I saw this talk completely by accident, crashing it to get a seat for Bruce Sterling’s end-of-conference rant… and it ended up being by favorite. Alex Nikolai does such a good job taking a really scary topic, and showing really tangible things people are doing to make change. He is so convincing that we too can bring about change, just by figuring out how to make the things each of us is passionate about and love to do “green”.
- Book: “World Changing for 21st Century”
- Things that have worked:
- Put energy meters inside
- Car share
- When we’re done with things, people who made them should be responsible to take them back and recycle the materials
- Creates more incentive to build things that are easier to recycle (ex cell phone that comes apart at high heat)
- Rug rental, power drill rental
- Need things around us that tell better stories
- We should have eco-nutrition labels on everything we use, buy, & design
- Projects going on now?
- Starsight project
- Distance medicine over handhelds for third-world countries
- Landmine detecting flowers
- Life-straw- filters water through it, can drink from anywhere
- Therapeutic peanut butter
- Play pump- water is pumped by children at play
- Acumen fund
- Malaria nets
- We have a choice- replicate the flawed patterns of today or create a new, bright green future
- “You are brilliant and the earth is hiring” Paul Hawkin
- What can we do?
- “Green your geek” (you love gardening, then make that eco friendly, etc.)
- Use your computer as long as possible, then donate it so it can be refurbished and sent to schools in 3rd world countries, etc.
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