Futurist Mark Pesce sent out a tweet today: “ZOMG, mobile handset sales are falling in Australia!!! That’s unprecedented.”.

My instant reaction was, “Good - so they should be falling. Doesn’t pretty much everyone in Australia have a phone by now?!”.

Considering Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff, we ought to be proud of ourselves for not upgrading our mobile handsets every two years as the mobile phone carriers are only too happy to help us with!

It seems to me that having an older handset ought to be a point of pride. The older the better, I say. Got a ten year old phone? Good for you! Five years? Not bad… Keep going! Cellphone manufacturers ought to receive accolades for developing the products with the longest life-span, counter-acting decades of corporate design teams focused on planned-obsolescence.

I can already see banners on people’s websites advertising the age of their phones as a point of pride. You can easily find out the approximate date of manufacture at this website. Mine’s from late 2006, so it’s got a way to go, yet… What do you think?

John Doerr’s presentation at TED highlighted several responses to climate change worth knowing about. He made it to the platform in part because he has been instrumental in his business investing $200 million in what he calls “greentech”.

Before I go on to my notes, here are a few resources introducing Doerr (most noted for his involvement in the financing of startups including Google & Amazon) and KPCB, the business in which he is a partner:
John Doerr on Wikipedia
John Doerr on KPCB
KPCB on their Greentech investments

The two standout case studies introduced in Doerr’s Greentech presentation were Walmart’s greenhouse targets and Brazil’s experience with ethanol and the power of policy.

Greening Walmart

Walmart’s CEO, Lee Scott, is said to belive that “Green is the next big thing” and made commitments to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% in existing stores and 30% in new stores within 7 years.

Walmart is the largest private employer in the US and the largest private user of electricity. If Walmart were a country, they’d be China’s sixth largest trading partner. Their business involves 60 000 suppliers and 125 million customers in the United States.

So far, examples of Walmart’s three major drains on energy are lighting; heating & air conditioning; and refrigeration. So Walmart has made simple decisions including: painting roofs white to deflect sunlight; install skylights to take advantage of natural light; install doors on refrigerators to insulate food - the fridges are illuminated by LED lights.

Now of course there’s a strong case to be made that considering the amount of disposable crap Walmart sells everyday (watch the Story of Stuff for more) they haven’t exactly turned into an eco-store, but it’s a good case study when such a huge business is making headway in this area. For a full critique of Walmart, check out the movie, Walmart: the high cost of low prices.

Brazil’s move toward ethanol

Jose Goldenberg is described by Doerr as the “father of the Ethanol revolution”. In Brazil it has been mandated that every gas station carry ethanol. It has also been mandated that cars be manufactured to accept flexfuel. Brazil now has 29 000 ethanol pumps (compared with 700 in the US) and in three years the new car fleet has grown from 4% flexfuel to 85% (the US is lagging at 5%). 40% of gasoline in Brazil has been replaced with Ethanol, resulting in an overall 10% CO2 reduction for Brazil.

There are big questions about the role ethanol is playing in the increasing costs of food. By turning food crops into cash crops, we are seeing food prices increase, which is having the biggest impact on the world’s poorest people. This from the Earth Policy Institute:

“A University of Illinois economics team calculates that with oil at $50 a barrel, it is profitable—with the ethanol subsidy of 51¢ a gallon (equal to $1.43 per bushel of corn)—to convert corn into ethanol as long as the price is below $4 a bushel. But with oil at $100 a barrel, distillers can pay more than $7 a bushel for corn and still break even. If oil climbs to $140, distillers can pay $10 a bushel for corn—double the early 2008 price of $5 per bushel.”

Brace yourselves, I’ve signed up to this…

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

Blog Action Day is about MASS participation. That means we need you! Here are 3 ways to participate:

• Post on your blog relating to the environment on Blog Action Day
• Donate your day’s earnings to an environmental charity
• Promote Blog Action Day around the web

Thanks Ellice for the Tip.

The Australian Conservation Foundation have created a five step program to turn people concerned about climate change into lobbyists at the grass roots level. Boosted by the star power of Cate Blanchett, the user is taken through a simple process that within a few minutes leaves them with a formatted, personalised letter addressed to their member of parliament.

I’ve signed up and if you’re Australian and you’d like to see this key environmental decision taken more seriously, I recommend you do the same!

Who on Earth Cares?

Is John Howard dragging his feet on climate change because he’s surrounded by Australia’s biggest polluters? High and Dry promises to explain the politics of Australia’s do-as-little-as-possible attitude to climate change.

“In this damning account, Liberal Party member, lobbyist
and former Howard-government advisor Guy Pearse takes us behind the
rhetoric he once helped write. He reveals that the government has no
plans whatsoever to reduce Australia’s emissions, and explains why this
is bad for Australia’s economy. He exposes a prime minister wilfully
blind to Australia’s real Interests - a man who has allowed climate
change policy to be dictated by a small group of Australia’s biggest
polluters and the lobbyists they fund.”

Unfortunately the website is more of a promotion for the book than a backgrounder. This is an opportunity missed, as a more content-rich site would create a wider audience for the author’s message, more media opportunities for him to speak and ultimately lead to more publicity and more sales. His greatest challenge in the coming months won’t be piracy, it will be obscurity. At least he’s included a brief extract from the book.