chad davis, author at planet forward - 克罗地亚vs加拿大让球

haiti: out of the wood, into the sun?

mon, 15 mar 2010 00:30:00 +0000

if jack bauer started an ngo devoted to climate change, it would probably be called the carbon war room (cwr). the organization (mentioned by cwr member jack hidary in his planet forward interview) takes an unusually hawkish approach to the challenge of “decoupling [carbon dioxide] emissions and natural resource destruction from economic growth,” and they’ve recently put forth an interesting proposal. according to a march 4 article from the economist, cwr ceo jigar shah believes haiti should take advantage of its epic misfortune and rebuild its infrastructure on the back of solar power. traditionally, haiti has relied on firewood as a source of energy, a practice that has left the island largely deforested.

that type of unsustainable practice seems reasonable given the levels of extreme poverty and pervasive corruption for which the country is infamous. so is haiti ready for a solar step forward? been pondering this over the weekend and i’d love to hear what you think, please post your thoughts in the comment sections below.

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meet the hydrogen fuel cell car

tue, 13 oct 2009 14:14:19 +0000

is the car of the future or a waste of good r&d money. take a look at decide!

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the fun theory

fri, 09 oct 2009 19:04:59 +0000

by mike ballaban

ask most experts about the main problem facing global warming, and it’s not the lack of legislative action that’s the problem. nor is it corporate profits. or ngos. rather, it’s people. people have trouble relating to the problem of climate change when it’s on such a global scale. people have trouble changing their lifestyles when it’s so easy to blame someone else. people don’t want to give up driving their cars, and people don’t want to give up taking the energy-sucking escalator over the stairs. so how do you get people to combat climate change? vw seems to have an idea.

vw calls it “the fun theory.” that is, by getting people to change their behavior while at the same time convincing them that they’re having fun, you can fundamentally alter the way people live their lives. in this case, vw turned a staircase next to an escalator into a giant piano (reminiscent of that classic scene in big) and found that in inspired 66% more people to use the stairs.

using what we know now, we can implement the results. the conversation now should not be focused on “how can we get people to change themselves?” but rather, “how can we get people to have fun?”

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