MC Weekly Issue #17, Wednesday, April 19, 2006

“Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”

Welcome to Massive Change Weekly, an electronic newsletter sharing news about groundbreaking achievements in global design.

Vanity Fair Celebrates Change

Everyday it seems that the design-for-change becomes more and more mainstream. The current issue of Vanity Fair, the “Special Green Issue”, is a case in point. The cover is part doom and gloom (”A Threat Graver Than Terrorism: Global Warming - how much of New York, Washington and other American cities will be underwater?”), and part an optimistic call-to-action (”A New American Revolution”). That’s followed by a gloomy, the end-is-nigh preface by Graydon Carter, who complains that his book on George W., What We’ve Lost, didn’t sell that well because it was a “horrific downer”. True enough. In contrast to the sense of hopelessness in Carter’s book, though, the May 2006 issue then goes on to celebrate some of the amazing change initiatives that are taking place in the world, despite the woeful misguidedness in Washington, though as we acknowledged in these pages a few months ago, even there Bush’s call for an embrace of ethanol suggests that the embrace of positive change is terrifically widespread.

Many of the stories and characters familiar to followers of Massive Change show up in the VF special issue, as well as many other developments worth checking out, including:

AOL co-founder Steve Case’s new Lime lifestyle media platform (cable TV, satellite radio, internet, PDA and mobile phone programming), promoting a clean, green lifestyle (http://www.lime.com);

The Twike (featured in the Massive Change exhibition), a human and electric powered hybrid (http://www.twike.com);

The Office of Mobile Design’s Portable House, a ruthlessly sustainable and stylish approach to mobile home manufacturing (http://www.designmobile.com);

Some good news from Al Gore, who argues in the lead essay “The Moment of Truth”, that “we can solve this crisis, and as we finally do accept the truth of our situation and turn to boldly face down the danger that is stalking us, we will find that it is also bringing us unprecedented opportunity. I’m not referring just to new jobs and new profits, though there will be plenty of both. Today we have all the technologies we need to start the fight against global warming. We can harness sun and wind. We can stop wasting energy. We can use the Earth’s plentiful coal resources without heating the planet.”

Yves Chouinard, founder and owner of the visionary eco-friendly company, Patagonia (http://www.patagonia.com), and “1% for the Planet”, an alliance of more than 200 companies (and counting) committed to paying an earth tax of at least 1% of annual sales to environmental groups (http://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org/);

“Governors who get it”, including Arnie (!) and George Pataki, who have both found themselves “at odds with many of their fellow Republicans in making the environment a priority.” Pataki, for example, made a deal with International Paper, the US’s largest landowner, to protect over 250,000 acres of Adirondack timberland and wetlands from development, and opening them up for public recreation;

Lord John Browne, CEO of British Petroleum (or “Beyond Petroleum”), who have pledged to invest $8 billion in solar, wind and hydrogen energy technologies over the next decade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browne);

The Natural Resources Defense Council, who It lobby Congress and other public officials for public policies that promote conservation of the natural and built environment: against urban sprawl, pollution, and habitat destruction. They also sponsor scientific studies, promote education on the environment, and sometimes file suits in court against corporations and government agencies for violations of the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act (http://www.nrdc.org/);

Several high-profile on-line projects including http://www.treehugger.com; http://www.idealbite.com; http://www.stopglobalwarming.org; and http://www.grist.org;

William McDonough, co-author with Michael Braungart of the seminal Cradle to Cradle, only here unfortunately credited with the design of Herman Miller’s Aeron Chair (though he did design a factory where they are produced) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McDonough);

“Natural Capitalist” Paul Hawken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hawken);

Dean Kamen, of course, featured with his new Stirling-engine-powered electric generator that purifies water and produces electricity (http://www.dekaresearch.com/);

and dozens of other individuals, organizations and businesses making a difference, including lots of inspired celebrities like George Clooney, Julia Robers and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

So, congratulations to Vanity Fair.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 11:15 pm and is filed under MC Weekly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.