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WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future

Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future

Be a Superhero: Support WorldchangingYesterday

We know what it's like. Every day you wake up, and it seems like one crisis after another -- evil nemesis here, melting ice caps there, burning rainforests somewhere else. But do you quit? No! You get up, put on the costume, and head out for another day of doing your best to change the world.

Transitman Hard At Work
Photo by Jennifer Babuca If you are like many other Worldchanging readers, your job is already about making a difference. But you don't stop there. You vote, you volunteer, you recycle, you educate others on the power of doing good and combating evil. From sunup to sundown, you are out fighting the forces of evil and unsustainability, in a bid to save the future.

But here's the thing: you cannot do it alone. None of us can. That's why there's Worldchanging.

The Worldchanging community helps you make sense of the planetary problems we face, from rogue asteroids to rogue oil companies, and we bring you up to date on the latest, most interesting tools for solving those problems. The essays, interviews and blog posts we deliver arm superheroes like you wit

Airport Taxi LinesYesterday

by Adam Stern

A new front in the fight to cut carbon.

I landed at Washington Dulles airport last month en route to a climate policy conference. As I waited at the taxi stand for a cab to take me into the city, a giant Ford Expedition SUV with seats for eight passengers pulled up. I asked the dispatcher, “Do I have to get in this thing? Can’t I go in a smaller vehicle?”

In a frustrated voice (I had delayed the flow of the taxi line), he said, “Come on; get in. It costs the same.” I was on the verge of arguing with him that it might cost the same in dollars, but not in terms of carbon. Instead, in a small act of civil disobedience, I walked across the roadway to a more reasonably sized taxi. Then, the horns started blaring and everyone (the dispatcher, taxi drivers, and waiting passengers) joined in the commotion. You might have thought I had incited a riot.

Once in the safety of the smaller taxi (a still too big Ford Crown Victoria), I reflected on my carbon-fighting experience. How much of a difference would this really make? About 27% on this ride, according to the TerraPass calculator. Should I have taken the bus, which emits far less carbon per passenger, and which I have used on other occasions? It would not have worked this time because I was on a tight schedule.

I had a related experience in San Diego in July. At

Create Your Own CurrencyYesterday

"Money," wrote Jamais Cascio, "is the tangible manifestation of an agreement between you and other people that the oddly-colored piece of paper in your hands has value."

But what's truly valuable is not those units of currency, so much as the units of time they represent to those who earn and spend them. Two women from Ashland, Ore., who follow this philosophy have created a way to turn units of time into currency that can be directly traded and tracked through their online system OurNexChange. This "community currency" allows local residents to buy goods and services without exchanging any money.

Sharon Miranda and Libby VanWyhe recently told the Ashland Daily Tidings about the system:

"The whole idea is to harness the resources of our businesses, organizations and government into a system that provides sustainability," Miranda said.

This would be done through a Web-based system that would track the exchange of currency units through users' accounts. There would be no tangible money.

"The idea i

Reader Report: Sustainability On Campus and Beyond at AASHE 2008Yesterday

By Xarissa Holdaway

Duke University's wetlands restoration not only provides habitat, but also purifies water for local communities.

I recently attended the annual conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). One of the (many) buzzwords at this year’s conference was “living-learning laboratory.” The gathering, the biggest yet for sustainability work on campus, was full of representatives from colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada, and each had a story to tell about their school’s projects. Sessions on re-localizing food supplies, and the value of offsets and were particularly popular, and almost every presenter stressed the fact that the campus, which functions like a mini-metropolis, can model and test strategies that could be replicated elsewhere.

But in casual conversations with attendees, the same sentiment was expressed over and over again:

“We don’t know how to connect these projects. We’re composting, but the food came

Pulling Water from the Air: The WaterMillDecember 3

I'm in London, watching snowflakes fall amidst early morning rain flurries, reading David Grann's new book The Lost City of Z, and getting ready for the Barbican event tomorrow night.

But there's an article in the Guardian today about the WaterMill, which "uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean drinking water." The company, Element Four, imagines a future for their product involving everything from irrigation and personal thirst to peacekeeping and disaster relief. Perhaps it might even require an update to the atlas of hidden water – where the water supply is "hidden" in the sky itself.

[Image: A diagram of the WaterMill at work].

As the company