We’re all busy, and for many of us the regular time commitments of traditional volunteering is a commitment too far. But if you could do something useful and meaningful in five or ten minutes, at any time, that would make it a whole lot easier, right? That’s the idea behind the Do Some Good app [...]
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Big, complex, expensive and violent
Events in Japan have, unsurprisingly, re-ignited the nuclear debate. Alongside genetic modification and perhaps nanotechnology, it is among our most controversial and high-stakes technologies. As I’ve read the different sides in the papers this week I’ve been reminded of E F Schumacher’s critique of industrial society. He identified four trends at work, and they underpinned [...]
Obama: clean energy is the space race of our time
“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment” said Barack Obama in this year’s State of the Union speech yesterday. It was the launch of Sputnik that fired US imaginations to aim for the moon, a bit of Cold War one-upmanship that unleashed a wave of innovation as well as national pride. Obama is issuing a similar [...]
You are traffic
There’s a great billboard up in Luton, down by one of the busy streets by the station. In simple black letters on a bright green background it reads: You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic. It would have been nice if the billboard had left it with that bubble-busting little truth. It’s never [...]
The Self-Repair Manifesto
Here’s the manifesto of iFixit.com, the ‘repair revolution’. I like it. Being able to repair things, as well as being very satisfying, keeps things out of landfill and saves money. I’m a bit rubbish at fixing things, although I’ve had a go at taps and bits and pieces, and I’ve fixed a dead Xbox 360 [...]
The Story of Electronics
The latest from the Story of Stuff. After bottled water and cosmetics, this little film tackles electronics, asking that they be sustainably made and disposed of properly.
Fate of the World
Fate of the World calls itself ’a new kind of strategy game’. I wouldn’t disagree, as there aren’t many computer games that are profiled by both the respected scientific journal Nature and the gaming magazine Edge. Built out of existing climate models and data, Fate of the World puts the player in control of the [...]
Appropriate technology of the week – tube wells
Climate adaptation in action – this area in Bangladesh is prone to flooding, something that will only get worse in coming years. With floods come waterborne diseases, as wells fill with flood water and become contaminated. Building the pump for a tube well above the flood line solves this problem. Platforms are built two feet [...]
Appropriate technology of the week – cookstoves
There’s a good reason why clean cooking stoves are appropriate technology of the week. This is the week that this simple technology finally caught the world’s attention, with Hilary Clinton announcing $50 million of US funding for a Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. So what is a clean cookstove, and why the sudden attention? Three [...]
18th September is Offlining Day
On September 18th, internet users have been invited to switch off and enjoy a day offline, as part of offlining day. It’s the brain child of New Yorker Eric Yaverbaum, who found himself checking his blackberry over dinner and following conversations on twitter more than the ones happening in front of him in person. Inspired [...]
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