How You Can Save The World

Memo on saving the world: Thinking outside the big-box store model

2008-12-03T14:00:29Z

Those who gaze at big-box stores and fail to see future cathedrals, museums or artists’ communities have no sense of history. Or imagination.

It is beyond time to start thinking creatively about what to do with all of those big boxes becoming unsuited to their original function long before they physically wear out. Here are some brilliant ideas from a small team of artists, architects, engineers and developers assembled for the purpose. The result? Everything from truck farms to fabulous apartments to, um, kitty-litter boxes for 10-story tall intergalactic cats (Refer to the artist’s rendering above. -Ed).

We can prevent asteroid impacts — the last great hurdle is working together

2008-11-26T14:00:00Z

In early October, a small asteroid, about the size of a VW bug, impacted Earth coming in over Sudan. It was very special. This sort of event happens every several months on average, so just why was this one of particular note?

Because it was spotted headed our way less than 24 hours prior to impact by the guys (and presumably gals?) at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona — and then subsequently by many other asteroid trackers around the world. The sum of all this intense telescopic tracking was the first ever predicted Near-Earth Object (or NEO) impact time, impact location and estimated energy. All of which came true — to the extent that it has been check-able.

Now this was of particular interest to a group of us who have been putting together a detailed report for consideration by the United Nations regarding a decision-making process which needs to be coordinated within the international community if we are ever to respond in a timely way to threatened NEO impact.

]]> Of course no one cares about a 1-2 meter diameter asteroid since the atmosphere will protect us by dissipating the energy well above the ground. When they get up to Tunguska size, however, it’s a different story. At around 45 meters in diameter we’re talking 3-5 megatons of energy (250-400 Hiroshimas) and devastating effects at the impact site.

It’s these asteroids, from 45 meters and up, that we need to be prepared to respond to… if we have advanced notice. However, as evident the other night, we’ve now got a nascent early warning system — albeit not well coordinated or securely funded. Furthermore, while no world space agency has yet demonstrated the space technology to deflect an asteroid, the techniques are pretty well understood. In fact, JPL just completed a detailed performance analysis on the gravity tractor concept for the B612 Foundation, and it works just fine. On paper.

So while these two essential legs of a protective triad sort-of exist, the third leg — making a decision to act — is basically nowhere. Who is in charge? Who issues warnings? Based on what information? Who responds to the public’s questions? Who decides who to put at additional risk during a deflection (an unfortunate necessity in the process of deflecting a NEO) and how is liability handled should something go wrong? Who orders an evacuation if it’s too late for a deflection?

Sure, we could leave all this to the emergence of a threat and see how it all settles out in real time. That would be typical of bureaucracy at the domestic level, let alone at the international level. But unlike global warming or many other huge socio-political issues, this one is 1) pretty clear science-wise, and 2) cheap to “solve.” In this case solve = prevent an impact. The trick is that these events happen so infrequently that one has never happened in the lifetime of anyone who will read this blog. Furthermore, action has to be taken 12 or more years prior to a predicted impact and political systems are simply not good at addressing lead times of that magnitude (to understate it!).

Nevertheless our ASE-NEO committee and our international Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation have now completed the development of our recommended decision program and submitted it to the United Nations for deliberation and (hopefully) action — eventually. All this starts next spring in the meetings of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna. They’re expecting our report; it’s built into their 3 year work plan already approved by the UN General Assembly.

Another few episodes like the impact of 2008 TC3 in Sudan will certainly help to emphasize the reality of the threat. And, hopefully, by the time the first one capable of doing actual harm on the ground is predicted to impact, we’ll have something in place to deal with it. If we’re lucky. If not, let’s just hope that it’s a relatively small one and hits in the ocean.

The least that can be said is that now all three legs of the protective triad are “in work.”

Visions for a more environmentally-friendly tomorrow

2008-11-20T04:00:00Z

It’s Green Week here at NBC Universal, and How You Can Save The World is always thinking about the environment. That’s because our planet plays a big role in how we are — and should be — shaping the way we think, act and react to the political and technological challenges that sometimes make it hard to be green. That’s why it’s important to stay informed, and explore how you feel about energy, science, nutrition and more — and how it all plugs back into our planet.

Catch up on our evolving dialogue about a more environmentally-minded future by clicking on the headlines below.

Tomorrow matters, as much as today, by Jamais Cascio
Change the food system, and you change the world, by Denise Caruso
Why your personal carbon footprint matters, by Siel
Is your cheeseburger causing global warming? by Jamais Cascio
We ignored our looming energy crisis for far too long, by Lee Schipper
A case for vegetarianism, without the guilt trip, by Brian Sager
The Earth will be just fine, thank you, by Jamais Cascio
Nature’s Wrath: Who stands to lose the most? by John Podesta
Do we no longer believe in a better tomorrow? by Peter Schwartz
The dangers of a politicized scientific community, by Neal Lane
Opening up new horizons for solar energy, by John M. Deutch
Down the rabbit, er, prairie dog hole , by Anton Yelchin

Visions Forum, Part Three: Over 20 of our brightest minds sound off about Barack Obama

2008-11-14T14:00:00Z

I remember the excitement and hope that accompanied JFK into the White House. This is the first time in half a century that I sense the same excitement. When I look at the racial situation in the US during the Kennedy era and now see Obama as president, it gives me pride in our country’s ability to change. JFK had trouble achieving many of his goals, and Obama is far more constrained by external circumstances; but let’s hope he can move us to address some of the many serious problems we now face.

On a more parochial note, I await anxiously Obama’s decisions on the future of our country’s space exploration program, which for the first time was addressed by both candidates in this election.

We asked the contributors here at How You Can Save The World to weigh in on President-elect Barack Obama’s victory. Continue reading to find out how they responded.

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I was moved beyond words watching Obama’s victory speech. Hope is not a strategy, but it’s a profound and marvelous thing.

Senator Obama’s ability to evoke the best in us, our highest aspirations, and to do so across the chasms that normally divide us, is something the country sorely needs — and responded to in electing him. On the other hand, he enters a world of awesome challenges and difficult choices, and I know he’s bound to disappoint me from time to time, but such is life.

One difficult choice I hope he does make: to not let the fiscal crisis divert our critical need to invest aggressively in growing the new energy economy — independent, carbon-neutral and with all deliberate speed. — Gil Friend

A historic inflection as this nation steps onto another rung in the ladder of perpetual greatness. — Shaun Jones

Score one for America! I look forward to seeing what diverse and high-caliber team Obama coalesces to lead the country, and whether he can leverage online systems to meaningfully engage the public in governance as effectively as he did in the elections. — Hassan Masum

The Obama victory is the most positive event to happen to the United States in modern times. For science it means that we now have a president who believes in federal funding for basic research including critical areas as stem cell research and funding and support for the development of alternative fuels. President Obama’s election is the biggest single step to restoring America’s leadership in the world. — Craig Venter

Barack Obama’s victory means that America is finally throwing its moral, political, and economic power behind the fight to stop global warming. — Emily Gertz

One thing it means is that you can get almost anyone to smile here in Uganda, which is where I am right now, by telling them, “I voted for Obama.” I would say that he would have won by a landslide if we had had global voting.

But once the rejoicing is over, I hope people will realize that Obama is only a leader, and it will take hard work and dedication from all of us to get our country back on track. What can we do to make this a country we can all be proud of? — Esther Dyson

Obama’s victory resonates with me personally (the first GenX president!) and politically (no surprise), but what stands out is his willingness to engage the broader problems facing the country and the planet without resorting to over-simplification. The challenges confronting us are complex and filled with uncertainty; simplistic absolutism can only make matters worse. — Jamais Cascio

The most hopeful aspect of this election was the record turn-out and the dramatic increase in registered voters. Both candidates received record numbers of votes and that is a very good thing. Democracy depends upon an active and fully engaged public. This election met this test; now lets all work to keep every citizen engaged in the governance as well as the electing. — Paul Saffo

This Visions Forum is the final installment in a three-part series.
• See part one by clicking here
• See part two by clicking here

Visions Forum, Part Two: Over 20 of our brightest minds sound off about Barack Obama

2008-11-13T14:00:00Z

Right now, I am in Basel, Switzerland, keynoting the Swiss Innovation Forum, so I have witnessed firsthand the European reaction to Obama’s victory. The European response has been ecstatic. People spontaneously organized many election parties to watch the election returns as they came in. Time and again, people have expressed warm feelings and affection for America, and hope that a new era of cooperation and friendship will begin across the Atlantic.

But personally, I know that rough days are ahead for Obama, since the huge black hole in the economy will suck up so much needed money that Obama’s options will be limited for the first few years. But eventually, I hope that we can make progress in several areas, such as attacking global warming, funding stem cell research, funding alternative energy sources, etc. For too long, science has been held hostage to ideology. Science is the engine of prosperity, but often science has suffered at the hands of people who wished to promote an agenda based on ideology.

We asked the contributors here at How You Can Save The World to weigh in on President-elect Barack Obama’s victory. Continue reading to find out how they responded.

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I’m incredibly energized by Obama’s new vision for the country and the world. I’m truly optimistic his passion and energy and his ability to galavanize a whole new generation into action will have a meaningful and lasting impact on all of our futures. — Dave Howe

With Barack Obama’s victory, I find myself hopeful and at peace for the first time in eight years. I feel like rationality and intelligent thought — and even more importantly, respect for rationality and intelligence — has returned to American leadership. I am heartened to see that the rest of the world seems to feel that way, too.

I know that Obama will not be able to fix everything that has been put asunder by the actions and policies of the Bush administration, at least not in four years. But I do believe that he will help the U.S. rejoin the world community in areas that are of great immediate concern, like climate change, where our leadership and collaborative spirit is so desperately needed.

A most welcome breath of fresh air at the very least. And perhaps: a great, cleansing wind of change. — Denise Caruso

To me, Obama’s victory signals an end to the resigned apathy of people who felt their voices and efforts couldn’t make a difference in shaping this country. Now, with so many new voters empowered by the change their efforts helped bring about, I’m looking forward to seeing more people stand up and speak out as active participants in our government during this next and future administrations. — Siel

Obama’s election is a massive step forward for democracy, in a way that even the country’s Fathers, the men that designed the principles upon which this country is based, could not imagine; they were men of the 18th century and many of its biases, the democracy they envisioned, wonderful as it as, was not free for everyone. With Obama as our president, the country now represents true freedom for all people. He is a symbol of the way that anyone, regardless of race or economic position, can succeed. Democracy finally has a figurehead representative of democracy. — Anton Yelchin

The most obvious thing I take great pride in is that the nation has finally gotten past the mindless specter of racism that we have suffered with since our founding. Not that its gone, but it is now so discredited that we can elect a black president. What a fantastic historical moment.

On a more operational level it will mean that we will once again restore integrity in government with respect to scientific issues. I have great respect for the scientific method; and no respect whatever for the abuses of the current administration in distorting and suppressing science to serve its ideological ends. — Rusty Schweickart

Like many Americans I am enormously proud of my country today for having elected Barack Obama as the next president of the United States for all of the obvious reasons. It breaks with a long painful history of racism. The world views us with renewed respect for fulfilling the best within us and living up to our principles.

However, there is at least one more profound implication of this election that may not be visible from inside the States. I happen to be in Singapore for the election (and yes I voted absentee three weeks ago) and from here one can see another remarkable impact of Obama’s victory. Minorities everywhere can now imagine that their rights and aspirations might come to mean something in the many countries where these have long been suppressed. Obama has given hope to the oppressed everywhere not just in America. He has dignified all people — not just African Americans and other US minorities.

Having run a brilliant campaign against a white war hero, he was not defeated by what many feared: a latent racism. Americans voted both their hopes and fears. Even those who might have been reluctant to vote for a black man feared the consequences of an unwinding economy and pulled the lever for Obama. And vast numbers responded to the deep sense that there was something special about this man and voted their hopes.

In the end not his Muslim name nor the color of his skin mattered. This is what every person in the world now knows is possible. We can even imagine that the days are numbered for the oppressors of the world. This election really was about who we are as Americans. It was an expression of what we are becoming not what we were. We chose wisely and hopefully. — Peter Schwartz

This Visions Forum is the second installment in a three-part series.
• See part one by clicking here
• See part three by clicking here

Visions Forum, Part One: Over 20 of our brightest minds sound off about Barack Obama

2008-11-12T14:00:13Z

Barack Obama’s election is the single most historic moment I have personally lived through. It’s not just a historic American moment — it seems like most of the planet is cheering at America now. Seeing how much of a personal stake so many people around the world on every continent feel that they have in our presidential election, and hearing the cheers echo around every time zone, the election will perhaps be looked back upon as the single moment of the start of the real 21st century in which we find that, as we face so many global-scale and networked problems, we truly are all in it together.

We asked the contributors here at How You Can Save The World to weigh in on President-elect Barack Obama’s victory. Continue reading to find out how they responded.

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Today, I feel very proud of this country. We rose above the fear, the racism and the myopia. We ignored the lies and distortions. We rejected divisiveness. How cool is that? — James Daly

What a night.

I hope — and I expect — that Obama will be a great president. And we really need one right now. But, at the moment, it’s not so much the victory that I’m thinking about, as the electoral process itself. It’s just sort of amazing. What a crazy, eff’ed up process. It takes far too long, costs far too much money, and is almost guaranteed to deteriorate into all the things that make us crazy about politics — the boring stump speeches, the ritualistic lies and exaggerations, the ugly back-room deals, the advertising sleaziness… And yet, after all that, this election really did produce the best candidate for president and gave him the job.

So, it works, at least some of the time. — Steven Weber

If one looks at all the energy and environmental options on anyone’s table (including that of Senator McCain) asking, “What can knock 5 million barrels per day of oil out of our demand by 2020?,” all the answers cost way more than oil at $60/barrel. Nuclear power, so-called clean coal, synthetic and true biofuels all cost money. While we have a lot of opportunities for improving efficiency, the record of the last few years is one of a very slow improvement. And CO₂ emissions are an even greater challenge.

We do not need a crash clean energy program — every previous program has crashed because the results, however green, are still out of reach compared to cheap and subsidized fossil fuels.

With the greatest barrier to improving the health of our environment, reducing CO₂ emissions, and finding energy alternatives about to leave the presidential office, the most important thing President-elect Obama can do is figure out how to end the subsidies for hydrocarbons and subsidies for farm ethanol, tax oil to level the hidden costs to the economy, and above all tax all CO₂ emissions. Virtually all of this money can be refunded promptly through lower payroll taxes and lower income taxes.

Three presidents (Ford, Carter and Clinton) have tried and failed to change the national perception about the role of the price of energy (and by extension carbon) as a key element of change of direction. Hopefully as president Obama can summon the strength to be different. Our own world depends on it. — Lee Schipper

I hope that the election of Barack Obama provides hope for all that Americans can overcome and transcend the arrogance and fear-mongering of the current administration, and move once again towards playing a positive role in the world. — Brian Sager

The election of Barak Obama to be our next President — capped off by a moving speech that illustrated why he was elected by such a large majority — promises a new progressive era for America. The President-elect has made clear that his presidency will be one of inclusiveness and participatory democracy, a perfect invitation for our community of “civic scientists” to lend their voices and hard work to help President Obama and his new team deliver a bright future for our nation and for the vital role that science and technology will need to play. — Neal Lane

Obama’s win fills me with tremendous optimism. I look forward to seeing who he appoints and the progress his administration will facilitate. Of course I hope, among other things, to see an edible garden on the White House lawn in 2009, and more importantly to see America’s international image transformed into something we can be proud of. As happy Americans are cheering this morning, “Yes we did!” — Sarah Rich

This Visions Forum is the first installment in a three-part series.
• See part two by clicking here
• See part three by clicking here

The next presidency will test the scientific community, too

2008-11-03T14:00:00Z

The election is upon us, and we all look forward to it being over. Both presidential candidates have stated their positions with regard to science, e.g., in response to Science Debate 2008, not always with equal clarity.

Many thoughtful individuals and organizations have offered their advice to the incoming president and posted specific proposals for early action, including the immediate appointment of the President’s Science Advisor (naming him or her Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, thus reporting directly to the President). Indeed there is urgency in making this appointment, since the Science Advisor will be critically important in helping the President select and recruit a large number of presidential appointments as agency heads and for other vital roles. But, the list of things that need to be done right away is long, most of them the result of failed policies of the outgoing administration.

The new president will be under enormous pressure to focus his time, energy and political chits on the immediate crises and “put on hold” serious attention to important strategic issues that will affect the country decades into the future.

]]> One such issue is the need for increased federal funding for research — in all fields of science, mathematics, engineering — and for STEM education, as advocated by the National Academies’ “Gathering Storm” report and the “America Competes Act”, signed into law by President Bush. The agencies that support research — NSF, NIH, NIST, DOE’s Office of Science, NASA, NOAA, USGS and others — are all in some degree of serious trouble. And the researchers in universities, medical schools, and national laboratories share that pain.

The problem is particularly serious for early-career researchers, including a “talent bubble” of super-bright women and men living on soft money. The recent American Academy of Arts and Sciences report, ARISE (Advancing Research in Science and Engineering), presents the data and offers recommendations to agencies, universities and private foundations on how to deal with the situation and, at the same time, give more attention to high-risk, potentially transformational research proposals, often submitted by young researchers. If our country fails to support the ‘stars of the future,’ it won’t have much of a future for our grand kids to look forward to. The President will need to hear from the community about moving these issues, and others on all our lists, higher up the priority list for action. But how will that happen?

Here’s my concern. The level of interest and active involvement by the science community in this year’s campaign has been amazing — thousands of “civic scientists” showing how much they care, not just about the future of American science but about America itself.

I hope that in the future, the involvement of the community will continue to build on that momentum. But, whatever happens, we must avoid an understandable inclination to hunker down in our disciplinary fox holes and forget about the big science picture. If we do that, we all will lose and the nation will be ill-served. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) doubling did not, for the most part, come from dollars that otherwise would have been spent on physics, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, engineering or other fields. Nor did the last six years of cuts in the NIH budget provide significant dollars for other research fields. That is not how priorities get traded off in the appropriations process, where the NIH is in a different bill from the NSF, which is in a different bill from the DOE, and so forth.

So, we should feel completely comfortable advocating for larger budgets for any and all of these and other science agencies without worrying that our field will lose money. Let’s see if, for the first time in the recent history of our country, we can come together as a community and make the arguments for the whole as well as its parts. Our professional science societies and other interested organizations will be critical in showing the leadership — through partnership — to make that happen. They will need your encouragement.

Online video games are creating a new breed of social players

2008-10-29T19:00:00Z

How can you save the world? Play more games.

Not just any game will work. You’ll need to focus your gameplay efforts carefully, on games like Left 4 Dead, Rock Band, World of Warcraft, Little Big Planet, SF0, Halo 3, Groundcrew and my current game — Superstruct. All of these games are masterfully designed to provoke intense coordination, collaboration, and cooperation - and that’s why they’re all slowly teaching us how game players can one day save the world together. In fact, I’m convinced that either a game developer or a community of online gamers will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by the year 2032.

Why am I so confident that gamers can save the world? It all boils down to this: Online gamers — even the most competitive gamers — are the most collaborative and cooperative people on Earth.

]]> You might not guess it by the way they gleefully battle each other to the (virtual) death. But even games that seem designed to stoke and inflame our competitive spirits are, in fact, quintessentially collective adventures. To play a game with someone else, even ruthlessly cutthroat games, requires extraordinarily collaborative behavior.

What’s so collaborative about playing an online game with others? Well, when gamers play together, they agree to play by the same rules and to pursue the same goal. They agree to ignore the real-world together for as long as they’re playing. Perhaps most important, gamers actively work together to make believe that the game truly matters. They conspire to give the game meaning, to help each other get emotionally caught up in the acting of playing. Games don’t just happen. Gamers come together to actively collectively bring to life the game world. They construct the game experience together. That’s why the notion that online games are somehow “anti-social” is so wrong. Any time you play a game with someone else, unless you’re just trying to spoil the experience for other players, you are actively engaged in pro-social behavior.

Because games put us on our best pro-social behavior, they create community and connect us in extremely powerful ways. This has been true since the first board games. And today, the Internet is amplifying the kinds of cooperation and collaboration that games have always required. In massively multiplayer online environments and in global game communities, multi-player collaboration is happening on new extreme scales, with much larger groups, on much longer timelines. And more and more, networked gamers are developing new “collaboration superpowers” to tackle extreme-scale problems in their favorite games.

Here’s the list of superpowers, which I originally defined as part of my research at the Institute for the Future as the most important skills and talents required for survival in the year 2018:

Sound appealing? You can become awesome at all ten of these things — IF you spend enough time playing the right kinds of games — and I’d estimate it takes at least 50 cumulative hours of dedicated gaming.

As you develop these skills by playing games, something important will happen. You’ll become a Super-Empowered Hopeful Individual. That’s someone who uses digital networks to cultivate optimism and tackle seemingly impossible problems. And gamers are turning into SEHIs faster than any other demographic on Earth.

Over the next decade, we’ll see online systems designed to work like games, but to address real-world problems. And gamers will be the people who are best poised to make meaningful contributions, because they’ll be able to draw on their collaboration superpowers.

Hard to imagine? Well, the good news is that you don’t have to imagine such a game — you can actually play a prototype of such a game right now. It’s called Superstruct:

Futurist Jamais Cascio and I recently developed Superstruct together at the Institute for the Future, and he previewed the game last month in his blogpost “Tomorrow Matters, As Much As Today.”

Well, Superstruct is currently live, with 5000 players, and YOU are invited to join us! The game will run now through November 19, 2008. So if you want to start developing your collaboration superpowers, sign up now and start your journey toward becoming a SEHI… and a gamer who will one day help save the world! It takes literally just 5 minutes to join the Superstruct community, fill out your personal survival profile, and make your first contribution to saving our future. So please — play more, and help us invent the future!

Not only America wants America to be great

2008-10-27T13:00:00Z

Conventional wisdom says that foreign policy does not determine the winner in US Presidential elections. Particularly not when domestic economic anxieties are high — and that kind of anxiety has probably never been higher in several generations.

Still — could it be different this time? Should it be? Remember, when we get to the ‘other side’ of the acute phase of the crisis, the US will be facing a world with foreign policy challenges that go way beyond insolvent banks.

Both candidates have spoken in the debates and in their stump speeches as if foreign policy issues matter a great deal in this campaign. Each argues for a significant change in the nature of America’s presence in the world. Of course McCain and Obama have distinctly different visions of the right direction for that change, and equally different theories of foreign policy leadership. But we fear that neither will state openly just how hard it will be for their leadership propositions to attract followers among the other nations that make up world politics.

]]> It is good campaign rhetoric to talk about ‘going back to the way America used to be’ in world affairs, regardless of whether your good memories are of Ronald Reagan or FDR. But in much of the rest of the world, this all sounds like self-indulgent nostalgia. The ‘Post- World War II era’ that American foreign policy analysts lionize as a ‘model’ for benign hegemony was 60 years ago — at least two generations before the majority of the world’s population was born. It’s simply not relevant to their life experience — and no amount of lofty rhetoric is going to make it so.

America has a habit of proclaiming big ‘world order’ concepts and assuming that others will buy in intellectually and go along politically. For those keeping track, we are now about to move on to the “new new new new world order.” The first President Bush’s new world order was about global problem-solving through the multilateral United Nations — but then came Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. President Clinton’s world order rebranded Pax Americana as ‘globalization,’ with transnational trade, interdependence, and democratization uniting nations through markets — but then came 9/11. The current President Bush’s world order, the Global War on Terror, is visibly coming apart in the Middle East, South Asia, and of course in Guantanamo Bay.

There was a time when the first question a foreign leader asked him or herself upon waking in the morning was, “What is the United States going to do today?” But for the major emerging powers in world politics today — Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, India, Brazil—that time is largely gone. They are now at least as focused on building their strength and connections with each other as they are on building good relations with the U.S.

Make no mistake: To believe that anyone but Americans wants America to go back in time and restore its position as self-proclaimed benign hegemon strains credulity. It’s particularly grating when American foreign policy thinkers use the phrase primus inter pares (first among equals) to describe their ambition for a restored American leadership. To the rest of the world, this concept does not sound friendly, multilateral, or magnanimous; it does not fix the Bush administration’s legacy. Others do not want to live in an Orwellian world where all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

A legitimate and sustainable world order that people would want to join requires new arrangements for global problem-solving on equal terms with the relevant stakeholders. These arrangements cannot be built on yesterday’s ideas and yesterday’s institutions. They can’t imagine away the real differences of power and priorities that now divide the globe.

Both candidates want to claim the mantle of a realist, but to be a realist means first and foremost to accept the world as it is, particularly these three core realities:

First, countries do not want to be managed by a faceless force called globalization; they want to manage it instead. This was deeply true before the urgent banking and credit crises of the last few weeks. Witness the failure of the WTO’s Doha trade round and India’s and other nations’ preference for bilateral and regional preferential trade agreements instead of universal but unbalanced free trade. Capital mobility and convertible currencies are decisions that governments make when they see the benefits, not facts of nature. American lectures on the virtues of economic liberalism won’t change that.

Second, state capitalism is a serious and competitive alternative system. Ask a member of the emerging Chinese middle class what he or she thinks brought about their revolution in upward living standards over the last twenty years. Ask an executive of Gazprom or PetroBras if they believe that oil and gas assets ought to be owned by private companies, or that national oil companies cannot be managed efficiently. Ask the money managers of sovereign wealth funds in the UAE if the ‘sovereign’ part of ‘sovereign wealth’ is a burden or a boom to smart investment strategies. The US is in any case less distinctive on this score than Americans like to believe, particularly after events of the last month that are de facto nationalization of some of the major institutions that backstop the US housing market.

Third, stability and predictable governance are for much of the world’s population more important goals than democracy. The rich and healthy have the luxury of arguing endlessly about the comparative merits of different kinds of decision making processes; the poor and sick want first and foremost to see some results. The popularity of Vladimir Putin is not some kind of false consciousness but a real reflection of tangible recovery from an economic collapse like nothing Americans, even those who lived through the Great Depression, have ever experienced. Hamas won elections in Gaza because it beat out Fatah in the provision of social services to people in desperate need. If America wants truly to promote democracy as a form of governance, we need to demonstrate precisely how a democratic process leads to better human outcomes, not just the spectacle of voting booths and ballots.

The world is entering a period of real and profound experimentation with concepts for order, global and otherwise. Whatever label foreign policy advisers choose for themselves as the election and then the transition proceeds, the candidates now and the President-elect in a few weeks should judge new ideas by their ability to compete on equal terms with those coming from other parts of the world in these rough and tumble experimental settings. We can’t and shouldn’t try to shut the experiments down (others won’t stand for that) or to pretend that they are the quixotic ventures of people less capable and insightful than ourselves (they are not).

Most important, we shouldn’t indulge in the fantasy that the rest of the world will in 2009 simply sign on to a new American world order concept, whether it comes from Obama or McCain. It just won’t happen that way, even if our new President asks for their support in very friendly and perhaps even apologetic terms.

Written by Steven Weber and Parag Khanna.

Not everyone can have a car if we still want a planet — unless we change

2008-10-22T13:00:00Z

Much has been made of rising aspirations of the middle class in developing countries, with the implication that this must mean literally hundreds of millions of cars — and hundreds of millions of tonnes of oil use and a resulting CO₂ emissions increase. Last month the Asian Development Bank held its first “Transport Week,” hosting key stakeholders from most Asian nations from Turkey eastward, including several pacific island states. Not surprisingly sessions on CO₂ attracted a large audience on the first day. At the next big confab, “Better Air Quality ‘08” in Bangkok, in November about 1,000 Asian experts and decision makers are expected to develop policies and techniques to transform the discussion into real policies to change how Asia develops.

Getting real stakeholders to the table is the only way to clear the air and reduce CO₂ emissions from transport. With the lack of any real initiative matching the national level programs in the US, engaging the leaders of nations representing close to three billion people in Asia may be a more viable strategy since, with few exceptions, Asia has only started to bury itself in CO₂-intensive development — yet. But time is short. The exceptions — the hopelessly snarled mega-cities of the continent — are attracting more and more people to perennial gridlock. Since so few people in Asia own cars, it may not be too late to change course.

]]> I was asked to prepare much of the background material on such a strategy, based on my 20 years working in India, China and Viet Nam, as well as Mexico and other developing countries. Common wisdom is that unless Indians, Chinese, and everyone else get cars they won’t have the same opportunities of mobility we had as we developed.

In fact those opportunities are already lost. Traffic in almost all large Asian cities has ground to a polluting halt, even when only one trip in 10 is made by car or taxi (versus eight in 10 in the US and six in 10 in Europe). Beijing, where only drastic action kept the streets (but not the air) clear for the Olympics, is the most current example of the mess in Asian cities. Manila, where this meeting is being hosted, and Bangkok, where the next key meeting will be — and everywhere else (except Singapore) — is non functional. Even with millions of gasoline or electric two-wheelers darting in and out, life on wheels is slow, smelly, and dangerous. Fatalities-per-mile-traveled in Asia is much higher than in the US or Europe, and those killed are almost as likely to be pedestrians or cyclists ad those traveling in vehicles. As the small minority of travelers who are car users take most of the oil and road space, everyone else whether on foot, pedaling, or on buses, get slowed down even more. Since most travel in Asia is outdoors — foot, pedals, two-wheelers, or buses with open windows — the pollution is “in your face.” In fact, the air is almost as deadly as the streets since everyone (not just travelers) breathes it in all of the time.

What a surprise, then, when the Honorable Minister Shri Jaipal Reddy, Minister of Urban Development in India pointed to the unsustainability of the present patterns of transport in India, not to mention the forecasted boom in cars there and elsewhere in Asia. He got full bragging rights for the Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, which has made billions of dollars available for strong urban transport systems — principally for bus rapid transit and, where appropriate and affordable, underground and surface rail. The challenge was repeated by ADB’s Manmohan Parkash, who also pointed to the impossibility of trends in car use and oil consumption. Adding a single car to the streets of Asian cities slows everyone down and no one wins. And while studies on Beijing showed the effectiveness of the traffic shutdown during the Olympics, no one has figured out how to make the improvements permanent.

Can national and local authorities, together with private initiative, change the situation? The fact that over a half billion new urban residents are expected in Indian and Chinese cities by 2030 says “maybe.” With good land use planning, congestion pricing, and fast transit systems complemented by walkable and cycle-able neighborhoods, the utility of private cars could become marginalized before growth in use of those cars for a minority marginalizes the mobility of the majority.

The implications of this change for CO₂ emissions is enormous. My own work suggest that this double-barreled approach of land use planning and transport infrastructure (including disincentives to car use) might cut growth in oil use and CO₂ by 50-75% over the present trends — i.e., lead to only a doubling of emissions by the 2020-2030 decade. (A recent summary of China’s situation I prepared for the US Congress China Commission can be found here. Work on Viet Nam and India will emerge shortly elsewhere.). Mexico City made this dramatic shift in the past five years and the changes impressed Asian observers. This kind of change breaks the carbon-transport link more than any other step that can be taken. And the transport community of Asia — including the lenders at the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and major NGOs — understand this. The rising share of local air pollution from transportation is also an impetus for thinking about better transport and cleaner fuels.

The key point is that neither CO₂ nor oil is the main driver of this change in thinking, rather it is the prospect of shorter travel times, safer journeys, healthier lungs, less noise and walkable streets. Above all, authorities realize that the necessary actions will raise the cost of using individual vehicles while reducing the space on the roads these can use. Just putting more buses on the street and railcars underground alone won’t clean up the mess. At the same time this will raise the capacity and speed of existing space to move more people more comfortably on public transport or under their own power. If they pull this off the world will be that much better off because of the restrained growth in oil demand and CO₂ emissions.

You don’t need to “reduce” CO₂ you have not yet emitted. You do need to develop livable cities. And if Asia pulls it off, maybe we can learn from them.

The public school assembly line is broken

2008-10-20T13:00:00Z

What happens when one size fits all becomes one size fits none? If you’re trying on a pair of stretch pants, it’s an awkward sartorial moment. When you’re talking about the education of our children, however, it’s a disaster of a higher order. But that’s the very question we all should ask our public education system.

In the business world, there is a manufacturing concept known as mass customization. It sounds oxymoronic, but companies such as Dell Computer take it to heart and have built great businesses on it. Simply, Dell takes a commodity product — the personal computer — and personalizes it according to the buyer’s needs. Want to upgrade the RAM? No problem. A different video card? Easy. The result is a PC simultaneously standard (that is, it’s assembled like every other PC) and customized (it reflects your needs and interests).

Unfortunately, that is not the case with our public schools. Our formalized public education system is a state-sponsored project by which, in concept, students become mature members of their communities through a thirteen-year program that helps them develop knowledge, skills, and character. To do this with millions of kids at the same time requires some sort of standardization — that’s understood. To free the process of all such guidelines would be an invitation to chaos.

]]> But right now, the simple assembly line of standardized learning won’t suffice. You merely have to look at average high school graduation rates (which now hover at around 60 percent) to see that it isn’t working. We now understand that children learn in many ways, in many places, from many people. This has always been the case, but it is particularly obvious in today’s world of multiple and customizable mass media streams.

Some people understand this concept very well. Tom Horne, Arizona’s state superintendent of public schools, is one of them. Horne has proposed a state law under which each middle and high school student in the Grand Canyon State will have a customized learning plan within the next few years. The purpose of this plan, which parents and teachers would review annually, is not to make more work for overloaded educators, but instead to ensure that every student, whether top notch or desperately struggling, helps create a plan that will make his or her education resonate.

These individualized plans would help students identify their personal strengths and challenges, then set goals and communicate their needs to their families and teachers. Educators, community-service personnel, family members, or anyone else interested in supporting the students could access these materials to help them succeed.

Personalized instruction is not new. Individual Education Programs, or IEPs, are mandated for students with learning disabilities, but the broad use of such plans outside of special education is new. Increasingly, though, a number of states are considering their broad usage.

Horne’s proposed education plans are not exactly IEPs. In fact they are now called Education and Career Action Plans to give them a different spin. They would be set up to guarantee that all students get one-on-one advice from educators in identifying a career path. The plans would require teachers to assume the role of academic guidance counselors, frequently checking on students’ progress and helping establish career goals. If a student wants to be a financial analyst or an architect, for instance, he or she must be told it is tough to get into college with fifth-grade reading skills and a transcript full of D’s in math. A Web-based program would personalize and streamline updating of these plans to make them into living documents.

The upside of the idea is that it could push students to be more active in deciding what they are learning and understand why they are learning it. And isn’t that what public education is all about?

Food deserts, and how individuals can fight scarcity

2008-10-15T13:00:02Z

For many of us, the gateway drug toward a lifetime of experimentation with world-saving endeavors was food. With so many points of personal relevance — from health concerns to the pleasures of taste to the simple fact of its frequent necessity — food can be an opportunity to see the immediate positive effects of changed behavior.

In many ways, advocates of sustainable food can already boast many achievements: Mainstream grocery stores and big box supermarkets sell organic foods and many of them are sourced from local producers; television networks and celebrity chefs frequently reinforce the idea that farmer’s markets are a great place to shop and fresh foods taste best; and many home gardeners are selecting edible rather than decorative plants.

That said, we still face many challenges in our efforts to create a more sustainable food system and promote good health. One of the most significant obstacles is access. If you laid a city map showing low-income neighborhoods over one illustrating the distribution of grocery stores and markets offering fresh produce and unprocessed foods, the intersections would be disappointingly few.

]]> These areas are often dubbed “food deserts” — swathes of nutrient scarcity in an otherwise abundant cityscape. It is often difficult for members of those communities to travel to different parts of town in order to shop at markets with fresher foods — it requires spare time and sufficient means of transport. Where fruits and vegetables can be found in the food desert, they are often tagged with an unnecessarily high price due to the complexity of distribution networks, meaning that people instead make the cheaper, less healthy choice, consuming foods that are largely to blame for a rise in obesity-related health problems. By extension, of course, the costly medical bills that accompany these afflictions only further contribute to economic hardship.

To break this cycle,a growing movement for food justice is underway. All over the US, individuals and organizations are working to improve access and affordability through projects that bring farm fresh food into urban neighborhoods, teach people about making healthy choices, and establish community gardens where people can grow their own vegetables and fruits. This area is something of an unsung hotbed of innovation, teeming with upstart non-profits and small businesses that offer creative solutions to entrenched problems.

In Oakland, just across the bay from my own home, organizations like People’s Grocery and City Slickers Farms are setting examples for community engagement and hands-on education. People’s Grocery runs what could be described as a 21st century reinterpretation of the old Good Humor truck — an organic market on wheels that drives through Oakland neighborhoods drawing people’s attention with hip-hop music and a brightly painted exterior. Residents can board the truck and do their shopping without having to travel outside of the neighborhood. People’s Grocery’s success has also allowed them to do a number of new programs including significant outreach and education initiatives.

Not far away, City Slickers Farms, brings members of the community together on its small spreads of urban acreage where organic vegetables are cultivated and harvested for the surrounding neighborhood. City Slickers makes a priority of engaging “historical” residents of the area — traditionally African Americans — and of encouraging the participation of newer populations of color — primarily Asians and Latinos. The organization now operates five different community farms in West Oakland, run by hundreds of local volunteers who help distribute over 5,000 pounds of fresh produce to their neighbors each year.

Efforts like these radiate a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm in the areas where they’re active, and they represent great hope for improving the distribution of good food in American cities. Other projects like People’s Grocery and City Slickers Farms are popping up all over the nation. Unfortunately, a divide remains between the food justice movement and culinary food movements that are more evident in specialty food stores and high-end farmer’s markets. It’s easy to forget when shopping at Whole Foods that the profound and important transformation fostered by this type of enterprise hasn’t reached the farthest corners of the food distribution system. Whole populations remain out of reach of what amounts to a basic human right: food that promotes good health and comes to us without injustice to people or the planet. Through more work bridging this divide and supporting food justice programs, we can make strides toward getting healthy, sustainable, fair food into the mouths of those who need it most.

For more on food justice check out The Center for Food & Justice, Growing Home, Just Food, and Added Value.

Back to (flight) school!

2008-10-13T13:00:32Z

I started a blog a couple of years ago in honor of “Flight School,” the name of my annual conference for entrepreneurs in air and space. Last June, we canceled this year’s event; we were getting a foretaste of the current rotten economy — Eclipse’s troubles, DayJet suspending operations, a general malaise — and didn’t think we could get enough attendees to put on a good show. I’m still hoping to revive the conference — but probably not until 2010.

In the meantime, however, I’m embarking on another kind of Flight School, and trying to play it cool as I mention casually that I’m about to start training as a backup cosmonaut for Charles Simonyi, who will be making his second trip into space this coming March 25. If for some reason he doesn’t go (and I can scrounge up some extra cash), I get to go instead!

]]> Yup! My chances of going this spring are probably about 5 percent. (I know Charles well enough to sincerely wish him good health and godspeed.) But my chances of ever going will probably be about 50 percent once I complete the training. (You know the joke about the whiner who begs God to let him win the lottery, just once! God responds from on high: “So, please, at least buy a ticket!” I have bought my ticket.)

What does this all mean — for me and for this blog?

I’m going to start posting on my site regularly about my experiences… which, to be candid, will probably not all be fun. I’m expecting it to be cold staying in Star City through a Moscow winter, with a lot of detailed material to learn and exams to pass. Each Soyuz flight has three cosmonauts, and the other two want a colleague they can rely on to do the right thing in an emergency. By all accounts the food is “stolovaya” (canteen) and the accommodations are Spartan. But, hey, there will be a purpose to it, and at the end I will know space flight and the Russian space program intimately — except for the actual experience of floating up there for a week or more.

Other people go back to school to get an MBA; I’m going to get a space degree.

One of the best times in my life was when I was writing a book (“Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age”) back in the late 90s. For about four months, I canceled all appointments and went to the office every day. About two weeks into this routine, my partner Daphne Kis walked into my office and said, “You know, I don’t know how to say this, but we were all terrified to have you here full time. We thought you’d be working hard and be really crabby, but you’re in such a good mood!”

Indeed I was, because I had made a commitment to a single goal, and I no longer had any conflicts. I was devoted to the book.

In the same way, I expect to spend most of the next six months, and especially January to March, fully devoted to my training. I am politely canceling my appointments and commitments and refusing new ones, but now it’s easy, whereas before it was hard. (Apologies to anyone reading this who’s on my cancellation list!) Now I have a specific “better offer.”

I’m already looking forward to the time after March 25, when the hard work will all be over and I’ll be a trained cosmonaut, but I’m also looking forward to the psychological clarity of having a single mission. More on the trials and tribulations later!

This post was originally published on Esther Dyson’s Flight School blog, and republished with permission.

It's time to vote

2008-10-08T13:00:32Z

It’s time to vote.

Yes — in the elections in November — but not only that. I’m talking about the voting you do every day.

Every time you drop a dollar, yen, mark, yuan, frank, rial or pound on the shop counter or wire it through cyberspace, you’re voting. Every purchase you make — or don’t make — large or small, meaningful or trivial, thoughtful or thoughtless, sets in motion a chain of events, and a flow of resources embodied in everything you buy, that has inescapable effects on the world we live in — and the choices that remain available to you, or that close off to you. Every time you do your duty as a “consumer,” (remember “if we don’t the terrorists will have won”?), you cast a vote for a future. You’re designing the world you and your children will live in.

]]> Here’s what I wrote in January 1996 . It’s even more true today, as consumers and companies increasingly ask these questions of their suppliers:

You walk into your office and turn on the lights. You’re spending money and using energy. What’s the source of the energy? Coal? Oil? Natural gas? Nuclear? Solar? Wind? Each has different impacts on job creation, air and water pollution, land degradation and the trade deficit. How efficient is the light? (Amory Lovins estimates that its overall efficiency, from fuel to powerplant, from transmission lines to your light bulb, is on the order of one to three percent.) Are you paying for two to ten times the energy you need to do the job?

You purchase supplies, or order equipment. You’re spending money and using resources. Where are they made? Do they support jobs, businesses and tax base in your region? in the US? in other countries? Does their production use resources extravagantly, or create unnecessary pollution? Are they recyclable? Are they made of recycled materials? What impacts does this have on your people? What will the equipment cost to operate — in both money and energy — over its lifetime? How will you dispose of it? Landfill? Recycle? Repair? Remanufacture? What impact will these each of these choices have on jobs, profits, environment?

You decide to invest in a company. Do its activities support or challenge your goals and values? (Do you have a reliable way to find out?) What sorts of energy and resources does it use? What sorts of “wastes” does it generate? What sorts of jobs does it create? or eliminate? Where? Where are that company’s suppliers located? What are the consequences of their actions on their share value and forward risk?

These aren’t altruistic questions. The practices of every member of the often-global supply chain that each of your purchases activates affect both quality of life and their economic viability — both of which affect you. As a very wise person once said, in the big picture, altruism is self-interest. (It all depends on where you draw the boundaries of “self.”)

You’re not going to conduct a life cycle analysis for every purchase, or every time you shop; “paper or plastic?” is complicated enough. But you can apply life cycle thinking to its design, purchasing and operations decisions.

Start by examining your metabolism (http://www.business metabolics.com) — the most significant inputs (energy, water, raw materials, equipment, supplies, finished goods); outputs: (products, product use, and non-product outputs); and processes (focusing first on those with the largest inputs or outputs).

Consider the direct impacts of your choices, and then look “upstream” and “downstream” at the impact of the actions of the companies you do business with, and the companies they do business with, and the companies they do business with. Look for the options that can improve profitability, reduce environmental impacts, and increase resilience —for both your company and for the rest of your food chain — in the face of inevitable change.

You may not always get precise and decisive answers (and without them may risk counter-intuitive pitfalls). But you will bring new insight and strategic perspective to your company — useful allies in the changing competitive landscape.

If you’re an individual, it’s a bit simpler: go low carbon, low toxics, and local (and recycled content and recyclable — as long as you recycle!).

But whether company or individual, remember that you vote for your future every day — and you’re already registered.

(By the way: “paper or plastic” is a trick question, with an easier answer (since there are always more than two choices, and the best one is usually found by stepping outside the box: “No thanks, I brought my own!”)

Solution sharing, and the obscured world of good news

2008-10-06T13:00:06Z

In his marvelous book “Better,” Atul Gawande tells the tale of obstetric forceps. Invented in the 17th century to help stuck babies get unstuck during labor, they promised to be a valuable addition to the medical toolkit — so valuable, in fact, that they were kept secret within a single family of doctors for over 100 years. In that time, thousands if not millions of mothers and newborns died unnecessarily.

Sharing workable solutions and adopting them can improve and even save lives. So how might we make it easier to hear about solutions?

One way is by simply telling more stories about what works, like the folks at Changemakers.net do with their motto of “open sourcing social solutions.” When we implement a creative fix at work or in our community, can we share the story of how and why? When writers and producers look for new story topics, can real-world problem-solvers be the stars?

]]> Along with telling more solution stories, what if it was as easy to find those stories as it is to hear about school shootings and natural disasters? Bad news about what’s not working can be a good thing, when it reminds us of problems in the world that need tackling. Yet good news with a can-do spirit can have even more impact, if it motivates us to support promising initiatives and adopt them in our own lives — as professionals, as family members, and as citizens. Be they ever so humble, good ideas that work at a small scale can get people thinking about what might work at a large scale.

Imagine, a few years from now, using an online “solution browser.” One where you could ask “how do I…?” about virtually any challenge, and get back suggestions like those a trusted adviser might give. One where you could share ideas and stumbling blocks with others tackling the same challenges you are. One where you could collaboratively evaluate a new solution in your area of experience and expertise, or simply browse inspirational stories where people made headway against seemingly intractable odds.

What we often need is not yet more raw information, but visible paths to follow — paths made by competent people going in the right direction. For each problem you worry about, chances are others have thought it over and gained experiences to share. And if not, shouldn’t it be easier for you to be the pioneer, and share your experiences with others?

While better sharing of solutions may seem like a small step, it’s a practical one that could make us more optimistic about making progress — and more likely to actually do so.