Gil Friend’s Blog
Accord discord
Joel Makower has a somewhat more jaded view of the Urban Environmental Accords. But some of the biggest urban environmental problems aren't addressed. Concern about environmental justice issues -- those that inequitably affect the poorest urban dwellers around the...
Transmaterials
Also from Mitra (Thanks, Mate!): Transmaterials This resource has an amazing collection of new materials, many of which have an environmental/sustainability angle, they show how thinking outside the box has given us a lot of different tools for solving problems....
Urban Environmental Accords
Echoing the 50 nations that signed on to the UN Charter in San Francisco 60 years ago, the mayors of 50 cities signed the Urban Environmental Accords in San Francisco today, ending the week-long World Environment Day events. The accords: - identify 21 issues:...
Junk climate science: nope, glaciers aren’t cool
[Natural Innnovations]: Thank you, Mitra, for flagging this article by George Monbiot, which tracks in detail the mistakes behind David Bellamy's climate change denial (published in New Scientist). Not to put too fine a point on it, Monbiot concludes: It is hard to...
Global Voices Online is an
Global Voices Online is an international effort to diversify the conversation taking place online by involving speakers from around the world, and developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these voices heard. 'Heard', as in 'audio.' (Another...
A race to the top
I know a lot of people who aren't pleased with The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman's 'world is flat' perspective on globalization (nor with his views on Iraq). For my part, I sometimes find him glib, too focused on a clever turn of phrase (though I realize that's...
Making meetings better
[Jeffrey Phillips, via Matt Homann]: Just in Time Meeting Attendance: Rather than show up for a meeting and sit through the entire thing, demand that the meeting have an agenda and that the facilitator or leader of the meeting stick as closely to the agenda as...
Spaceship Earth, The Game
[WorldChanging]: Buckminster Fuller argued that 'spaceship' earth could sustain a growing population at a decent standard of living if we used our resources effectively. Fuller had studied war games at the U.S. Navy War College, and it occurred to him that you...
Quote of the day
Socialism collapsed because it did not allow prices to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow prices to tell the ecological truth. -Oystein Dahle, former Vice President, Exxon, Norway Exactly. (Thank you, Terry.)