The Story of Stuff

Screenshot of the Video

Part of understanding sustainability is to have an awareness of how we are not being sustainable. This twenty minute video is one of the best explanations targeted squarely at the American consumer, but it can be useful to communicate some of the problems that we can start to address by looking at the systems that we use to accomplish our mission.

For those of us that want to know where she gets her facts, you can download her annotated narrative here.

From their website:

What is The Story of Stuff?

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Virtual Worlds for Enterprise

Video screenshot of the Metanomics forum event

This was almost one of those Marshall McLuhan “The medium is the message” kind of recursive moments – a presentation in real and virtual worlds about the use of virtual worlds to have meetings.

There are many reasons for us to consider the use of virtual worlds as part of how we use the web to do research and conduct business, one of which is to reduce the significant carbon footprint of our travel. Executive Order 13514 has now provided more motivation.

The Metanomics forum recently held a meeting that featured discussion about Linden Lab’s project “Nebraska”, an enterprise version of Second Life. Along with that are other panelists, including some guys from the Navy talking about how they use virtual worlds for training and other uses.

This link goes to the Metanomics page with a video and other info about this event. The video is good from a couple of different perspectives – for those familiar with Second Life and virtual words and those that are not. It also walks the walk – bridging an event seamlessly between virtual and real world components that allowed global participation on what could have otherwise been an obscure conference session in some hotel.

Virtual Worlds for Enterprise

 

Video screenshot of the Metanomics forum event

 

This was almost one of those Marshall McLuhan “The medium is the message” kind of recursive moments – a presentation in real and virtual worlds about the use of virtual worlds to have meetings.

There are many reasons for us to consider the use of virtual worlds as part of how we use the web to do research and conduct business, one of which is to reduce the significant carbon footprint of our travel. Executive Order 13514 has now provided more motivation.

The Metanomics forum recently held a meeting that featured discussion about Linden Lab’s project “Nebraska”, an enterprise version of Second Life. Along with that are other panelists, including some guys from the Navy talking about how they use virtual worlds for training and other uses.

This link goes to the Metanomics page with a video and other info about this event. The video is good from a couple of different perspectives – for those familiar with Second Life and virtual words and those that are not. It also walks the walk – bridging an event seamlessly between virtual and real world components that allowed global participation on what could have otherwise been an obscure conference session in some hotel.

 

GreenGov Challenge

I got this from one of the mailing lists I am on… I am simply cut-and-pasting the “talking points” file that was sent. See the link below to the official website.

The GreenGov Challenge

Talking Points

October 16, 2009

• On Monday, October 5^th, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on Federal Sustainability – and in doing so, committed the Federal government to lead by example, practice what we preach and help build a clean energy economy through how we operate.

• To harness the collective wisdom of the more than 1.8 million civilian employees and our men and women in uniforms, we’re launching the GreenGov Challenge, an online participatory way for federal employees to suggest clean energy ideas and vote on others.

• From October 19th until October 31st, any federal employee can submit a clean energy idea to WhiteHouse.gov/GreenGov.

• At the beginning of November, some of the top ideas will be presented to the Steering Committee on Federal Sustainability – a group comprised of a senior official from each agency who are responsible for delivering among other things, each agency’s sustainability plan.

• Though anyone can see the ideas, only federal employees can participate – so this is their chance to positively impact how their agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

• The great ideas that will drive us towards success will not all come from Washington.  They’ll come from Ft. Hood in Texas, or EPA operations in Seattle.  They’ll come from people like you.

• Be part of the GreenGov Challenge and help green our government!

Greener Apples

Screenshot of Apple's new environmental reporting web pages

While I am not endorsing any particular company, I was getting my new computer outfitted and updated and happened on a news release about Apple’s new environment section of their website. There’s a number of things that might be of interest to those of us working sustainability in the Army. As a consumer of products, we may want to look at how life cycle reporting by companies can help us better account for our sustainability footprint when we choose products. As an organization looking to change ourselves from compliance to sustainability, we can look at the transformations they are trying to make after some less than happy moments.

Also like the Army, Apple has framed a portion of its reporting using some of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators.

Gradients of Transparency

Screen Shot from Recovery.gov showing top 500 contracts awarded by location

When I think of the “Gov 2.0″ part of “Web 2.0″, I see it as two main things: 1) using the web to better do its job, and 2) using the web to better communicate with citizens.

For the most part, my main interest at this blog is the first part – how we as government workers can better enable sustainability using the web. However, there are overlaps in both types, plus it is interesting to see new developments and trends.

Today I wanted to mention two Gov 2.0 mentions in the media:

NPR Morning Edition had a piece that talked about Recovery.GOV, the website created to provide transparency and accountability on the progress of economic stimulus funding. An interesting part was the contrast made with a for-profit site, Recovery.COM that is doing a similar thing, but from a different perspective and motivation. It is also interesting that they are able to capture some data faster than the gov site.

The Washington Post has an article talking about some ways the Administration is wanting to adopt tools to help make red tape less of a pain – for instance, giving people updates via text messages or emails on the progress of immigration paperwork. They give an example of how with the current method, you may be missing an item in your paperwork and not know about it for weeks, or until you come back to check on things, so they envision improvements on the system so that more detailed and immediate notification can be sent to people that can ease the difficulties for both the government and the citizen.

I can think how this could be used internally, too, as I am having to track down people in their offices to find the status of MIPRs, proposals, and the various year-end machinations of trying to jump through all the hoops needed to set up projects and send or receive funding, the life-blood of my job. Right now, when something is not just right in the system, even though the email for a MIPR has arrived, I don’t find out about why it wasn’t accepted until I physically track her down, then she sends me to someone else… I am sure I am preaching to the choir on this… can we improve this with Web 2.0? I sure hope so.

Whitehouse CIO unveils Apps.Gov

Screen shot from Apps.Gov website

Gov 2.0? There’s an app for that….

This week, the U.S. Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, announced on the White House blog that GSA has  launched Apps.Gov – check out the site to find a list of Web 2.0 apps, as well as their cloud IT services.

Google jumped in and talks about supporting the government’s use of cloud computing.

Thanks to Dr. K for pointing me at the NY Times article this morning.

Another listing of Web 2.0 apps can be found at go2web20.net

Bangladesh Bans Suits to Save Energy

A couple of weeks ago we were in DC – probably the U.S. city with the most people in suits and ties – it was hot, humid and we were hurrying on foot to a meeting in a building that would likely be over-chilled to make up for the costumes we wear out of formality and tradition. One of us remarked as we were working our way through security and that more weather-appropriate clothing may be more sustainable.

Apparently the Prime Minister of Bangladesh has the same idea, since recently he ordered male government employees to stop wearing suits, jackets and ties to save electricity.

Special Report on Water at IEEE

Screen capture of IEEE Spectrum's special report page on water

Yesterday at lunch there was a large turn out at our lab to see the movie “Flow“. If you have seen it, you will understand how that raised my awareness of water. I have been aware of issues of scarcity, pollution, conservation, TMDL, treatment, and other such things we often talk about, but I wasn’t really aware of what the New York Times review calls the “War between public health and private interests.”  If you don’t know what I am talking about, this movie will give you something to think about, adding more to how water is becoming a strategic issue.

Meanwhile, there are still the other more technologically based challenges of water resources. IEEE Spectrum has done a special report on the global water challenge. Check it out here.

Canadian privacy policy impacts Facebook

What timing – yesterday I was pondering privacy and social networks and my editorial position was that policy and law need to change, and it is a role for government to take to create a foundation so that individual’s rights are clearly established. Without that, people’s privacy and identity are subject to the best (or worst) intentions of companies. With respect to the Sustainapedia effort, we in the Army need to better understand what our rules of engagement will be in the face of changing technology.

There are already numerous blogs and news articles talking about the changes to Facebook, so I need not cover that ground here. My main point is that a government took the time to understand the trends of how social networking systems, specifically Facebook, were operating and how best to protect the interest of their citizens. Isn’t that what one of the reasons we have government?

• Press release from Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• Press release from Facebook