Former President, Mr A P J Abdul Kalam today said that to create a better world, it is necessary to alleviate poverty, safeguard drinking water, use clean energy and ensure quality education and values for all.
Mr Kalam, who was honoured at a public reception by the Indo-American Centre (IAC) here, said: “The world is integrally connected through the environment, economy, people and ideas.”
He said that we need an educational value system, and ideas and innovations should not be politically inclined.
On political unrest in the Middle East, Mr Kalam explained how the Egyptian revolution for a change to democracy has spread to the Arab world.
whether talking about a intelligent knowledge infrastructure, robert's global brain, or suresh's project matching for climate change initiatives, this article seemed useful.
Futurescaper is an online tool for making sense of the drivers, trends and forces that will shape the future. As a user interface system, it is horrible. As a tool for analyzing and understanding complex systems, it works pretty well. Several people asked me about this after my last post, so here is some more detail.
Following the logic of collective intelligence (as part of my my PhD), I broke up the the scenario thinking process into discrete chunks, came up with a system for analyzing and relating them together, and then distilled them into key outputs for helping the scenario development process: 1) Emergent Thematic Maps 2) Revealing Hidden Connections 3) Drilling Down
The first system is called “Futurescaper” and was developed in partnership with the International Futures Forum (IFF), Tony Hodgson and my friend Nathan Koren. This was piloted on a project for the UK Government, exploring secondary and tertiary impacts of climate change.
Utah State University. Professor in the Department of Environment & Society, (Social conflict in environmental issues, human responses to climate change and environmental degradation, human uses of energy and resources).
“We Need An Adult Conversation–Our Political System is Dysfunctional”
Phi Beta Iota: There are no challenges that cannot be addressed with a combination of collective intelligence and individual integrity. Infinite free energy, and the eradication of waste across all industries, are immediately achievable if (big if) the public will reengage in its own governance.
Using a new “crowdfunding” program called Solar Mosaic, the city is selling solar tiles to locals for $100 a pop and installing them on public buildings
By Maria Gallucci, SolveClimate News
Apr 22, 2011
The city of Oakland, Calif., is getting its residents to help build out a clean energy economy, one solar tile at a time.
By selling 5,000 tiles at $100 each to locals, the city is aiming to piece together entire rooftop solar arrays at seven budget-strapped schools, youth centers and houses of worship. A team of Oaklanders will be trained and hired to install the panels by as early as July.
The city's efforts are part of a pilot program called Solar Mosaic, a web-based marketplace for community solar initiatives that launched on April 15.
Using the “crowdfunding” model, residents can help generate energy savings and scale back greenhouse gas emissions without having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a solar installation at home.
Phi Beta Iota: The existing tax system in the USA is so corrupt it must be abolished. The public is now ready for line-item crowd-sourcing and the fully-transparent Automated Payments/Transaction Tax.
The Dutch are well known for their ubiquitous bike lanes, to the point where Amsterdam is neck and neck with Copenhagen for the title of most bike-loving capital in Europe. Now, Denmark will have to come up with something big to match the latest plan from the Netherlands – the installation of solar panels in roads, starting with bike lanes.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Talk about the efficient use of space: if you're going to have roads (and hopefully you'll have bike lanes), why not put that space to work producing energy? Called the Solaroad, the project is the brainchild of Dutch research firm TNO. The idea is pretty straightforward: a layer of concrete forms the road itself. A centimeter thick layer of crystalline silicon solar cells is laid on top, and covered by a layer of toughened glass. The energy potential: 50kWh per square meter per year, which can then be used to power street lighting, traffic systems and households.
10 April 2011: John Vidal: Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry
19 Apr 2011: Jonathan Glennie: Bolivia under President Evo Morales is seeking a radical development model based on equality and environmental sustainability – and there are lessons we can all learn.
13 Apr 2011: John Vidal: Development, by the west, creates considerable imbalances and a million problems. Indigenous people can solve these, says David Choquehuanca, Bolivia's foreign minister
In other words, someone has sold Obama on Pakistaning the Libyan War, i.e., pursuing a military strategy of relying on drone attacks to a destroy an adversary hiding in the environmental background. What is astonishing is that Obama took the cape, despite the fact that only 12 days earlier, a report in the Los Angeles Times by David Cloud illustrated once again the absurdity of Cartwright's and Gates' claims.
