the drop » Future

The (RED) ALERT for AIDS. Keep the Promise.

More than twenty-five million human beings have died of AIDS since the first case of HIV was reported in 1981: on average, over a million people a year every year for the past two and a half decades. So far in 2006, according to UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, 2.9 million people died of AIDS and 4.3 million more were infected with HIV. As of today, December 1, 2006 — the nineteenth annual WORLD AIDS DAY — there are 39.5 million men, women and children in the world living with HIV, of whom 63% (around 25 million) live in Africa south of the Sahara.
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The Most Polluted Places on Planet Earth

The international non-profit environmental action group, the Blacksmith Institute, last week released its rankings of the world’s most polluted places. Out of over 300 sites nominated by NGOs and local communities, 35 were identified by an advisory board of international environment and health experts as meriting special emphasis. Of these, ten locations were singled out for tragic infamy, ranked together as the Top 10 worst polluted places on the planet:

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City’s ‘Green Lungs’ Can Be Anywhere

Go to 'Respiratory Oases' on WorldChanging

Elegant Embellishments is developing a decorative, three-dimensional architectural tile that can reduce vehicular air pollution — specifically, nitrous oxide and ground-level ozone — in urban environments. EE’s tiles respond to the priorities set by the EU Clean Air Strategy 2005, which aims to reduce pollution deaths by over 100,000, and air pollution related damages by up to 45 billion Euros annually. Emissions from combustion engines are identified as the largest contributor to air pollution in cities and often invisibly affect our breathable air. The tiles, when positioned near pollutant sources, can re-appropriate these polluted spaces for safe pedestrian use.
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Farming for Biofuels

Fields of Biofuel

This week on BBC’s Green Room, president of the UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU), Peter Kendall, argues that UK agriculture can meet the country’s demand for both food and fuel crops: “Farmers in the UK see the opportunity to provide the feedstock to biofuel producers as a way to deliver secure, low-carbon fuel to the nation’s motorists.”, he says.
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Chinese Car Boom

On a recent ‘Car Free Day’ in Beijing, the capital was clogged with vehicles and the sky a drab shade of grey. The sheer number of cars on the roads had made a mockery of the city initiative to make dwellers ride their bicycles or use the public transport. As the expanding Chinese middle class aspires to car ownership, studies project China will have more cars on the road than the United States within 15 years. For everyone from environmental activists to government officials, China’s growing addiction to the automobile is a worrying trend.
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Visualize This: Internet reading experience reinvented

The future of online newspapers

Reading a newspaper online simply can’t replace reading the printed version. It’s just not the same. Holding a newspaper feels very different from sitting in front of a computer screen, of course. But more importantly, the way one reads a printed newspaper is more engaged and intuitive. When holding a newspaper your eyes take in a much broader stream of information, and often times you end up reading something that you wouldn’t be looking for on your search engine. Well, this just may change very soon.
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Beer, Chips and… Internet TV

The end of TV? Crowds create and rate their own media...

Did I mention that I studied TV but never actually watched it? Anyway, last night I tried to promote my transcriptions of Bill Joy´s answers from the Table of Free Voices, so I went to problogger for some tips, and learned that I ought to pitch the story to places like reddit, furl or digg - where real people choose which content matters. I was a good digital citizen and uploaded my photo to digg, but then I found myself overwhelmed by the real-time barrage of story suggestions every second. So then I went to see digg Offbeat News. That´s where I found out about “yruhrn – First Book Created by Global Collaboration of Over 1,000 People”. And that´s where my zig-zag tour through our lovely social web started…
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BILL JOY on our Innovation Acceleration

100 answers from Free Voices like Bill Joy now avaiable

Among the 100 questions that Bill Joy answered at the Table of Free Voices were 13 questions about “Innovation Acceleration: Science, Technology and the Future.” Read what the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Green Technology investor, and the man Fortune magazine calls the “Edison of the Internet” has to say about the social impact of new media, local food, and why companies should insure against genetic catastrophes. Here are some (exclusive) transcribed excerpts of Joy’s answers from the “Innovation Acceleration” question session from the Table of Free Voices. Like all content from the Table, Joy’s answers are Copyleft.
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Brian J. Weller’s MIND-MAPS

The array of extraordinary people, ideas and exchanges all around me is overwhelming. An example: over lunch, I was lucky enough to meet Brian J. Weller and take a look at his extraordinary mind-maps, ingenious resources for fostering a well thought-out response to these challenging questions.
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Design for Life

Massive Change exhibit, © Bruce Mau Design Inc 2006

What is sustainable design? Its reach is enormous. Everything from a Kinder Egg to a skyscraper is designed but sustainable design seeks to develop goods that will leave a minimal environmental footprint and not cause tricky social or economic consequences and that’s a tall order.
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Historic Deal on Global Warming in California

Hasta la vista, gass emissions!

California would become the first state to impose a limit on all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from industrial plants, under a landmark deal reached Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats. The agreement marks a clear break with the Bush administration and puts California on a path to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020.
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Planet of Slums

A family living in Cairo's City of the Dead

In his latest controversial work, Planet of Slums, Mike Davis rolls out a stupendous fact:

“China … added more city-dwellers in the 1980s than did of all Europe (including Russia) in the entire 19th century!”

Worldwide, people are moving to cities in greater and greater numbers. In a few years, for the first time in history, the majority of mankind will be urban, not rural.
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Bill Clinton and World Mayors Form Alliance on Global Warming

Bill Clinton launches the Clinton Climate Initiative in LA.

Former US president Clinton and about 300 mayors of the world’s largest cities announced an initiative earlier this month to cut their greenhouse emissions as part of the reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol. After world leaders failed to agree on a global solution to tackle climate change, mayors joined an alliance spearheaded by Mr. Clinton to adopt stringent targets to reduce emissions in their cities. 279 US Mayors, representing 50 million Americans, are already implementing measures even as President Bush holds out against Kyoto.
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Greenland’s Glaciers Melting Faster than Ever

Greenland's ice sheets may be disappearing up to five times faster than was previously thought. (NASA/SVS)

Two new studies published yesterday in the journal Science determined that the Greenland ice sheet, earth’s second largest freshwater reservoir, is melting at a rate three times faster than over the previous five years. If the vast frozen wastes thawed completely, they would release enough water to raise sea-levels by 6.5 metres worldwide. An article published in Earthtimes says that the increasing flow of freshwater from the melting glaciers has already started changing the composition of oceanic currents in north-west Europe.

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Derrick Jensen has 5 Questions for you…

dropping knowledge released a new Copyleft film today featuring five timeless questions from Derrick Jensen, one of the leading advocates of environmental sustainability in the USA. Jensen’s recent two-volume work, Endgame, takes dead aim at industrial civilization and its devastating impacts on the environment.
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Creating A New Universe

How to Create a New Universe (diagram by QJ.net)

Fascinating story here, brought to my attention by Futurismic…

Led by Professor Nobuyuki Sakai, the Astrophysics Research Group at Japan’s Yamagata University is planning to create a ‘mini-big bang’ and a new ‘baby-universe’ right there in its laboratory! The revolutionary experiment will use a particle accelerator to propel electrically charged particles at high speed at a uniquely dense (i.e. high mass) spherical particle, with an isolated north or south magnetic field, called a ‘magnetic monopole‘. The monopole will then gain enough mass and energy to begin expanding in a process of ‘cosmic inflation‘ similar to that which befell our own universe after the Big Bang.
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Where is Everybody in 2025?

This first-of-its kind, high-resolution map is the most detailed spatial projection of human population growth and decline ever created. Produced by U.S.-based, non-profit policy advocacy group, Population Action International, the map forecasts population rise and fall worldwide between 1995 and 2025. As such, it represents a demographic resource par excellence for conservationists, climate specialists and anyone interested in the future of the planet’s renewable energy resources in the context of its shifting human populace.
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Smart Phones in Developing Countries: The Future of Microfinancing?

Part of a CAM-enabled loan application

The African Uptimist blog discusses a new application for mobile phones that could be useful in developing microfinancing opportunities for rural residents. CAM, a system developed by Tapan S. Parikh at the University of Washington, harnesses mobile phones’ ease of use and proves to be more advantageous as a shared use device for rural communities than the average PC.
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features

Upgrading International Development, Part II

Upgrading International Development

Fighting Corruption: Bribe Payers Index 2006

Recycle Your Cell-Phone, Save a Gorilla

A Look Behind the Prison Walls

The Homeless World Cup 2006

Reach Out and Finance Someone

Arundhati Roy asks herself: What form of resistance is effective and acceptable?

Iranian Bloggers Joined by President Ahmadinejad

Creating A New Universe

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Future

The (RED) ALERT for AIDS. Keep the Promise.

The Most Polluted Places on Planet Earth

City’s ‘Green Lungs’ Can Be Anywhere

Farming for Biofuels

Chinese Car Boom

Visualize This: Internet reading experience reinvented

Beer, Chips and… Internet TV

BILL JOY on our Innovation Acceleration

Brian J. Weller’s MIND-MAPS

Design for Life

Historic Deal on Global Warming in California

Planet of Slums

Bill Clinton and World Mayors Form Alliance on Global Warming

Greenland’s Glaciers Melting Faster than Ever

Derrick Jensen has 5 Questions for you…

Creating A New Universe

Where is Everybody in 2025?

Smart Phones in Developing Countries: The Future of Microfinancing?