WorldChanging
I was one of the Canadian bloggers for WorldChanging, which Bruce Sterling called "The most important website on the planet"
I've never considered myself an environmentalist, per se; just practical. When I was a kid my dad used to show me Popular Science articles about underground homes and solar power. I grew up thinking of such things as part of the Space Age--part of the "future we were promised."
To me, there's no "green movement." There's just good sense versus poor judgement. "Green" is just practicality; it's just good design. It's also likely to be the most profitable sector of our economy in the next quarter-century. Political polarization around issues such as climate change doesn't make sense to me: the climate is not a political actor. (Case in point: at the recent Bali conference on climate change, Canada and the U.S. acted as if they could negotiate with nature--"well, if we cut less here, and you give us something else there..." But you don't negotiate with nature.)
Practicality, clear-sighted pragmatism, a keen sense of design and beauty; these are the drivers of the "bright green" movement. There's no better example of those principles in action than WorldChanging.com. If you happen to have a keen social conscience, so much the better--but WorldChanging is equally exciting to entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, political flacks, and twenty-something slackers as it is to traditional environmentalists. In the words of the site's manifesto:
WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.
I write for the Canadian page of the site (at www.worldchanging.com/local/canada) but my posts frequently make the home page. Some recent ones:
Technology Is Legislation
Introducing a new technology is not a neutral act--it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. Although this is quite obvious if you think about it, what continues to astonish me is that we don't think about it. We seem to completely lack the ethical and social frameworks needed to address technology's political power...
Colonizing Planet Earth
If our civilization requires the resource equivalent of three earths to be sustainable, then we have to stop drawing on ecosystem services that are overstretched. In fact, maybe we should start acting like there are no ecosystem services available to us at all.
Rewilding Canada
It's better to be active than reactive. It's the difference between generating your own goals from what is best in you, and accommodating goals that have been thrust upon you and are not yours. So. What are we as a civilization planning to do once we no longer have to react to the emergency of global climate change? Climate change is the great human opportunity; it is the unifying threat that will pull us together as a species...
Gradually Greening: Empowerment through Laziness
There is a secret to changing your behaviour. The trick is not to trust your own willpower. Instead, arrange conditions outside yourself such that the desired new behaviour is always your laziest option. Case in point: Canadian company Blue Line Innovations' PowerCost Monitor...
Canadian Geothermal
Is geothermal power a viable alternative for Canada? Well, that depends. We've been using it for a long time in what are called direct-use applications--essentially, heating buildings using water from hot aquifers. Some provincial governments will even provide incentives to help you set up a residential heat-pump. But putting geothermal power on the electricity grid? That's a different story...
CanadaChanging: Community, by Karl Schroeder
Under the rose-and-peach of a northern sunrise, the townÂ’s mountie found Amaruq looting his own library of its books...