs around. Seriously, where else can you read about folding bikes, brothel discounts for cyclists and where to find affordable bike insurance all at once?

The Slow Bicycle
In a world dominated by the need for speed, the Slow Movement is a great alternative to the haste associated with modern living. Launched in Copenhagen during 2008, The Slow Bicycle Movement offers a way for individuals to reconnect with others and to savor the moment ... on a bike. The blog links together cyclists from around the world who have held "slow bike races" and made other efforts to take bike culture back from the lighting-fast Spandex crowd. Packed with other interesting tidbits, this blog reminds us that sometimes, we just gotta take 'er easy so we can take back our time.

Streetsblog
Streetsblog (another Worldchanging content partner) sets a great example in the sustainability realm of the blogosphere. Formed in 2006, Streetsblog not only provides news and views on cities, bikes and policies, but it now includes films and a wiki that helps foster future-forward thinking. Their daily content provides readers with unique stories of how not only bikes, but the people who ride them, can help us re-imagine our city streets.

Zero Per Gallon
When Johnny Waldman, more commonly known around the blogosphere as Johnny5, wanted to promote the bicycle in the wake of rising oil prices, he made a sticker that read "zero per gallon," slapped it on bikes and sold it to others -- in a somewhat subtle way to stick it to the man. With ZPG's huge success, Johnny soon started up an online store and a blog. Waldman, who's also a professional writer, serves up witty commentary on mostly bike-related topics, ranging from oil (and our addiction to it) to political suicide. Although his posts are serious in nature, they're also laugh-out-loud funny. It's worth a read.

What are your favorite book and blogs about bicycling?

This piece was written by Sean Conroe, Sarah Kuck and Christa Morris.

Image credit: SleepyNeko, CC License

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 5:10 PM)

New Bikes (bling!)

Christa Morris — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:05:40 +0000

Though the simple mechanics of the modern bicycle seem to leave little room for improvement, new materials and technologies continue to refine this human-powered machine. Our suggestions for your next zero-gallons-per-mile vehicle are functional, socially responsible and sustainable.

Bamboo bikes

Elite bike builder Craig Calfee first developed a bamboo bike prototype in Santa Cruz, where its functionality and earthy appeal made it an instant success. After a trip to Africa, he realized that locals could manufacture bamboo bikes to provide a source of income through exports as well as affordable and non-polluting transportation to the communities. With help from Zambikes, the Peace Core, and Cyclists for Cultural Exchange, "Bambooseros" shops have opened in Ghana, Zambia, Mexico and Uganda and there are plans for more in the Philippines, Cambodia, and El Salvador. Not only does buying a bamboo bike support the green economy in poor countries, but the bikes themselves are also remarkably robust: bamboo is shock-absorbent, as strong as carbon due to its hollow interior and fracture-resistant nodes, doesn't rust, and costs a whole lot less. Ironman triatheletes even testify to riding faster on bamboo bikes than carbon frame ones.

The Contortionist Folding Bike

Lack of space to lock or store bikes in cities is one of the biggest barriers to would-be bike commuters. One solution: a design that allows you to fold up your bike and take it with you wherever you go. While folding bikes have been on the market for years, their small wheels, bulky profile, and greasy chains are not an ideal solution. But the Contortionist Folding Bike seems to have solved these problems. A full-sized bike that can be manufactured in existing bike plants, with hydraulics instead of a chain to power the back wheel, and a sleek form that can unhinge and twist to the size of a single wheel, this bike could be the one that makes folding bikes mainstream. Although it is still in prototype phase, and its long-term durability is still questionable, manufacturers and bikers alike are lining up.

Electric bikes

Electric bikes haven't been so popular in the past because of design flaws: they were often heavy, sometimes unreliable, and they looked clunky. But slimmer, lighter and faster models are popping up, making this mode of transportation a true solution for long, hilly urban treks. The Schwinn electric bikes are particularly pretty, with 18 mph speed and a battery that lasts three years (most electric bike batteries need to be replaced annually). It is, however, a little more costly. At a lower price point -- albeit with some extra weight and a battery that needs replacing more often -- is the EZip Electric from Walmart. For only $350, it's certainly cheaper and healthier than a gas guzzler, and it can travel up to 25 mph for 25 miles on one charge if you use the motor only for hills (10 miles if you use it liberally).

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(Posted by Christa Morris in Features at 5:05 PM)

See it Before it Disappears: Reconciling and Regulating Disaster Tourism

Carissa Bluestone — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:24:00 +0000

In 2007 The New York Times wrote a snarky piece on disaster tourism. “Vanishing” was the watchword that year as the media compiled must-see lists of disappearing landscapes and publishing companies raced to put out guidebooks on the same theme. Kimberly Lisagor and Heather Hansen weighed in with the able Disappearing Destinations: 37 Places in Peril and What Can Be Done to Help Save Them. (For a preview of the book see the writers’ blog, Endangered Places.) Frommer’s then seriously upped the ante by finding 500 places to profile, including not just natural resources but “cityscapes in peril, vanishing cultural kitsch, petroglyphs and more — 500 thoughtfully chosen treasures that will inspire and enlighten travelers of all ages.”

Inspire them to do what, exactly?

To finally believe in climate change, perhaps. The main rationale for visiting places in collapse is that it makes real the severity of the situation and hopefully creates advocates. Shannon Stowell, President of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, spoke at the Vacation Matters Summit of how such an experience has the power to move even seasoned travelers.

We [the ATTA] went to Greenland two years ago and the most powerful pitch about the reality of global warming was [from] the two Greenlandic fisherman. They had no political statement to make. We were on their boat in this bay, and they looked around and said, ‘Wow, we have never seen this. We’ve been fishing for 40 years. The ice has gone so far in that we’ve never seen this place before. Isn’t this amazing?’

But now, thanks to the "see it before it disappears" crowd, there’s another reason to go to Greenland: some people may be depending on your dollars. In Ilulissat, tourism based on the spectacle of retreating glaciers is seen as a way to compensate for fishing income lost to warming seas. In Mexico, the rate of illegal logging dropped in Michoacán’s Monarch butterfly reserve because of President Felipe Calderón’s $4 million pledge to save the endangered biosphere. The plan was focused around improving tourist access, which would in turn pump money into the impoverished region and give villagers a new trade, removing the need to log to make money. Tying conservation to tourism, however, can be a precarious fix: one wonders, for example, what will happen to the town of Angangueo, where “small hotels cater to tourists anxious to see the winged insects, and guides eagerly offer their services,” if the U.S. State Department doesn’t rescind its travel alert about the state of Michoacán in time for the winter migration.

At this point, dwelling on the moral implications of "see it before it disappears" tourism will have to wait. Like it or not, destinations like Greenland and the Galapagos (in that case, actually all of Ecuador) are tethered to tourism. By the time the New York Times article appeared, it was too late to implement a “stop going” strategy. Decoupling some of these spots from tourism — perhaps with funding from responsible voluntourism ventures — is preferable but not feasible in the short term, and in the meantime, yanking the rug on eco-tourism could adversely affect endangered wildlife. Ben Block wrote about the role of primate-watching tourists in Rwanda’s economy, and Stowell stated that Uganda is in a similar predicament: if the tourists leave, gorilla poaching resumes. Said Stowell, “adventure tourism has created an economic rationale for government-sponsored wildlife conservation ever since modern protected areas were first established. This isn’t always done well or right, but it at least creates some sort of economic reason for governments to protect wildlife.”

So, that leaves us with one practical path: regulate the hell out of tourism to these destinations. Most of the "vanishing places" round-ups are maddeningly vague when it comes to instructions on how to visit responsibly, a shortcoming that I think is less about the list-makers' effort and more about the reality that it's the system itself, not each individual traveler's behavior, that's the source of the problem. Lisagor and Hansen, for example, do their best to explain why they recommend a certain tour operator, but case-by-case operator profiles aren’t enough to guide all of the decision-making that goes into some of these trips. So third-party certification, although never enough on its own, is a must in these destinations.

Ecuador’s Smart Voyager certification (PDF) for Galapagos tour boats is a great example of a voluntary certification program, one that according to adventure tour operator Troy Glennon has succeeded in creating a ripple effect wherein tour companies view certification as part of staying competitive. This has prompted one-upmanship of the best kind — seeing who can go the farthest beyond the baseline criteria.

However, the Galapagos Islands are also a prime example of how a tourist destination can’t rely completely on self-regulation by well-meaning operators. Last week the biggest news from the islands was the threat invasive mosquitoes pose to their fragile fauna — the mosquitoes hitched a ride on airplanes and tourist boats. Leeds University's Simon Goodman, one of the authors of the study, noted:

The Ecuadorian government recently introduced a requirement for all aircraft flying to Galapagos to have insecticide treatment, but the effectiveness hasn't yet been evaluated, and similar measures still need to be introduced for ships. With tourism growing so rapidly, the future of Galapagos hangs on the ability of the Ecuadorian government to maintain stringent biosecurity protection for the islands.

Some of the more promising initiatives have been intergovernmental in scale. More than 40 organizations collaborated last year to draft the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria; this year, the World Tourism Organization, which has its own Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, became a member of UN-Water, “in order to stress the relevance of water for the tourism sector and to contribute to the common efforts of the UN.”

Additionally, the Adventure Travel Trade Association is working on its own set of principles to help governments whose countries rank low on the Adventure Tourism Development Index grow tourism sustainably, instead of doing anything necessary to rapidly increase the volume of “heads and beds.”

With the level of catastrophe facing some of these vanishing places, establishing a few sets of rules may seem like fighting off a cloud of invasive mosquitoes with a spritz of citronella — in other words, not a worthy alternative to completely curtailing travel. But because people will continue to visit vanishing places no matter how many “don’t gos” are uttered and typed, and because some of these places now rely on tourism to survive, we have to forgo reconciliation to concentrate on regulation.

So how do travelers help mitigate the disaster-tourism disaster? While there are no silver bullets, a few principles can help you make more responsible decisions:

Do some soul searching. Ask yourself why you’re going. Many people visit vulnerable places out of sheer curiosity and wonder — for example, the Great Barrier Reef has been on must-see lists for decades. Its declining state has become a factor in its popularity, but it didn’t create the reef’s mystique.

However, the “see it before it disappears” compulsion is also a branch of solastalgia, the pervading sense of loss brought on by changes to our environment. And that’s the main problem with these trips: they may tack on the “so you can save them” clause, but they’re ultimately focused on loss and resignation, not renewal or celebration.

If you’re looking for cocktail conversation fodder or want to luxuriate in loss, there are plenty of places to visit that are just as romantic but not quite as fragile. If you think your motivations are positive, read on.

Do some research. Although a few guidelines apply across the board, tourism is different in every place, even within the same country. Expeditions to remote places take months or years to plan, so it stands to reason that you should spend more than a week planning your vacation. Understanding the specific environmental and economic challenges of your destination is the only way to make good decisions on the ground.

Have a real conversation with your tour operator. Ask where every dollar goes. Get a full itinerary that includes as many details as possible regarding transportation, meals and accommodations to fully assess the operator’s sustainability claims. Ask if the trip has an educational component, both to explain the regulations travelers must obey and to provide context on the destination. Considering how expensive most of these tours are, and how much pride green outfitters take in their practices, your questions should be welcomed, not rebuffed.

Honestly assess your skills and fitness level. Although it’s not a hard and fast rule, the more an operator or destination needs to cater to the tastes and (often low) fitness levels of its participants, the more infrastructure it must create to provide a “luxury” experience. Pick an adventure that suits you; don’t expect the adventure to suit your needs. This is somewhat complicated territory because making a destination very expensive is the best way to limit the number of visitors; however, permit systems can limit visitation without putting the onus on tour operators. And the demand for “creature comforts” like gourmet meals in the middle of the Arctic has caused otherwise responsible operators to seriously muddy their mission statements.

Leave no trace — except contrails. If you’re flying to your destination, you’re leaving an impact. Until major innovations in jet fuel or intercontinental zeppelin flights become options, the closest thing we have to a solution is actually just a form of apology: carbon offsets. Yes, any low-impact strategy you implement other than not flying will be a small step in comparison. But in fragile destinations, obsessing over proper trash disposal and water conservation is important. Similarly, a personal act like using biodegradable sunscreen, which may seem like green consumer misdirection, becomes a lot more noteworthy when you consider what chemical-laden sunscreens do to coral reefs.

Give back responsibly. As I noted in a previous post, the voluntourism industry has its own issues. However, voluntourism trips centered on wildlife viewing can be beneficial, as citizen science does have its place in monitoring threatened flora and fauna. Just make sure that the biggest contribution of your voluntourism trip is monetary — not only in support of wildlife conservation, but also in support of social programs that will help attendant communities become self-sustaining without tourism.

Create better top 10 lists. We’re living in a time of tremendous transition and uncertainty. Surely we can stand to refine our “must-sees”—we’ve already started with the staycation, which asks us to find the exotic in the next town over.

If we fixate on taking a last sorrowful look at the already doomed, we’re not looking at the places that may well end up on next year’s list, or at victories like UNESCO’s expansion of its biosphere reserve network, which supports comprehensive environmental stewardship programs. Where’s the “doing just fine” list? How about 50 places to see so they don’t disappear?

This article is part of a guest author series on sustainability issues in travel and tourism. Read more:
Vacation Matters: North American Summit Looks at Time Poverty and Vacation Law
Travel Matters: Paid Vacation Law & Sustainable Tourism
Vacation Matters: Resources for Further Reading
Worldchanging Essay: Creating Responsible Voluntourism

Carissa Bluestone is a Seattle-based freelance writer and editor. She helped create Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, and continues to consult on Worldchanging’s book ventures. A former editor at Fodor’s Travel Publications, she has spent 10 years in the travel publishing world, editing and contributing to guidebooks and online publications.

Image flickr/mikelo, Creative Commons license.

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(Posted by Carissa Bluestone in Features at 9:24 AM)

See it Before it Disappears: Reconciling and Regulating Disaster Tourism

Carissa Bluestone — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Inspire them to do what, exactly?

We [the ATTA] went to Greenland two years ago and the most powerful pitch about the reality of global warming was [from] the two Greenlandic fisherman. They had no political statement to make. We were on their boat in this bay, and they looked around and said, ‘Wow, we have never seen this. We’ve been fishing for 40 years. The ice has gone so far in that we’ve never seen this place before. Isn’t this amazing?’

The Ecuadorian government recently introduced a requirement for all aircraft flying to Galapagos to have insecticide treatment, but the effectiveness hasn't yet been evaluated, and similar measures still need to be introduced for ships. With tourism growing so rapidly, the future of Galapagos hangs on the ability of the Ecuadorian government to maintain stringent biosecurity protection for the islands.

So how do travelers help mitigate the disaster-tourism disaster? While there are no silver bullets, a few principles can help you make more responsible decisions:

Image flickr/mikelo, Creative Commons license.

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(Posted by Carissa Bluestone in Features at 9:24 AM)

Fish Systems and Design

John Thackara — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:22:00 +0000

A grim new film, The End of the Line, reveals the impact of overfishing on our oceans. It exposes the extent to which global stocks of fish are dwindling; features scientists who warn we could see the end of most seafood by 2048; and includes chefs and fishers who seem indifferent to the ecocidal consequences of their business practices. "We must act now to protect the sea from rampant overfishing” says Charles Clover, author of the book of the film.

Must, must. Although important in raising awareness, the danger with films like The End of the Line (as with 'An Inconvenient Truth', and Michael Pollan’s 'Food, Inc') is that they bombard us with so much bad news that positive and practical actions, that are also being taken, are obscured - and opportunities to help them develop are missed.

The End of the Line received far more publicity, for example, than the launch of FishChoice.com

This free, non-profit web portal helps chefs and retail buyers procure sustainable seafood from suppliers accredited by leading ocean conservation organizations; FishChoice partners include the Marine Stewardship Council, The Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Blue Ocean Institute.

FishChoice.com is one of many business-to-business (B2B) innovations that begin to unlock an intractable problem: how to reconfigure food systems that lock their participants into ecocidal behaviour.

It’s not as if fishermen, wholesalers, food processing firms, retailers, chefs,and consumers, want to destroy the world’s fisheries; but the linear structure of the supply and communication chains they operate in prevents them from seeing, and responding appropriately to, the bigger picture.

For food systems to be resilient we need to reconfigure, radically, relationships between fishers and consumers; we need to measure what matters throughout the lifecycle of fish; turn supply chains into supply webs, or ecologies; and put in place new, transparent economic relationships between fishers and citizens.

This is easy to say - hard, in practice, to do. I received the Fish Choice press release on market day where I live in France, and I soon found myself at my regular independent fish stall. The friendly couple who run it told me what tasted best that day - but information about the fish on the table before me was otherwise minimal. Hand-written tags told me things like “Cod, North Atlantic” and a price per kilo. But I was given no idea where the fish came from, how or when it was caught, by whom, or what has happened to it since then.

In the language of system design, I was an “actor” at a “touch point” at the end of a “chain of custody” running from the fishing vessel to the dock, from the dock to a processor or wholesaler, and from there, in this case, to my fishmonger.

In the language of stating the obvious, I was buying blind.

I do carry around a credit card sized consumer guide to buying fish (above) published by the World Wildlife Fund. It divides fish into “preferred”, “buy in moderation” and “avoid”. I use the leaflet in restaurants where one can consult it discreetly whilst reading the menu. But standing in front of my cheerful fishmonger, with a queue of people behind me, I did not. It’s too small and fiddly to read easily; the names of fish listed by the WWF do not always correspond with the words on the plastic tags; and above all, I was not at all sure I possessed the social tact to engage the friendly fishmonger in a non-confrontational way.

The above mobile phone application has, it’s true, been designed to make fish consumers smarter. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new service brings Seafood Watch recommendations directly to your iPhone (in the US only so far). But although a step forward on the WWF leaflet, the iphone service is still based on a linear model: you receive information from a trusted supplier, which is good; but the service does not enable you confer with fellow citizens about it, still less with intermediaries further up the fish supply chain.

Seafood traceability is an essential element in sustainability. But most food systems are based on closed, proprietory networks in which access to information is controlled by powerful supermarkets and wholsesalers. In the UK, for example, five chains control 80 percent of food sales. They derive immense competitive advantage from their control over information flows – and handsome profits follow. I don’t have a number for fishers, but I’m sure it’s similar to the coffee farmers who receive less than six per cent of the value of a standard pack of ground coffee sold in a grocery store.

It’s not that large firms are filled with personally evil people. On the contrary, retail giants like Walmart, Carrefour and Elior (Europe’s third largest contract catering firm) are doing a lot to promote sustainable fishing. Walmart, for example, is committed to sell only MSC certified fish in its 3,700 US stories, and had achieved 50% of that target by January 2009; and in the UK, Waitrose supported the production of The End of the Line.

But however well-intentioned, these global players are not about to remove themselves as intermediaries in long global supply chains; neither are they ready to open up their information systems to independent scrutiny.

Besides, the main problem is not a lack of information. A raft of eco labels has been launched, and Iceland, Sweden and Ireland run their their own ecolabel systems for fish. But the multiplicity of such schemes, many of which are based on contradictory criteria, makes it harder for consumers make informed choices about what they are buying.

Another problem is that global accreditation schemes, such as the Marine Stewardship Council's blue ecolabel, do not take account of the energy impacts of the airfreight often used to move eco-labelled products around the world. A Danish researcher, Mikkel Thrane, who has proposed a ban on the air freight of MSC-labelled products, argues that “it doesn’t make sense to put a label on a product reflecting sustainability when non-carbon-friendly shipping methods are being used.”

The same argument applies to the huge amounts of energy used by retailers to display fish

– for example, in brightly-lit chiller cabinets; or in the location of fish counters in out-of-town megastores that greatly amplify biosphere-damaging transport intensity.

Everything in a food system needs to be measured and accounted for - not just one element in the process.

The biggest challenge is the impossibility of feedback and personal relationships in attenuated global systems. In a truly sustainable fish system, its actors will be connected in a web of relationships rather than in a one-way chain.

Technology can help here. Peer-to-peer networks, wikis, crowdsourcing, participatory mapping, mobile communications, platforms for knowledge-sharing – all these are potential components of distributed systems that connect citzens more directly with producers.

] Food systems are social systems

But iphones are only part of the answer. Food systems are social systems, and technology on its own cannot orchestrate the multitude of actors and stakeholders involved. Practical, context-specific issues need to be dealt with, continuously - and it's through these day-to-day negotiations that mutual trust develops.

Place-specific social enterprises for food, based on distributed models, are already emerging in cities of the South. In in such cities as Kinshasa or Dakar, in Africa, a “multi-actor ecosystem participation approach” (MEPA) has been developed that treats food supply as an ecosystem in which farmers, policy makers, environmentalists and regulatory bodies collaborate on the basis that the ecosystem itself is a shared responsibility. The interactions. Involved are complex and multi-directional, but geography and culture provides a shared space.

A more ecosystem-centric approach is also being pioneered in the North. In the fast-growing Transition Towns movement, for example, citizen groups are mapping foodsheds and watersheds as the basis for a more holisitc, regional approach to food security.

These maps, and other web-based tools in development, are viewed by Transitioners as tools to enable face-to-face contact among each other, and with food producers and citizens - not as visually mesmerising ends in themselves.

An especially inspiring UK model is a restaurant-led initiative, Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants, that “links good fishermen with chefs…the idea is to build a long term relationship with “your” fishermen”. The Pisces team therefore insists on getting out on individual boats, and sees for themselves how the fish are caught.

This is a huge commitment of time and effort – and of trust on the part of the fishers. But for Pisces, it’s a worthwhile investment in the future. “Managing simply to avoid stock collapse is a miserably negative goal” they say; “despite all the problems, there remain an amazing diversity of fish just off the British coast - over 170 species in the North Sea alone. We want stocks to be built up so that they can support bigger catches, and better profits, while still leaving plenty for other species”.

The design lesson here is that there can be no one global “sustainable fish system”. The design task, instead, is to look for practical ways to help a multitude of different models – like MEPA in the South, or Pisces in the North – succeed, multiply, connect and adapt - in different ways in different contexts.

This article originally appeared on Doors of Perception.

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(Posted by John Thackara in Features at 2:22 PM)

Fish Systems and Design

John Thackara — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:22:00 +0000

The End of the Line received far more publicity, for example, than the launch of FishChoice.com

FishChoice.com is one of many business-to-business (B2B) innovations that begin to unlock an intractable problem: how to reconfigure food systems that lock their participants into ecocidal behaviour.

In the language of stating the obvious, I was buying blind.

The same argument applies to the huge amounts of energy used by retailers to display fish

– for example, in brightly-lit chiller cabinets; or in the location of fish counters in out-of-town megastores that greatly amplify biosphere-damaging transport intensity.

Everything in a food system needs to be measured and accounted for - not just one element in the process.

] Food systems are social systems

This article originally appeared on Doors of Perception.

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(Posted by John Thackara in Features at 2:22 PM)

Transparency, Accountability and the “dot eco” Debate

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:33:15 +0000

It's All in the Name: A New Tool Will Provide Assurance for Green Claims

By Peter ter Weeme.

Despite the troubled economic times, recent research shows that consumers are continuing to purchase “green” products. According to a survey conducted in March of this year by BBMG, an American branding and marketing agency aligned with “forward-thinking brands and conscious consumers,” nearly seven in ten Americans (67%) agree that "even in tough economic times, it is important to purchase products with social and environmental benefits.” Half say they are still willing to pay more for them.

BBMG also found that interest in green products is holding steady. Three in four consumers (77%) say they "can make a positive difference by purchasing products from socially or environmentally responsible companies." On the flip side, 71% "avoid purchasing from companies whose practices they disagree with."

In a separate study this past spring by the Shelton Group of Knoxville, Tennesee, 22% of survey respondents said they have no way of knowing whether a product is green or not. An additional 20% look to the product’s label to determine whether it’s green, while 15% look to the ingredients list.

The point here is that consumers are confused and skeptical about the green claims companies are making. That’s why consumers are looking for easy ways to ensure they are getting what they pay for when they buy green.

To help them wade through this morass, sites like the Consumer Reports' Greener Choices eco-label center have emerged to provide objective information on various ecolabels and how they stack up across a range of criteria. A similar Canadian site is ecolabelling.org.

However, with hundreds of eco-labels on the market, and the varying levels of transparency and accountability they demand, many consumers are still left scratching their heads. Fortunately, an additional assurance avenue is on the horizon.

In 2010, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international organization that promotes competition, develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers and coordinates the Internet’s naming system, plans to introduce new top-level domains (TLDs) similar to .com, .org and .net. One of the possible new domains is “.eco.”

Imagine, for example, that only companies that meet strict and standardized criteria – informed by stakeholder input – are permitted to use the .eco domain name. Doing so would provide one more tool to help consumers make good, green choices. Key here are robust criteria and clear reporting standards.

To date, two groups are applying to run “.eco.” One of them is Big Room Inc., the Vancouver-based firm behind ecolabelling.org. The other group, known as Dot Eco LLC, is based in the US and has partnered with Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection. From the activity on each group’s website, they both look like serious contenders.

According to Big Room, its vision for a green domain – which it simply calls Dot Eco – is “to create a significant new revenue stream for providing funding to [environmental] initiatives and organizations around the globe” and “allow Dot Eco domain name owners to communicate and share environmental and social information on their company, organization, product, or even themselves.” In other words, they see the “.eco” system as means to create a global trustmark and information platform that enables sustainable markets to grow and flourish. While there are some differences of viewpoint between the two groups, Dot Eco LLC promotes a similar vision on their website.

Both groups also propose a business model that would generate a significant revenue stream for eligible causes. With the Dot Eco LLC group’s alliance with Al Gore, they propose directing a portion of their profits into U.S. climate change projects from the Sierra Club, Alliance for Climate Protection, and Surfrider Foundation. Big Room, on the other hand, proposes to direct a percentage of revenues (not profits) to a broader range of environmental and social causes through an independent foundation.

However, while the criteria for awarding many TLDs is relatively straightforward (for examples, only Canadian-based organizations are eligible for “.ca”), it’s much trickier with the coveted “.eco.” According to Trevor Bowden of Big Room, “Some really big questions have to be addressed with this opportunity. The community needs to make a call here, and decide how .eco should be run for the long term.”

As a result, the Big Room team has rolled out a global policy development process to build a consensus for stewardship of the Dot Eco TLD. The first consultation session was held in May in Vancouver, followed by another in Sydney, Australia in June. Another one will be held in Sao Paulo next week. In contrast, Dot Eco LLC has put forward seven principles that “.eco” users would need to endorse before being allowed to use the TLD.

Both organizations will have to submit applications to ICANN by February 2010. A decision is expected later in the year. Stay tuned for more developments in the months ahead.

Article from WorldChanging Canada.

Read more on greenwashing, strategic consumption and corporate transparency in the Worldchanging archives:
Stemming the tide of greenwashing
Greenwashing. Environment, Perils, Promises and Perplexities
Strategic Consumption: How to Change the World with What You Buy
Principle 1: The Backstory
Corporate Political Transparency: The Green Business Rating We Really Need

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 9:33 AM)