In Yochai Benkler’s TED talk (Open Source Economics) he says something like … “Social interaction and ideas exchange on the internet is not just a passing fashion … it’s the ‘deep change’ that is challenging our incumbant industrial systems.”  If you wonder why I bother to blog and read other’s blogs … post ‘tweets’ to twitter and join online social networks, well its because I get real value from it. Yochai goes a step further and suggests that for the first time the control of the new information age is in the hands of everyone with a computer and internet …

I am on a roll with posts that focus on solutions (all-be-them small ones) to sustainability issues like climate change and getting change to “grip” out there is the broader community. Communicating visually through right-brained techniques such as cartoons is one way to get messages across to an increasingly distracted audience. We used cartoons to help cut through the ‘climate change noise’ in the media throughout the Castlemaine 500 Project (owned by the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance) From my favorite cartoonist … Simon Kneebone lives near Adelaide in South Australia. Simon created these cartoons for Castlemaine 500. They focus on the linking …

I have been subscribed to “Do the Green Thing” for 6 months now. Every so often they feature some home-grown videos about people doing the green thing. Every so often they focus on solutions (as opposed to the problems). Videos like these are an exceptional resource for sustainability educators at schools and in community projects. They also have a Blog here. I will post the better videos as they come through … stay tuned. Here are 2 of my favorites: Oliver Heath on the power of recycling Want to get Teenagers to take shorter showers?! Impossible you say! This short …

Thanks to Matt Moore’s blog discovered a Web 2.0 Social Networking/Travel service called Dopplr. When you plug in your trips (car, air etc …) it has a cool Carbon Calculator that allows you to keep track of CO2 emissions. Given the social networking aspect of Dopplr, this could be a very useful tool to quickly calculate the CO2 emissions of many travellers. Many conferences now are trying to go Carbon Neutral. If all delegates did the Dopplr thing as a part of their registration process, the possibilities include: 1. A convenient way of linking up delegates who are travelling from …

In a world where “Green Washing” is common place … here is a ‘legit’ website that takes the pain out of decision making. When you invest to offset carbon, at some stage you have to trust someone’s advice! Knowing some of the people behind the Carbon Offset Guide … I’m willing to base my decisions on their own research. This site provides solutions for businesses wanting to ‘do the right thing’ and offset their carbon emissions. The Carbon Offset Guide was “developed through a partnership between EPA Victoria and Global Sustainability at RMIT. The Carbon Offset Guide is intended to be a resource …