Features, sustainability, technology - by roningirl - December 10, 2009 - 01:39 Europe/Brussels - Be first to Comment!
The following article, featuring yours truly and my newest initiative with Vin Sumner — Greenshift Europe — is included in a Copenhagen Climate Change Conference publication for New Europe magazine this week. Your feedback welcome!
Greenshift Europe
“Greenshift Europe is a movement promoting ICTs to fight climate change,” says Vin Sumner, CEO of UK-based Clicks & Links, and an expert in applying information and communication technologies to address climate challenges. Sumner and Cheryl Miller, founder of ZenDigital.be, have recently joined forces behind Greenshift Europe to promote ICTs for building “smart,” sustainable communities across Europe.
“First and foremost, we aim to lower the footprint of ICT itself,” says Sumner about the principles behind Greenshift Europe. “Then, we look at how ICTs can make the way we do things today, like powering our homes and public buildings, smarter and more energy efficient. And finally,” he adds, “we plan and build ICT infrastructures in our communities, like free, public broadband networks, which help transform our behavior in a direction that will have less impact on the environment.” The last of these, according to Sumner, represents the ultimate, digitally-driven, green “shift.”
Announced this week by EUROCITIES, a Greenshift Europe and City of Manchester-led initiative called the “EUROCITIES Green Digital Charter,” [download pdf here] builds on the Greenshift principles, and calls on European cities to publicly commit to deploying ICT projects to fight climate change. Emphasizing the role cities can play as important catalysts for achieving climate goals, signatories of the Charter pledge to undertake specific actions using digital technologies “to increase energy efficiency, facilitate emissions reductions and forestall climate change.”
“The EUROCITIES Green Digital Charter might be seen as a kind of ICT ‘component’ of the Covenant of Mayors,” says Cheryl Miller, a veteran ICT consultant who has partnered with Sumner to promote Greenshift Europe. “Covenant of Mayors signatories have committed to surpassing the European climate goals for 2020,” says Miller. “And both the European Commission and EUROCITIES acknowledge the important role ICTs can play in enabling cities to achieve their climate objectives,” she adds. The European Commission DG Energy launched the Covenant of Mayors in February of 2009, and today it has almost one thousand signatories.
At the launch of the EUROCITIES Green Digital Charter last week, Leader of the Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese, explained that while signing the Charter is good for the environment, it is also potentially good for a city’s economy. “One of the greatest means for innovation lies in exploiting ICTs to contribute to a greener digital world,” said Sir Richard.
With fourteen major European cities signing up to the EUROCITIES Green Digital Charter in the days leading up to the Copenhagen talks — including Manchester, Reykjavik, Stockholm, Vienna, The Hague, Birmingham, Ghent, Nantes, Genoa, Zaragoza, Murcia, Lisbon, Bristol and Tallinn — the Charter would seem to represent a kind of green “shift” in Europe which many welcome.
Entertainment, Features, Reviews, Social Commentary, Videos - by roningirl - November 3, 2009 - 15:02 Europe/Brussels - 1 Comment
I wrote the below in response to a very interesting post by Walter De Brouwer, an organizer of the TEDxBrussels event, and EU responsible for One Laptop per Child. The post is featured here on the TEDxBrussels Ning site, and quoted in part below.
This is what I gather happened. Hendrix was a black American Rock Artist and that did not exist in the States at the time. It was a white thing, and very much a British thing. This was the time of Pete Townsend and the Who. They came first to the Monterey Pop Festival. At the end of their act, as the audience expected, they destroyed their instruments. Hard to beat that. You cannot follow this act and do the same. Jimi Hendrix started by saying that he would “sacrifice something I really love.” That was not destruction, this was sacrifice, sharing. And he started playing The Troggs “Wild Thing”. Suddenly he kissed the guitar, laid it down and sprayed lighter fluid all over it. He lit a match and set it on fire. He seemed to start making love to his guitar and distributed flaming pieces of it ritually to the crowd. It was magical. I have watched this scene over and over again. And no doubt, it contributed immensely to the spirit of the Summer of Love. Not because of the instrument destruction. That had been done before by Pete Townsend, Keith Moon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kurt Cobain and even Tré Cool. It was about something else. In fact Jimi produced the financial world crisis of today because he unleashed the notion of “sharing”. I wrote about it in “Free The Love Generation” (Ariadne Capital Magazine) in 2005:
Every civilization is allowed to build the kind of heaven it deserves. Ours is most certainly a global bazaar where everyone continually chases the best deal and the best deal is undoubtedly that which costs nothing. The web 2.0 business models that are successful are free of charge, on the house, at no cost, gratis! It seems that our world is trying to play more and more complex non-zero sum games and we seem to get better at it, because more than ever before successful experiments emerge as phenomena.
All this, by simply burning a guitar.
Free love=right on! But, we always pay for what we get — don’t we?
After eventually deciphering the text from your Ariadne Capital article, Walter, I wondered if you were not being ironic. Your description of “our” heaven is hell to me. Why measure ultimate “value” with a pricetag — or lack of one? And, frankly, I for one can’t stomach a connection between Jimi Hendrix and the financial meltdown! If it were up to Jimi, I suppose there’d never have been such a thing as “finance,” and only continuous, macro-personal metaphysical meltdown…
Doesn’t making the search of the “best deal” belittle the objects we are valuing? And since when is the price of something a true reflection of what the thing is actually worth — or even what it truly “costs”…? Attributing value is a personal thing reflected in the subtle, highly-nuanced multiplicity of options our language gives us for doing this: We can value something as “pricey” or “priceless”; “valuable” or “invaluable”… This naming may just be a (the only) real “complex non-zero sum game”!
And the “items” that fall into the “priceless” and “invaluable” categories, well, don’t they add up to something that is far more (and much better) than simply “free”?????
The question is not, in fact, about something being “free” or “20 dollars”, though — but more about how valuable a given object/service/experience is to ME (potentially). AND, in order to have that object/service/experience, what I am going to have to pay — in blood, sweat & tears, burning guitars, and maybe even — but not necessarily, and not even importantly — money…
All this to say: As terrific as it sounds, “non-zero sum games” don’t exist. “Free love” doesn’t exist and “free software” doesn’t exist either — even when it’s “brought to you by Web 2.0″. Jimi Hendrix (and all those musicians you mention) pay/paid for our blissful, enduring enjoyment with their genius and their lives. Come to think of it, we all pay for life with our lives. 
Jimi claimed he made a pact with the Devil. We got “Wild Thing” and the burning guitar, but he paid with his soul.
More boring: After adding in all the hours of development, delivery, maintenance and support (plus personal frustration, agony, tirades and angst), I suppose it would be hard for anyone to say that the Ubuntu shareware running on all those OLPC laptops is truly “free,” after all, too…? But right. My point: It’s all relative. AND, it’s all highly-personal. But, it’s NEVER “free.” And to call *some* things “free,” imho, manages to reduce them to simple bean-counter thinking, which, to me, they don’t deserve. At least, equating Jimi Hendrix with McAfee Virus-scan Plus, for example, is simply unforgivable.
Free love, free music, free software. For all these “non-zero sum” games, isn’t it actually more like the Japanese say, at the end of the day? Not only are “free” things not real — e.g. “free love” is not love. Only love is love. “Free things are the MOST expensive.”
Entertainment, Features, sustainability, technology - by roningirl - October 8, 2009 - 02:57 Europe/Brussels - Be first to Comment!
The pie I’ve most recently stuck my thumb into is TEDxBrussels — a TED-licensed member-driven event taking place at the European Parliament on 23 November 2009!
Burn this Box!
Although I am not certain about the calligraphy (I would have preferred something a little more Art Nouveau), it looks pretty cool on the event T-shirt, I must say. Wonder if it comes in a babydoll model…?
Burn, baby, burn!
For the moment, I’m trying to keep on top of the TEDxBrussels LinkedIn, Ning, Twitter and FaceBook sites. It’s a lot of work — so PLEASE feel free to help — but LOADS of fun! And… it’s for a terrific cause, in many ways.
The TEDxBrussels event itself is cheap, and places are filling up, so be sure to pre-register to get your place right away!!!
Reviews, sustainability - by roningirl - September 30, 2009 - 12:07 Europe/Brussels - 2 Comments
Yesterday, I commented on an Ethical Corporation article about the “Cost-Benefit Analysis of Beer” — which sounded like a worthy topic of discussion, as many of us remember from our MBA Case Study days. Turns out it was just disappointing PR hot air from Miller Brewing.
Other Ethical Corporation readers, to their credit, seem to have thought the same thing. 
Reviews, Social Media, new media - by roningirl - September 24, 2009 - 10:04 Europe/Brussels - Be first to Comment!
Excited to post the link for the new eBook I edited and helped copywrite here!
The book has been online for a couple weeks now, and yesterday the following came in the mail — a review from Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible:
What a great job you did on “Your on-Line Journey Starts Here”! I loved it! The design is great!
You address questions we all face with good solid common sense answers… With a global perspective.
I like the concept of “HyperThinking”… It ties together all of the Internet concepts with a 21st century call to action.
The book is fun, but has a lot of terrific take-aways!
I am really glad to see you part of our team! Welcome!
Lon S. Safko,
Corporate Consultant & Social Media Strategist
Top 100 Best Selling Books In America Since Its Release at Position #20!
Second Best Selling Business Book On Amazon!
Gee, if that isn’t a glowing review, I don’t know what is! So GO DOWNLOAD, READ IT and SHARE IT with your friends NOW!!!
…And now I’m glowing too! O:-)
Features, Fiction - by roningirl - July 27, 2009 - 00:47 Europe/Brussels - Be first to Comment!
Imagine a future world where cyberhumans–part organic and part machine–routinely interface with a pervasive power network in order to adjust their personal energy quotient for carrying out activities both virtual and real: From “distance travel” in a holodeck which feels, smells and looks startlingly like “the real thing,” to actual ground-, water- and air-based travel utilizing bionic appendages which safely propel individuals and groups across real geographic spaces.
In this future, we may no longer speak of “electric vehicles” as an innovation external to bio-mechanical engineering. We may instead look to the convergence of “life enhancement” research, ubiquitous computing and distributed energy services to deliver us rechargeable, removable cyber-appendages — like high-powered wheels, fins or wings that snap onto and off of the human frame — which we can recharge anywhere, at any time, to allow single- or multiple-passenger transport all over the Earth, and beyond.
We might imagine the emergence of personal energy measurement devices — either external to or embedded in the human body — which track individual power generation and consumption down to the level of the electron, and allow us, even remotely, to exchange energy with “the grid,” depending on our individual or community’s immediate energy situation. In this context, thanks to advances in human metabolic sciences, what one ate for lunch could literally play a role in how significantly one could contribute to defining the environment of a shared human event, virtual or real, a few hours later.
In the future, participants in such hyper-real, “shared human events” will individually customize their and others’ roles in the event and, based upon consensus and collective energy availability, will jointly model their shared event environment as well: To be warm or cool, brightly or darkly lit, on a “tropical island” or in a “corporate boardroom” — effectively based upon any criteria that will indeed be relevant in the future, across temporal and geographic boundaries, and in “real” time…
**********
The foregoing scenarios are not excerpts from a science fiction novel or imaginings about the far-off future. And they are admittedly modest at illustrating what actually, eventually will be the “reality” of life in a period twenty-one years from now — when Kurzweil’s vision for a single technology will be more fully realized, and the technological advances of the past two decades will have been effectively dwarfed by the continuing acceleration of Moore’s Law. These scenarios are, however, the vision of a future of converged Energy, Life Enhancement, Natural Resources Management, Food Security and ICT, as formulated by experts from science, government and industry at the COST “Foresight 2030″ Conference held in Bruges, Belgium, from 30 June to 2 July 2009.
The COST Conference, entitled “Benefitting from the Digital Revolution,” followed on the heels of a previous Foresight 2030 event, called “Harnessing the Digital Revolution,” which occurred in April 2009. The April conference identified ICT megatrends for their potential application to the emergence of “Computer and Communication Sciences and Technologies.”
Participants in the most recent conference were asked to explore how the ICT megatrends identified in April could enable achievement of the kind of visions illustrated above — in the fields of Energy, Life Enhancement, Natural Resources Management and Food Security — and to identify where synergies towards achieving these visions might exist among the four fields.
A final COST Foresight 2030 event, whose purpose is to place the outcomes of the preceding two COST Foresight gatherings in a greater social context, is planned for October 2009.
A report I wrote — entitled “Information is Power” — covers the discussions held by the “Energy & ICT” Expert Group from the most recent Foresight 2030 Conference. The foregoing is the Introduction to that report which will be released in its entirety by COST in the coming weeks.
Features, new media - by roningirl - June 29, 2009 - 01:41 Europe/Brussels - 3 Comments
This morning, my husband and I were discussing my last post. He expressed the concern that with my personal rantings and photos, I’d only attract “Michael Jackson fans” to my page and not the ilk of folk with whom I really want to be associated. This got me thinking…
One of the obstacles I encounter in engaging with “new media” regards defining just “who” I am “being,” in which medium, where, and when. In real life, we seem to have more or less figured out how to keep our social circles (family, work, friends, etc.) separated. So why is this so difficult, and even intimidating when we “cross-over” from our analog world into the digital domain?
As far as the sensory universe goes, my time in Japan has left me in awe of Japanese people’s ability to maintain the boundaries between all their different social circles, or “uchi” (=”home,” literally). Social “delicacy” there is elevated to such an artform that even two separate “uchi” with the most intimate of connections rarely, if ever, cross borders. Every Japanese person respectfully–dutifully observes a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” attitude about one’s own, as well as everyone else’s myriad social “homes.” And the result is this highly evolved form of selective social inclusion/exclusion which — as an observer and eventual partaker — I can only admire… and simultaneously anguish over, but that is another story.
But how do we translate the exclusivity of our respective social circles to the “new media” space, where personal information about you may, accidentally or maliciously — and without “you” even necessarily knowing it — cross from one social sphere into the other? What does the “transparency” of social media require of us? And how do we own up in one “circle” to being members of another “circle”?
A couple of things: First, I suppose new media demand of us that we become “new” people, in a way. That we “come out” as individuals (with all our respective armies of darkness — including those from the Thriller video!), and as a society. This already has implications for our accepted notions of “privacy” and “intellectual property” — where even the best brains on the planet are feeling challenged to proffer up appropriate, forward-thinking solutions to manage the evolving norms.
But maybe the appropriate solution is no solution. The paradigm shifts (Eeek — can’t believe I just wrote that!) we’ve encountered in “known” history, have been characterized by the fact that, in going through them, we are forced to change our way of thinking and to question the values underpinning certain of our behaviors and mores. The “knowledge revolution” — for is this not the paradigm shift upon whose precipice we now stand? — is only requiring that we do the same.
Also, although I understand that there are some things we can do to create barriers between our different online social networks — e.g. use pseudonyms and, like all good ninjas, “conceal your identity” — in the end, I think we will be found out. What is the point then in creating arbitrary “divisions” among our different worldly interests, if ultimately we are still accountable to everyone for who we are, no matter where we are?
So, to “come out” or not to “come out”?
Well, let me reflect here a moment on yet another IABC Web2EU function where we had a discussion about this very topic, and where, when referring to Helen Dunnett (our own new media pioneer in the Brussels policy space), Hugh Barton-Smith said: “Helen has two identities online … which are self-reinforcing.” Hugh’s point was that Helen is “Helen” when she is working on the PesticideInformation.eu site, as well as when she is “HDunnett” on her wordpress blog. In both cases, she is ultimately accountable to her virtual “audience” for all she portrays herself to be. To that end, it is in Helen’s and all of our best interests to be honest, forthcoming and transparent in our representations of ourself/ves, online — or, indeed, wherever we “appear.”
My own reaction to Hugh was that, after just this very short time, I find engaging in new media a kind of self-exploration, in which we are obviously inviting others also to engage. Such an experiment (on a global scale) requires you to feel comfortable with yourself. And, as Hugh recently found out in a shocking way when his “offline” comments about the foppish, MTV “EU can you hear me?” campaign were quoted “online” in The Telegraph: You can’t say things you don’t truly believe.
Personally, I’ve never been one to say things I don’t think (erm–right), so I’m not sure how my behavior would change in the World Wide Wacky-sphere. And, besides, as long as we are all sincerely striving to be “transparent,” build trust/communities, etc., I also find that new media has a way of being very forgiving about when we make mistakes. And that, as we all know, is incredibly important for The Learning Process.
But when I say “new media is forgiving,” what I am really saying is “the _people_ with whom we come in contact via new media” are forgiving. And, indeed, I also find this new environment to be very “humane” — in the way that it strips away all the “traditional” media layers, and leaves us there dancing in the dark when the stage lights go up. Eek. But this is also the beauty of our Brave New World, is it not? The interaction is very sudden, profound and personal. It is human.
Well, in the end, I published my last post — but only after censoring it slightly, and not before printing this “disclaimer.” I’m taking a wild gamble on the fact that this human character of our new media will prevail, and that I will be forgiven for mixing “personal” with “professional” — and even worse, for being a Michael Jackson fan! Besides, my only option otherwise would be to move my “private musings” to another site. And, although I own the roningirl.com domain name, when I suggested this to my husband, he responded by offering to buy me a copy of ‘Apache Server for Dummies.’
So, if maintaining my own site is the only option for keeping up the barriers between my converging social circles, I guess my response is this: Pull up a chair and get comfortable. I’m not going anywhere else, and I hope you aren’t either. Welcome into my “inner circle,” my “uchi.” Welcome… “home”!
Features, Social Commentary - by roningirl - June 27, 2009 - 02:41 Europe/Brussels - Be first to Comment!
Yesterday, my dear old (ahem) college roommate, Paola, and I attended the Raygun Cannes party on the rooftop-with-an-incredible-view at 47 Cantersteenstraat, in Brussels. It was already late when we arrived, and I only knew a handful of the surviving party-goers, so we immediately latched onto them. After our first Jupiler, Paola and I were searching for a replacement drink, obviously, and were embarrassed to find our Raygun hosts huddled around a laptop screen, “working” at that ridiculous hour of the night/morning. Second guessing our decision to have come for the second time (first time was following the realization that Jupiler was the only drink left on hand, obviously), Paola rung the bell on the counter and asked for service.
Raygun partner, Peter Baert (who I personally have seen more on FB than IRL) answered Paola’s summons, and amidst a discussion about what Raygun does (Paola was convinced by the oddly-shaped “gun” devices strewn around their offices, that Raygun was in the adult toy business), Peter informed us that Michael Jackson had died. Due shock, dismay, incredulation (?) followed. And, when we were convinced that this inevitability had indeed come to pass, we got back to partying down.
Naturally, the partying took a new turn. Peter downloaded a handful of choice (=by me) MJ tracks (at 80 cents a pop, I informed him they’d be, erm, valuable someday)… And, propelled forward by my and Paola’s zeal to celebrate the Life and Death of the King of Pop (Long Live the King!), the starlit, inflatable-palm-ensconced, Brussels-by-night rooftop atmosphere at Raygun/Cannes took on a whole new dimension.
Happily not blaming it on the Sunshine, Moonlight, or Good Times, Paola and I literally kicked off our shoes and boogied a euphoric homage to The King, barefoot under the open, nighttime sky. It was magical. But we complained. Why were we sad? Why did we feel the death of Michael Jackson so deeply? Paola’s insight was characteristically simple: “Sherry, we’re old.” I looked around the dancefloor and felt the rift between us and the young, nubile Flemish Raygun hangers-on, and thought “she’s right.” Michael Jackson’s death wasn’t only about his dying, but also about the reality of the (terminal) passing our own youth — whose soundtrack was made up, in large part, of Michael Jackson songs.
But listening to Michael Jackson’s music inevitably makes me happy. From my 70s childhood watching the “Jackson5″ cartoon on Saturday mornings with my brother and sisters, to my personal, adolescent coming-of-age with The Wall, to “Thriller” (what a thrill!) and “Bad” — each of Michael Jackson’s musical “eras” (until recently anyway) echo some happy memories in very distinct periods in my own youth, too. In retrospect, it wouldn’t even be exaggerated to say that “Off the Wall” comes closer than any other to being my own life’s theme-song. The chorus (for the rest go here):
cause were the party people night and day
Livin crazy thats the only way
So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf
And just enjoy yourself
Groove, let the madness in the music get to you
Life aint so bad at all
If you live it off the wall
Life aint so bad at all (live life off the wall)
Live your life off the wall (live it off the wall)
ad infinitum
requiem in pacem, Mr. Jackson.
Features, new media - by roningirl - June 21, 2009 - 00:54 Europe/Brussels - 6 Comments
At IABC’s Web2EU event last month in Brussels, there was a lot of discussion about trust, transparency and community-building via the new social media at our disposal. But most of us enter naked web-space with some trepidation, and rightfully so. We are skeptic. We “don’t believe the hype” 2.0 (it’s a sequel). And we wonder what bogey-men we will be exposing ourselves to “out there”: Which of our skeletons are we going to let out of the closet and risk having come around to bite us in the proverbial rear-end? The medium may be virtual, but the pain can be physical, emotional, mental.
I’m not exempt from this digitalia-phobia. And, since my husband says my closet contains an entire “Army of Darkness,” perhaps all the more reason to shy away from the interspace spotlight.
On the other hand, The Digital Future is our future (paraphrasing Kurzweil: “Anything that can be digitized will”), and like squaring the circle (à La Quadrature du Net), fighting this inevitability is futile. So, to some extent, I feel myself almost reluctantly being pulled towards the information black-hole whose entropy is so much greater than the sum of all of its parts — us.
Obviously, I’m a late-comer to the dance — and just at a moment when the NYT chronicles implosion of the blogosphere in “Blogs falling in an Empty Forest.” (B-Logs? Falling in an empty Forest?) Okay, I’ll bite: What kind of sound does that make? The “whooshing” of wordpress, blogger, squarespace, et al. all simultaneously going dark? I doubt it. And anyway, the less “noise” there is, the easier it is to hear messages worth hearing — not saying that mine is one of those, of course.
What I do notice about Social Media newcomers like myself is that we are all, naturally, fascinated by the medium itself and spend at least a part of our time making observations (goofy, insightful, naive, enthusiastic) about the new world in which we find ourselves. Take the example of Toyota’s “Aim: Zero Emissions” web campaign, recently shared with me by Hyperth!nker, Philip Weiss at ZN.be: Here, the ZN geniuses managed to convince Colin Hensley, an EU Public Policy person at Toyota, to start blogging about Toyota’s “green initiatives.” Lo and behold, among his blogs about electric vehicles, hybrids, etc., there also appears an entry on Colin’s use of Twitter — including some tweet-lingo, tips, and how he uses TweetDeck to follow “Toyota” tweets on Twitter. Say that ten times fast.
But the phenomenon abides. Looking at the blogsite of Danny Devriendt, one of Belgium’s most illustrious new media mavens: Even after many years on the circuit, Devriendt still regularly posts musings on new media itself — including a very insightful recent write-up about “twitiquette.” (Btw, I don’t know if this word actually exists. I just suppose it does.) If you ask Danny, though, he would say there is +no+ etiquette on Twitter — that people behave like neanderthals. His words: “There is a blatant lack of respect and etiquette in Twitter land, and it will kill a perfect good tool if people do not get hold of themselves quickly.” So he offers a few guidelines based upon his own experience, which I summarize here — but please be sure to read the post!
- Don’t retweet all the time; share your original thoughts.
- Don’t use cryptic language and make people guess what’s in the mini-link in your tweet.
- Use _normal_ words. (I like this one!) He says: ”If you have more than one word starting with “tw” in your Tweet (like in “Tweople, if you have a Twuestion just Twask and Twadd my friend”) I will delete you into oblivion.” Scathing, but to the point.
- And, finally, don’t overdo it. There’s only so much about you that other people want to know.
Personally, I took all Danny’s advice very much to heart. (Now, I wonder if he will add me?) And this is lucky, I think, since it’s probably better to get on the good foot sooner than later — as my new, digital “me”!
Features, technology - by roningirl - June 5, 2009 - 20:53 Europe/Brussels - 5 Comments
It is said that in nature there are no right-angles. Which is probably why when humans could start making right-angles with their opposable digits (”she stood there looking dumb, with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an ‘L’ on her forehead”…), things started to go all wrong. Then we started picking up things. And hitting things with things. And hitting each other with things. And we started making things with right-angles, and developed intricate ways of explaining how to make things with right-angles, etc., etc.
Might we say, then (not being the first, of course!), that opposable digits are the cause of our technological advancement — of the evolution of humanity? (NB Are these the same thing? And should we throw “progress” into the mix as well?) And is technology, or simply “tools,” then what separates us, literally, from the rest of God’s Creation? And, by extension, is technology at the heart of our estrangement from our roots, from the planet, from our fellow creatures, from what is organically “us”?
Viviane Reding says ICT is the solution to the environmental crisis. I’m questioning here whether technology — and our obsession with it (where does that come from anyway?!) — is in fact _not_ the key to achieving so-called “sustainable development,” but actually the largest single contributor to creating the sustainability problem we now face. Or maybe it is both.
Think of the graphic metaphors from the writings of JRR Tolkien: It seems much (most?) of our misery arises from this obsession with technology-driven consumption — expending natural resources to churn things out of the earth that we consume to make our human lives “better”… Or is this a simple case of materialism/consumerism driven by the “financial industrial complex”?
In the case of “technology,” or ICT at least, one may argue that there are no particular actors (except ALL of us, as it’s “just dna”) behind the evolution to today — unless you consider the All-Encompassing Evil Microsoft… or Google. The finance industry, certainly has players and “vested interests,” however, whose position has only strengthened through the cycles of boom and bust over the past one hundred years. And it is certainly in the interest of these players that humans continue to borrow money, buy things, consume them, borrow more money, buy more things, etc.
I am still not certain.
Nonetheless, the dilemma remains. On the one hand: Technology may be the key to a sustainable future for Mother Earth and all her Inhabitants. (=Thumbs Up.) On the other hand: Technology, and its increasing encroachment upon our lives in the tiniest level of detail, may be a self-perpetuating leviathan of destruction that has brought us to disastrous disharmony with our surroundings and will inevitably force us over The Edge. (=Thumbs Down.)
It is this, the “Sustainability/Technology Paradox,” that I would like to explore on this blog. I will post information about what the different parties to this discussion in Brussels — policy-makers, consumers, NGOs, industry — have to say. I’ll try to make my own observations on the course of the discourse. And of course (!), I welcome feedback from anyone out there wishing to contribute to the dialogue. I, personally, am only a new-comer to the table — and like all Americans at an elegant, European dinner — I risk being “all thumbs.”
