Tag: problem solving

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

A remarkable document came out of the G7 summit. It’s a blueprint for creating a just, fair, and environmentally viable world. Leaders of the world’s most powerful industrial economies are coming together in unity and releasing a document that I agree with almost all of. Among other things, the G7 Charlevoix  Declaration:

  • Affirms the rights of minorities (including indigenous people) and women
  • Positively addresses the conflict between Israel and Palestine, tension around Korea and Iran, Russian power grabs, and even the misery inflicted by Daesh (a/k/a the Islamic State)
  • Calls for worker protections
  • Promotes sustainable and democratic health care, economic growth, and even tax structures that benefit all
  • Has strong language urging protection of the earth and its resources

Really, the only place where I have concerns is in the endorsement of “WTO-consistent” trade policies. My understanding is that some of the World Trade Organization’s policies abrogate citizens’ and countries’ rights, including the right to enforce strict environmental and labor laws, allowing companies to sue if they find these laws burdensome. However, the citation above is almost 20 years old, and more recent documents from the WTO itself deny that claim.

With nearly 50 years as an activist, I find it utterly amazing that the “Leaders of the Free World” can agree on a document of such scope. We could actually call it revolutionary. The leaders of nations–and, in other forums, many leaders of major corporations–are agreeing to a manifesto of people’s and planetary rights. I’m not really used to having them on my side.

This photo released by the German government sums up the US president's attitude.
This photo released by the German government sums up the US president’s attitude.

And of course, the fly in the ointment was the disgraceful behavior of the “world leader” who happens to be in charge of my own country right now. The barrage of in-person pouts and Twitter nastygrams including repudiating the statement he signed make me embarrassed once again that this cruel, mean-spirited, and incompetent person supposedly represents me. Sigh!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environmenl, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Peace and War, People Helping People, poverty, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

Watch this video about the Copenhagen Wheel, a device that captures and stores energy from cyclists pedaling and coasting, and supplements pedal power on the uphills or over long distances. And then read a few of the comments.

To me, this is brilliant technology! First, it makes biking—and particularly bicycle commuting over distances of 20 to 50 miles—an attractive option for tens of thousands of people who’ve felt unwilling to try it before. That, in turn, reduces the number of cars on the road, which has dozens of advantages to the planet and to our pocketbooks. Second, it makes it possible for the moderate cyclist (like me) to go much farther by bike.

A lot of the comments are angry that this will disrupt their exercise. I think they’re not thinking about it the right way. Instead of blaming a machine for interfering with their workout, think about the ability to bike instead of drive to good riding places some distance away, or to bike much farther distances to explore an area farther out.

I do ride for exercise. And I do face a BIG hill when I go out my door. I’ve learned to manage it, but when I first moved to that area, it was very tough. Something like this would have been a nice transition as I learned to conquer that tough hill.

And for the exercise-only bikers, I have one more suggestion: write to the company and tell them you want a manual override option: an off switch, in other words. Then you have the boost when you need it.

Let’s apply this kind of creativity to every aspect of our lives! We could not only solve climate change but war, poverty, and other global issues. I wish this company much success!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Energy & Sustainability, Innovation, People Helping People, Technology Tagged with , , , ,

I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. Especially when I see evidence all around me of brilliant minds hard at work solving “intractable” problems, I freely admit that I’m an optimist. The human capacity to destroy ourselves is eclipsed by the human capacity to creatively collaborate, and to dig ourselves out of the mess.

And since writing is what  do, I’ve wanted to do a big-picture book on this, for many years. Last month, I started writing an essay on this, and I think it will evolve into the proposal for my ninth book.

To give you a bit of inspiration on this snowy afternoon (here in Massachusetts, anyway), I want to share two sentences from a section of the essay entitled “Throw Away Assumptions”:

Assumption, 18th century: humans can travel no faster than the fastest horse. Reality: humans aboard the International Space Station have traveled at 17,247 miles per hour; future technologies such as warp-space drives and tesseracts, imagined by speculative fiction writers, could potentially take us orders of magnitude faster.

Shifting our attitudes from the impossibility of going more than 15 or 20 miles an hour to hurtling through space at more than 17,000 mph took a couple of centuries. With today’s future-think mindset, solving the problems of the world ought to be a whole lot quicker. Especially considering the consequences of failure.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail