Giant Asteroids and International Security
World Changing 11/12/2008 01:19
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The scientists predict that by 2020, telescope technology will allow researchers to identify which asteroids orbiting the sun could potentially pose a threat to Earth, though it is impossible to know exactly which ones are really on a collision course until it is too late to take action. Therefore, the scientists recommended a proactive policy of defense and protection, as quoted in this article from the Guardian:
'The international community must begin work now on forging three impact prevention elements - warning, deflection technology and a decision-making process - into an effective defence against a future collision,' said the International Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation, which is chaired by former American astronaut Russell Schweickart.
The recommended course of action for deflecting asteroids is still a largely uncertain one:
The panel said it would be necessary to launch missions to deflect or destroy asteroids that have only a one in 10, or even a one in 100, risk of hitting our planet. 'Over the next 10 to 15 years, the process of discovering asteroids will likely identify dozens of new objects threatening enough that they will require proactive decisions by the United Nations,' the report added. In addition, such missions will have to be launched well ahead of a predicted impact, so that slight deflections by spaceships can induce major changes in an asteroid's paths years later.
any effective protection system will require funding of about $100m (£68m) a year to provide a full survey of the skies, combined with investment in spacecraft that can reach an asteroid and then deflect it. This would be achieved either by crashing the spacecraft on to the asteroid or by triggering a nuclear explosion in space.
Experts in the field have been agitating for a while to secure more funding for research into asteroid threats and potential solutions. In May, Alexis Madrigal blogged on Wired Science about a research center created by Iowa State University where experts from around the world will study the topic of asteroid deflection. As professor Bong Wie told Wired, the research center was meant to fill a large gap in understanding about the problem:
"As of 2008, there is no consensus among professionals which approach or technology can be actually used when we have to use it."
While we continue to be wary of untested technological solutions to complex natural problems, we agree that investing in new research and keeping watch of extraterrestrial bodies that could threaten our planet is a wise move for science.
More than that, however, is the importance of promoting the big-picture view of investing in a search for long term planetary solutions (Madrigal includes a cynical nod to this challenge at the end of his post, also). This is a theme that asteroid deflection shares with combating climate change, and other planetary mysteries yet unsolved. As Jamais Cascio wrote in a 2006 post about asteroid science:
The biggest problems our planet faces are, unfortunately, the ones that we seem least well-equipped, cognitively, to handle. Evolution has gifted our brains with the ability to analyze a situation quickly, looking for subtle patterns and clues related to past experiences. Problems that unfold slowly, or take a long time to show change (for the better or worse), or have a significant lag between cause and effect, appear to our monkey brains as not-problems. We need to train ourselves to take the long view, to examine the big picture.
It's possible that as we figure out how to deal with climate disaster, we will pick up that training as a matter of course. If we're lucky, we'll do so in time to deal with the next round of big picture problems, asteroid or otherwise.
You can read more about the interplay between humans, Earth and space in our archives:
Greens in Space
Recycling Space Junk
Environmental Law in Space
To Understand and Protect Our Home Planet
The Moons of Saturn
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Columns at 4:19 PM)
Urban ReVision: Envisioning a Sustainable City Block in Texas
World Changing 10/12/2008 23:09
On December 5, our allies at Urban Re:Vision joined forces with the City of Dallas, Texas to host a planning session for an incredibly ambitious green building project. The day-long charrette brought together city officials, urban planners, master architects and green building experts in anticipation of a truly visionary project: the creation of a sustainable city block in downtown Dallas.
The charrette helped prepare guidelines for an international design competition called Building Blocks Dallas, which will kick off in January. The process began in August, when experts convened in San Francisco to determine the unified conceptual framework, a document that would guide the creation of a sustainable city block project in any community. The session in Dallas focused exclusively on translating that universal framework to Dallas itself, with the goal of creating a set of detailed data so complete that any contestant around the world would be able to create a vision for a sustainable block relevant to Dallas, regardless of whether he or she had ever set foot in Texas.
The winning city block design will actually be built, on what is currently an unused parking lot spanning two blocks across the street from Dallas City Hall. According to Urban Re:Vision, one of the two blocks will be transformed into public green space; the other will be devoted to the new sustainable city block.
The designated downtown space as it looks today.
The lead developer for the project will be the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation (CDC), a local community development organization. The CDC will be responsible for bringing in the developers and contractors that will turn the design vision into a living, functioning location. The non-profit developer is an arm of the Central Dallas Ministries, a faith-based community development organization whose mission is to build affordable housing, develop communities, and establish economic opportunities for the people of Dallas County.
But the big-picture goal of the contest isn't limited to sustainable development in Dallas alone, says Ian Bryan, media relations director at Urban Re:Vision. "The reason we're doing it is to create a model [for sustainable development] that's so well thought out that any city could replicate it in their own community."
The Building Blocks Dallas contest will officially launch next month, and Urban Re:Vision will accept entries until May 2009. Entries will be judged by a panel comprising a number of Dallas community leaders as well as several expert global architects and community planners. The winning design will be announced on May 27th.
What follows is a recap of the charrette, written exclusively for Worldchanging by reporter Jenna Aguilar on behalf of Urban Re:Vision:
After greetings from the Mayor and project leads, participants separated into various groups devoted to discussing specifics: community, transportation, construction, economic/policy and natural resources.
Some advisers warned that it could be a tough sell. With a City Hall looming, a convention center and eight lanes of freeway within a few hundred yards, noise and air quality concerns topped the list of issues that would require serious attention. Others expressed concern about the isolation of the block from restaurants and shopping.
To address these and other issues, breakout groups focused on the entire City Hall/Convention Center corridor, identifying needs the City must meet in order for the project to be successful. Possible solutions included turning one street into a pedestrian corridor, raising additional sound barriers, several proposed options for linking the new community to public parks, and the narrowing of streets to reduce through-traffic.
Concerns like these arise with any well-thought-out development, said Eric Corey Freed, principal of OrganicARCHITECT and author of Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies. I think that Dallas will tackle them. What would be a nightmare is if this were developed like most other building projects out there: without considering the day-to-day needs of the community. We dont want an island of sustainability. We want an expanding role model for integrated city living.
"When all is said and done, the success of the project will be determined by the quality of life we are able to facilitate for residents and businesses. If this community doesnt work, it affects all similar projects, so we have to get this right the first time.
The sites benefits include easy access to public services and transportation, community benefits in walking distance such as the Dallas Public Library and Farmers Market, and an investment opportunity in a downtown corridor which many predict will become a vibrant living community over the next five years.
Its incredibly important that Dallas has been chosen for this project, added Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity. If this were done in Chicago or New York or San Francisco, people would just nod their heads to the news. But the world will watch Dallas because its a bold step for a city that is younger than many others [in moving towards sustainability].
Throughout the day, Dallas collaborators were motivated by the thought of how the new block could intersect with and influence the creation of future sustainability initiatives throughout the city and region. If the community and economics of the block turn out to be successful, local planners commented frequently, a ripple effect could follow, spurring similar neighborhood projects all over Dallas.
To build this right outside the window of local government has profound symbolic meaning, said Brent Brown, principal of the Building Community Workshop (bcWORKSHOP). And the best part is that it is not the city building it. This project is owned by the community and will be led by a nonprofit developer.
Want to know what the entrants will be working with? Below, courtesy of Aguilar, are some details from the factsheet developed at the Dallas charrette. These parameters will help guide designers in developing their contest entries:
* The site is 2.5 acres, approximately 100,000 square feet, located adjacent to City Hall complex
* City regulations require 200 units of residential per acre (approximately 500 units)
* A portion of units must be micro-lofts with rent cap at approximately $450 (est. 350 sq ft)
* Maximum retail: 75,000 square feet.
* Planners are required to incorporate an educational component that serves all residents.
* No private office commercial for non-residents will be permitted at the site.
* There must be a minimum of 50 square feet of arable land per residential unit.
*
Resource: P&P
World Changing 10/12/2008 21:49
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Our friends at Ecotrust in Portland, Ore. recently developed an online magazine titled People & Place (known simply as P&P). The overall theme behind P&P is "ideas that connect us," and the content addresses that on various levels both by writing about interconnected systems and philosophies, but also by connecting readers via weblinks to other organizations whose work relates to the ideas discussed on the site, and by encouraging discussion between readers in comment threads (much like we do here on Worldchanging). As Ecotrust's Howard Silverman describes the site's mission:
Ecology as politics. Economics as ethics. In a rapidly changing world, narrow categories no longer suffice. On P&P, the relationships among people and between people and place serve as the twin foci around which everything else connects.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't love the site's retro-modern design, which leans heavily on show-stealing caricature illustrations by irreverent cartoonist Shannon Wheeler. But the valuable resource here is P&P's musing, thought provoking content. I also like the way that the main stories are supported with links to associated media, and other short features like "Our Compass," which points to organizations that can be resources on the current featured topic.
The site is organized much like a conventional magazine, with content aggregated into regular "volumes" and "issues" that remain constant for several weeks at a time and, I'm assuming, will be updated all at once. But you'll also find some tidbits that turnover more quickly via their more bloggish feature "On The Wire," which presents very short and concise info posts on items in the news.
Ecotrust has been putting important ideas into the public sphere since 1991, and we're happy to see this new platform for discussion toward a more connected, self-aware society.
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(Posted by Julia Levitt in Resource - Community at 12:49 PM)
Infrastructural Domesticity
World Changing 10/12/2008 21:49
Because "it takes too long to come down to ground level each day to make it worthwhile," a crane operator on the Burj Dubai the world's tallest building is rumored to have "been up there for over a year," the Daily Telegraph reports.
His name is Babu Sassi, and he is "a fearless young man from Kerala" who has become "the cult hero of Dubais army of construction workers." He also lives several thousand feet above the ground.
[Image: The Burj Dubai, via Wikipedia].
Whether or not this is even true after all, I never think truth is the point in stories like this 1) the idea of appropriating a construction crane as a new form of domestic space a kind of parasitic sub-structure attached to the very thing it's helped to construct (perhaps raising the question: what is the ontology of construction cranes?) is totally awesome; 2) further, the idea that crane operators are subject to these sorts of urban rumors and speculations brings me back to the idea that there might be a burgeoning comparative literature of mega-construction sites taking shape today, with this particular case representing a strong subgenre: mythic construction worker stories, John Henry-esque figures who single-handedly assemble whole floors of Dubai skyscrapers at midnight, with a cigarette in one hand and a hammer in the other (or so the myths go), as a kind of oral history of the global construction trade; and, finally, 3) there should be some kind of TV show or a book, or a magazine interview series similar to Dirty Jobs in which you go around visiting people who live in absurd places like construction cranes atop the Burj Dubai, or extremely distant lighthouses, or remote drawbridge operation rooms on the south Chinese coast, or the janitorial supply chambers of inner London high-rises in order to capture what could be called the new infrastructural domesticity: people who go to sleep at night, and brush their teeth, and shave, and change clothes, and shower, inside jungle radar towers for the French foreign legion, or up above the train tracks of Grand Central Station because their shift starts at 3am and they have to stay close to the job.
How do they decorate these spaces, or personalize them, or make them into recognizable homes? It's like a willful misreading of Heidegger as applied to the question of building, dwelling inside, and thinking about modern infrastructure.
I'm reminded of a line from Paul Beaty's new novel, Slumberland. Early in the book he writes, and my jaw dropped: "Sometimes just making yourself at home is revolutionary."
[Image: The Burj Dubai, via Wikipedia].
In fact, consider this an official book proposal to Penguin, say: a quick, 210-page look at strange inhabitations, like that guy who lived inside a bridge in Chicago, only not some mindless catalog of quirky stories like, ahem, that guy who lived inside a bridge in Chicago but profiles of people with amazingly strange jobs who have to sleep in places no one else would even imagine calling home. Down beneath the streets of Moscow in a subway switching HQ in a little bunkbed. Out on the Distant Early Warning Line of the U.S. Arctic military where it's just you, a toothbrush, and the Lord of the Rings on DVD. You dream about forests.
Or perhaps there is a suite of individual employee bedrooms in some South Pacific FedEx re-routing warehouse, where long-haul pilots are required by labor law to sleep for ten hours between flights; they come through twice a year, leaving Robert Ludlum paperbacks behind for themselves to read later.
The micro-tactics of dwelling inside strange but temporary homes.
In any case, while I'm working on that, the rest of the Daily Telegraph article is worth a quick read.
(Spotted on Archinect).
This piece originally appeared on Geoff Manaugh's blog, BLDGBLOG.
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(Posted by Geoff Manaugh in Shelter at 12:49 PM)
Another Suggestion for U.S. Automakers: Build Railroads
World Changing 10/12/2008 21:00
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Last week, we published a few words of advice for the U.S. auto industry from sustainable business expert Gifford Pinchot III. In short: build windmills.
This week, architect and New Urbanist John Massengale added his own recommendation to the debate: build railroad cars and streetcars.
An excerpt from Massengale's blog post on the subject:
But as momentum grows for the idea that infrastructure money should be spent on things like rail rather than roads (and even neighborhood centers), how about the idea that we the people give the Big Three large contracts for railroad cars and streetcars? We should have a lot more of those, and we're currently buying them from other countries.
All the state DOTs are used to privileged positions for feeding at the public trough, but we don't need any more highways. We need high-speed rail (much cleaner and greener than airplanes), light rail and even boulevards for the light rail to run on. For fifty years, we've been giving traffic engineers money to build auto sewers that ruin our cities and blight our countryside. As we reinvent the way we live, we need to reinvent the way we move around. Our cars and our sprawling way of life are the biggest reason why we're number one in pollution and oil depletion.
Do you think that Detroit will be able to harness this opportunity for a bright green recovery? We invite you to share your own thoughts in the comments below.
Thanks to the Streetsblog discussion group for bringing John's blog post to our attention.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Transportation at 12:00 PM)
Mid-Point, Pozna: Risky Business
World Changing 10/12/2008 21:00
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| Photo courtesy Amanda Chiu A climate change demonstrator at the on going conference in Pozna, Poland |
by Amanda Chiu
Amanda Chiu reports from the 14th Conference of Parties (COP 14) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Pozna, Poland.
On Day 4 of the international climate change negotiations, discussions continued to move briskly. Highlights included a workshop that examined climate change risk and vulnerabilities.
The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) hosted the workshop on strategies for risk management and risk reduction, which include risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance. This may sound like a peculiar way to consider climate change, but risk analysis, management, and reduction provides Parties with a quantitative way to consider the magnitude of necessary mitigation actions.
Because governments are nearly always working with limited resources, it can be very helpful to consider climate change's impacts in terms of the likelihood that change will occur as well as the potential damage (or benefit) it causes. Factors to consider include the perception of the risk as well as some quantitative value of the impact of that risk, whether positive or negative. Generally, that value is measured monetarily, because we understand the value of money pretty clearly. Understanding risk is a valuable way to make optimal and rational decisions.
The general structure for workshops begins with an opening statement by the chairperson, presentations from either Party delegates or outside experts, discussion among the Parties and sometimes presenters, and concluding remarks by the chairperson. At this workshop, experts from theUN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Informal Task Force on Climate Change of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, and Munich Climate Insurance Initiative presented the delegates with ways to take effective adaptation and disaster-response measures.
Climate change can exacerbate and increase the number of large-scale disaster events, such as hurricanes and floods, as well as lead to progressive problems like sea-level rise. International disaster support varies depending on the type and prominence of the disaster. Delegates from Bangladesh offered an interesting comparison: international support for the December 2006 Indian Ocean tsunami received on average $7,000 per victim, whereas the Bangladesh flood in 1998, which inundated two-thirds of the country, received only $3 per person in international aid.
Many countries spoke in support of climate change insurance and additional measures to help regions adapt and improve their disaster response. Interestingly, disasters occur when a natural hazard (i.e., earthquake, flood, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, forest fire, etc.) overwhelms human abilities to cope or contain the impacts. Obviously, timely and effective disaster response is crucial in disaster-prone regions of the world, the majority of which tend to be in developing countries. Worldwatch discusses many of these challenges in its 2007 report, Beyond Disasters.
Developing-country delegates highlighted their nations' vulnerabilities to natural hazards and noted that their lack of capacity to respond effectively worsens the effects. Suggestions for risk and disaster reduction measures included an early warning system that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives during the 2006 tsunami, more coherent and orderly disaster response and management plans, and better outreach efforts to educate people about natural disasters.
Insurance, meanwhile, can help a disaster-affected region get back on its feet. "Reinsurance" is essentially insurance for the insurance companies, and it is becoming increasingly connected with climate change as extreme weather events become more frequent. Having a safety net such as insurance has been linked to additional moral hazard as well (i.e., that people with insurance may take greater risks than they would otherwise because they know they are protected). But as Koko Warner of the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative said, "Insurance is not appropriate for every risk," depending on local and national circumstances as well as the nature of the risk.
Many Parties proposed using the Framework for Action from the 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Hyogo, Japan, to complement the UNFCCC in building resilience to disasters. Resilience in the face of climate change is also the focus of a chapter in Worldwatch's State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World, coming out in January.
In their responses during the workshop, participants placed a big emphasis on capacity building, particularly for least-developed countries and small island developing states. Among the lingering issues was the question of what role national banks, insurance companies, and reinsurance companies can and will play in our uncertain future. Insurance can be present from the local level all the way to the international level. And joint programs on international and regional coordination would add value to the partnership.
In other conference news, contact groups have begun meeting, which means that negotiations are now going on behind closed doors. More to come...
Amanda Chiu is the MAP Sustainable Energy Fellow at the Worldwatch Institute.
This piece originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Events at 12:00 PM)
Worldchanging Interview: Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Health Solutions
World Changing 10/12/2008 21:00
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A few days ago, we conducted an exclusive email interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent at CNN. Dr. Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon and award-winning journalist, has traveled around the world to deliver live reports from the sites of natural disasters and combat zones, and has produced special reports dedicated to helping improve public health and spreading awareness of health-related environmental issues.
Below is a transcript of our correspondence, where Dr. Gupta shares the best health solutions he has come across, and describes their implications on both a global and a very personal scale.
Worldchanging: In your opinion, what will be the major health questions of the next generation, both in the developed and the developing world?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The biggest questions will be how to get the lifesaving technology, techniques and wisdom that are available to a relatively small percentage of the world into the hands of the entire world. The question of access will have to be fully addressed and that affects both the developing and developed world. Someone once said to me that if the "cure for AIDS came in a glass of clean water," we still wouldn't be able to rid the world of AIDS. The problem is access and we have to solve it.
Worldchanging: Livable cities are a potent weapon in the fight against climate change, so making cities healthy and attractive places to live is a key strategy. If you were a member of the team planning a city or urban neighborhood, what amenities would you place nearby, and why?
Gupta: Too many of our cities are built with an eye toward commerce, instead of health. As a result, we have parking structures instead of parks and roads instead of walkways. There are plenty of examples where you can do both. Healthier cities are successful cities. I would focus on increasing the amount of green space, because it is good for the earth and for our own bodies. I might buy thousands of bikes, paint them a really ugly color (so people wouldn't steal them...) and simply distribute them around a city. I would paint quarter mile markers on every walkway, so citizens could always have feedback on how far they are walking. I would also want to see urban gardens like they have in the south side of Chicago. Teaching my kids to garden would provide immeasurable rewards both for them and for their community.
Worldchanging: Worldchanging has covered a lot of innovations that use technologies originally developed for other applications to solve medical problems. (One recent example, Project Masiluleke, uses SMS text messages to get
the word out about a public AIDS helpline.) In your travels, have you encountered other creative innovations like this that are making a difference?
Gupta: There are so many examples out there. I did have a chance to see first hand the One Laptop Per Child organization that Nicholas Negroponte put forward. It is bold and forward thinking, and a colleague of Negroponte's even used the analogy of comparing these computers to vaccinations. They are, after all, life-making tools. The laptop project also encourages literacy...which of course has health benefits too, since people are able to share health information.
Worldchanging: Who are some of the worldchanging doctors (or other medical professionals) you know who are making a difference?
Gupta: Paul Farmer is one of the most remarkable and selfless doctors I have met. He has built free health clinics where nobody thought they could work. He has saved and improved countless lives by using the existing infrastructures in places like Haiti and Rwanda and improving upon them. He is also a relentless public health advocate, and is redefining health diplomacy.
Worldchanging: In the past, Worldchanging has covered many humanitarian solutions for bringing clean drinking water to communities in need. What solutions do you think offer hope for spreading access to clean water for all
people?
Gupta: Earlier this year, I hosted a documentary called The Survival Project: One Child at a Time for CNN. One of the special guests was actress Lucy Liu, who spent time all over the world looking at the issues of clean water and its impact on communities. I have seen how people living in underrepresented places may spend their entire day traveling to wells with a bucket in hand. The walk takes them hours and then of course, hours to walk back with heavy water in hand. It is impossible to live a healthy life, let alone make a life. I was pretty inspired to read about the TAP project, a fund-raising campaign. You can read about it more at UNICEF's website, but it will remind you of the value of tap water, and what we can do right now to improve the access to something we take for granted.
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(Posted by Sarah Kuck and Julia Levitt in Columns at 12:00 PM)
The Changing Relationship Between Internet and Politics?
World Changing 10/12/2008 20:26
Would Obama be the President without the Internet? Yes, he would.”
That’s Peter Daou, internet strategist for Hillary Clinton. His perspective is more or less the mainstream opinion at a conference held by the Berkman Center in Cambridge today. For me, as someone who doesn’t study US politics nearly as closely as I follow African politics, this is a bit of a surprising opinion. After all, four years ago, a similar conference at Berkman was a celebration of the power of the Internet in political campaigns.
Obama’s campaign in 2008 was different. Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum, sitting next to me, noted, “This was the best top-down campaign of the 21st century.” Marshall Ganz, a political scientist at the Kennedy School who’s written at length about successful labor organizing, offers a useful distinction: carpenters and tools. Previous discussions about political organizing in a digital age have obsessed over tools - this conversation is strongly focused on carpenters.
Jeremy Bird of Obama for America focuses his discussions about technology as tools that allowed professional political organizers to be more powerful. There’s been little to no discussion of the idea that digital tools allow individuals to self-organize, or to allow the grassroots to feed information to professional organizers. If anything, the discussions have been a celebration of the power of traditional political organizing, and the small ways that email, Facebook, SMS messaging and online video give these organizers more tools to play with.
I’m reminded of an essay online organizer Zack Exley wrote about the Obama campaign. He identifies Obama’s success as a combination of bottom up and top down. Professional organizers work closely together using established political organizing techniques. They delegate some responsibilities - more than in previous campaigns - to local volunteers who design strategies to reach specific communities. The volunteers are enthusiastic and passionate because they’re empowered to do more than make phonecalls or knock on doors - they’re allowed to design strategy, at least on the local level. But the overall campaign was far from the sort of creative chaos of the Howard Dean campaign - it was a traditional, top-down political campaign that included messaging via every media channel and limited creative input from local organizers.
This afternoon, the conference will move from the political pros to the net enthusiast academics - it will be interesting to see whether there’s strong pushback on the limited ambitions associated with this model of online political organizing.
Other perspectives on the conference:
- From my colleagues at Berkman’s Internet and Democracy project
- From my Berkman colleague Gene Koo
This piece originally appeared on Ethan Zuckerman's blog, My Heart's in Accra.
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(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Media at 11:26 AM)
The Commons Moment Is Now
World Changing 10/12/2008 20:08
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by Jay Walljasper
Public recognition of the commons is rising, best seen in this dramatic statistic from the source that best measures the zeitgeist of our times: google. In June 2004, a google search for commons turned up 6.3 million hits. That search repeated in November 2008 yielded 255 million 40 times as many references in just over four years. Internet growth accounts for a part of this gain, but its clear that the phrase commons and the wealth of ideas behind it are entering popular consciousness.
But as powerful as this idea is, the commons is not widely understood by the public. The phrase resonates in most peoples ears, but is often understood to mean specific concerns such as public lands or civic spaces. The commons actually represents an interconnecting web of critical concerns that reach deep into the realms of culture, ecology, technology, economics, politics, human relationships and social systems. There is a need for public education campaigns that excite people from all walks of life about the potential of a commons-based society to improve their own lives and reorder societys priorities.
The growing interest in creating a commons-based society is fueled in part by the auspicious historical moment that is dawning all around us. Its reminiscent of the time thirty years ago when liberalism was losing its footing and conservative policymakers refashioned their old political rhetoric based on social exclusion and apologies for corporate capitalism into a shiny new philosophy known as the market. Previously the thrust of right-wing thought had been focused on what they were against (civil rights, labor unions, social programs etc.), but claiming the market as their mission allowed them to showcase what they were for. The success of that re-branding has shaped our world.
The commons now offers a similar opportunity to turn things around in the political and economic spheres. Yet unlike the theory of the market, the commons is not just old wine in new bottles; it marks a substantive new dimension in political and social thinking.
The promise of a commons-based society offers considerable appeal for progressives after a long period in which the bulk of their political engagement has been in reaction to right-wing initiatives. Activists across many social movements, now aware that an expansive political agenda will succeed better than narrow identity politics and single-issue crusades, are starting to embrace the language and ideas of the commons. This line of thinking also appeals to a few traditional conservatives who regret the wanton destruction of social and environmental assets carried out in the name of a free market revolution. In the truest sense of the word, the commons is a conservative as well as progressive virtue because it aims to conserve and nurture all those things necessary for creating a better world.
At this moment in history growing numbers of citizensincluding many who never before questioned the status quoare willing to explore perspectives that once would have seemed radical. Millions of Americans are now making shifts in their personal lives such as buying organic foods, trying alternative medicine, collaborating in creating software, and beginning to search for something that offers a greater sense of meaning in the world. They may not yet understand the idea of the commons, but they are looking for something different in their lives.
The time seems ripe today for a decisive shift in worldview. People everywhere are yearning to tap the potential of the human spirit to create a better world, and the dream of a commons-based society holds great practical potential to transform that hope into constructive action.
This is an excerpt from an essay published by On the Commons.
Jay Walljasper, co-editor of OnTheCommons.org and senior fellow of Project for Public Spaces, is author of the Great Neighborhood Book.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 11:08 AM)
CopenCycle
World Changing 10/12/2008 19:42
This is a cool little project:
Real Time Copenhagen is a 3 year research project by the MIT SENSEable City Labs in collaboration with the Municipality of Copenhagen. Within this framework, CopenCycle is a short-term project in the context of a workshop which explores the use of real time technologies to map the flow of people and resources in Copenhagen to better understand urban dynamics in real time. By revealing the pulse of the city, the project aims to show how technology can help individuals and the planning institutions to make more informed decisions about their environment with a special emphasis on the use of public spaces. In the long run, the project seeks to integrate the technologies for more detailed studies of e.g. bicycle movements, services and routes in relation to sustainable urban transportation.
There are a bunch of cool components, including an "I crossed your path" ap for Facebook and a set of interfaces that help users track "personal bicycle habits including average calories, time, kms, exercise, recreational riding, cost on a daily, weekly or monthly basis," compare the footprint impacts of their biking to other modes of transportation and so on.
Smarter cities can be dramatically more sustainable cities, and we are gaining the capacity to weave intelligence through our cities with increasing rapidity
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(Posted by Alex Steffen in Emerging Technologies at 10:42 AM)
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