7 Billion

National Geographic is running a series on population this year, as we're expected to top 7 billion by the end of 2011.  Clearly population is a big factor in sustainability.  Population growth, and the increased consumption, demand, and stress on natural systems that comes with it is a fundamental driver of the funnel metaphor.  Some people get too caught up on population and want to treat it as the only driver.  It's not - for some of the reasons highlighted in the video below.

In sustainability-academia, one of the classic formulas for representing the interplay of major drivers is the IPAT equation: Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology.  (this equation has some limitations, but is a helpful way of conceptualizing the interplay between some of these major drivers).

I'm looking forward to National Geographic's coverage on this - and think these two videos do a great job relaying some sense of the scale of our population, and some of the expected demographic trends:





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Join the journey of realisation at Open Planet Ideas

Guest Post by Susanna Halonen

What do you get when you fuse together an open platform, a panel of industry experts from Sony, WWF and IDEO and the fantastic minds of many? I’d say a very exciting, fast moving project! As community manager at Open Planet Ideas, I’ve been blown away by the creative suggestions that have been shared in response to our brief: how would you repurpose today’s technology to help address environmental challenges? Now though we face the biggest challenge of all – after selecting one final creative idea we need to make it a reality. And this is where we need your help.

There have been some superb ideas put forward. It’s incredible to think that so many items can be given a new lease of life if you simply think about how else they might be used. This Sony project demonstrates that the ‘review, re-use, recycle' ethos is alive and well – with the enthusiasm to our brief suggesting that the sustainability mindset is advancing, capturing the minds of many. Throughout the challenge we were impressed by the ingenuity of ideas and the interactions within the community.

After exciting deliberations and investigative research, the expert panel chose Greenbook as the final concept for realisation! Greenbook is an app that uses geolocation and gaming technology to make volunteering quicker, easier and more social. It matches local people with local projects, bringing many new people to volunteering and changing our communities and environment for the better.

Together with Paul Frigout, the creator of Greenbook, we are now coming up with a project plan but we need your help to refine the concept further.  So why don’t you join the journey and give us your valuable input on the final concept and what would encourage you to use it?

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Collective Impact - How to Collaborate for Positive Change

How many Harvard graduates does it take to change a light bulb?  The former director of Harvard’s sustainability office had direct experience in answering this question when implementing lighting retrofits on campus.  She calculated it took somewhere over 40 people to make it happen, when it was all said and done. 

This isn't surprising.  Creating a sustainable society is complex.  And it will require people, communities and organizations from all parts of our global society to work together towards this common goal.  To do so, everyone involved needs  - at a certain level - to share this goal.  We don't all need to agree on the details of the goal, nor do we all need to agree on exactly how to take each step towards getting there.  But we do need a shared understanding of the system we're operating in and the principles we can all agree on.

Image credit: NASA Goddard

One of the basic tenets behind Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) is that groups of more than 5 are typically dumber than the dumbest member of the group, but that with a shared framework and a common language and common goal, a group working effectively together can be much smarter than the smartest member of the group.

The Framework for SSD provides a common goal - defining sustainability on the principle level - and common language and techniques for large groups, and cross-sector groups to work together effectively.

A recent paper by John Kani and Mark Kramer in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled Collective Impact does a great job of articulating the need for collaboration across traditional boundaries to enact change and provides some exciting examples of groups that have been successful in doing so.  

The authors lay out five conditions for collective success:

1. Common Agenda - a shared vision for change among the participants 
2. Shared Measurement Systems - agreement on ways to measure and report progress
3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities - alignment so different participants are doing different activities that in sum support the common goals
4. Continuous Communication - regular meetings and conversations are necessary to build trust and understanding
5. Backbone Support Organization - a separate organization and staff to support the collective effort and serve as the backbone for the initiative

When the task at hand is creating a sustainable global society - or creating a sustainable organization (i.e. an organization that has eliminated its contributions to unsustainable activities) - the Framework for SSD is one of the most effective tools for articulating the common agenda and creating shared measurement systems and identifying mutually support activities.  From there continuous communications are a must as are people dedicated to the constant coordination and support for this type of transformational change. 

When this works, amazing things can happen. Innovative ideas, solutions and new products are created.  Team members get excited and passionate about their work.  Risks and waste are avoided. 

It is not easy, but it is necessary avoid a collapse of human society, and it can be fun. 

Stay going. 

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The Impacts of Climate Change

Coming much sooner than anticipated...



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The American Clean Energy Party

Earlier this month, Eban Goodstein shared an idea to create the American Clean Energy party - ACE - in this article on grist.org.

The entire article is worth the read, as it's a compelling idea.  Goodstein lays out 3 main components that the ACE party would be built around:

1) The American Permanent Fund: Every year, each American family receives a check for $1,000, and rising. The source? A fee on big polluters

2) Clean energy leadership: Thirty billion a year to capture global leadership in the clean energy technologies that will rewire the world.

3) Green collar jobs, today: A large-scale loan guarantee program to finance energy efficiency retrofits of state, city, and federal buildings -- putting millions of Americans to work.

The aim of the party would be to run ACE-endorsed candidates in the primaries of both major parties, with the intention of shifting the debate to the most critical issue of our time - the climate crisis.

I like the concept for a lot of reasons - it will work to engage more people in the political process; it would be built around a positive vision for an energy-independent, safe, secure, clean-energy future; and it holds promise to provide the common ground needed to move past the counter-productive, divisive, partisan stalemates that are so common in our political culture these days.

ACE isn't a party yet - just an idea.  But it is an idea that has legs.  So stay tuned, and share the idea --hopefully, the right people with the necessary resources will come together to make something like ACE a reality soon.

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Carbon Nation

A new movie - Carbon Nation - from director Peter Byck is set to launch next month, and from watching the trailer it looks like it's going to be exactly what we need to prompt real action on climate and energy - covering all the angles like social justice, ecosystem health, economics, jobs, and national security.

With a focus on solutions, I'm hopeful this will serve as the long-awaited answer to An Inconvenient Truth.

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Write a Letter, Be Counted

Before the holidays, I wrote about an emerging campaign called The Million Letter March.  The concept is to get as many people as possible to write a personalized, hard-copy letter to their representatives, encouraging them to show some leadership on climate action, and work to recognize the true costs of emitting greenhouse gases by putting a price on carbon.

With the new Congress, much of the focus is still on ideological, political bickering.  A strong showing of personalized letters will show that there is support for climate action - and doing so through this project which tracks the letters, will help show the collective impact of many people understanding the importance of moving on this issue.

It will take about 5-10 minutes to write and print your letter, record it in their system and put a stamp on the envelope.  So please go to www.millionlettermarch.org and click "Write Your Letter" at the top of the column on the left.  They have some sample text if you're looking for inspiration - below is a copy of what I sent.  It's not necessary to make every point about why pricing carbon is important - national security, health, driving innovation, saving lives, protecting ecosystems, creating jobs, etc. etc. - but make one or two that are particularly important to you and send it off!!

Dear Senator,

Please do everything in your power to put a price on carbon.  Climate disruption from greenhouse gas emissions is already wreaking havoc on people in the US and around the world, and the longer we wait to take meaningful action, the worse it will get.  The economic impacts of this disruption will be enormous. More importantly, there is no way to put a price on the hundreds of millions of lives that are at stake, or on a species, or a place.  

We must do everything in our power to eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. I support the Million Letter March Principles, found at www.MillionLetterMarch.org, and would welcome a carbon tax.  We need to adopt a science-based target of 350 parts per million atmospheric concentrations of CO2, and take the most sensible and effective measures of getting there. 

Putting a price on carbon immediately is a necessary first step.  Luckily, it is also one that will drive innovation, produce entire new industries, and create millions of jobs. 

Please support a price on carbon through fair, effective climate legislation. Thank you, and I look forward to your response. 

Sincerely, 

Georges Dyer

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