Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

I’m always amazed how much information I come along, by simply starting somewhere on the web and then just out of curiosity of the things that I read, end up with hours of reading material. Here is an example. Come on the trip with me, it’s interesting:

I started of on swiss-miss, one of my favorite design blogs and I found a video about Web 3.0.

Nova Spivack appeared in the video and I got curious about what he does. A quick google search reveal his wikipedia page and his home page. Very interesting guy, I could spend hours on his blog.

According to Wikipedia, Nova Spivack “is the grandson of Dr. Peter F. Drucker, widely considered “the father of modern management”” Wow, what is that? Lets check out Dr. Peter F. Druckers wikipedia page: He was a writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.” Also a very interesting guy. I have to read more about him.

What the heck is “social ecology”. Extremely interesting.

All this rev’s up my brain like crazy. Did you read what “Social Ecology” is? It pretty much explains why things aren’t really working out with the environment and the root of it: our political and social systems and the “grow-or-die philosophy”.

Now, where am I going to find enough time to read up on all of this?

A concept for a train that never stops showed up on youtube recently. A very interesting idea, since this would save a lot of energy to accelerate the train and time that is otherwise wasted for passengers to get on and off the train. Have a look:

It really looks like a reasonable idea, but definitely has its technological challenges.

And the following version is for laughs. The echo makes this one sound like a public address, perfect communist style.

As many of you might know, I follow the Dragons Den on CBC, a show in which business owners (or many times wanna-be’s) get to pitch their ideas to the “dragons”. I just noticed that Rob Grand went into the Den and actually got a deal with Arlene. He is a very hard working guy and has been working on his business – the Grassroots store in Toronto – for over 17 years. I can only imagine how much of an uphill battle that must have been for all these years.

I wish him all the best.

Here is the pitch (skip right to min. 5:22 to see it)

Here is the link to this blog post on the Grassroots Blog.

I found an article about a “Beef Bio-Diesel” Powered Train on mashable. I don’t think the economics really work. How many cows does it take to power the train? I assume this business model is fine, if we are using diesel trains anyways, and we can simply modify the trains to use less crude oil.

At which point does the meat become the by-product of bio-diesel though?

This brings me to another post published on ecouterre by Galahad Clark, the owner and director of Terra Plana. He talks about the fashion industry driving the cattle industry. Again, is meat the by-product of shoes and fashion?

I obviously am not an expert on this issue, but I encourage everyone to think about how everything ties in together.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any facts on this issue? Leave me a comment.

Just a few years ago, I would have jumped on this opportunity to release something big, you know, REALLY BIG. Just to gain some traction. Everyone does it today though and this does not distinguish the fakers from the real ones. I don’t really need to prove one day of the year, that I can make a change. We change on a constant basis, and we (this is my family and I) try to live… earth weeks, years, life times? This also means that I have slowly changed from being a total freak about everything super green, to making changes that actually matter on the long run.

Think about it. A lot of the green products that you buy are made to make you feel good about yourself. The message is “You can still consume just as much, just get our eco stuff.” Don’t get me wrong, its still better than being regular non-eco stuff, but the problem is really the massive consumption.

So here some of the basics (in case you forgot).

Reduce – Reuse – Recycle

I’m not going to give you concrete tips on things to change, because I believe you are smart enough figure it out yourself. Now please pply this to your life, every day of every year. Reducing comes before Reusing which comes before Recycling. (Recycling is our last “resort”).

Here are some more videos that explain stuff in case you have never heard about it.

Have you heard about the “Why pay more for Energy Campaign?” Head on over there if you are curious. BTW, my video is right next to that of  Rob Grand from Grassroots . Yippee!

Also, in case you would like to know how it all works (some people think that I actually have a separate power line coming to my house and the workshop of Ukoonto), here is a quick simple video about that.

I found this post on the website of Shelton Group. To me it sounds like the equivalent of “green is just a by-product” just from a consumer point of view. If a company is concerned for its cashflow and for the health of their workers and makes changes to accommodate that, they will most likely become greener and create greener products. If consumers are concerned for their and their families health, they choose “green products accidentally”.

Do you buy green products not for the sake of the planet but because you are concerned for your health?

If someone was to ask you to build a car that is simple and extremely robust that has to have a ticket price of $2000 with no compromises of quality and features, would you just shake your head and walk away?

Exactly that was the task of Tata Motors of India (see the video at the end of this post). I think it is very remarkable that we (the humans) can put out such seemingly complicated tasks and achieve them. In this case, the car industry is trying to tap into the huge growth potential of the car market in India, but why can’t we use this same determination and set out for other goals? Provide shelter for the people, health care for the poorest, clean water. Should it not be possible to provide clean drinking water for every person on this earth within 5 years? What growth potential is that? Think about it?

This is nothing really new (in World War II they were running wood powered cars due to fuel shortages in Germany, here’s a good article about wood combustion engines), but this is a really fun version. Check out this Coffee Grounds Powered (found on inhabitat.com)