Thursday, October 09, 2008

AWARD - Shell Springboard 2008


WHEN
: Friday Nov 7
WHAT: Shell Springboard 2008
WHAT... MORE?: A programme that provides a financial boost to innovative, low carbon business ideas from across the UK. The idea behind the programme is that the business response to climate change should not be all about compliance and cost. There is a huge business opportunity if society is to move from a carbon-constrained world.

The criteria for those businesses which apply are very simple. Applications will be considered if the product or service will lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emmissions, is commercially viable and is innovative.
HOW MUCH: Free
URL: http://www.shellspringboard.org/about/
COMMENTS: Been going a while. We keep entering, too. Like Robert the Bruce's spider... one day! And yes, we do know that they are an oil company. Thing is, we don't go around telling folk what not to do all the time... so whatever gets the dosh to DO good... we'll live with them trying to PR it.

AWARD - Google Project 10 to the power 100

Awards , eh? Famine, then fest. Or, as we are talking numbers: 38 busses.

WHEN
: Oct 20th, 2008...soon!
WHAT: Google Project 10 to the power 100
WHAT... MORE?:

Categories:

Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don't fit into any category at all.

Criteria:

Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
Longevity: How long will the idea's impact last?

HOW MUCH: FREE
URL: http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html
COMMENTS: It really is hard to see a down side. Remember... do no harm! Actually, keeping thinking of ways to do good, better.

One mighty suck for mankind

Newsnight -

Speaking of sucking...

'Susan Watts reports on a radical new approach designed to stop climate change. Confused?'

As I look out of my window at a lovely autumn taking over from summer (well, what passed for one), I simply ask that whatever man-made effort is made to mitigate (if at all possible and affordable) the power of what man might not be helping much as nature does her thing, I'd still like the climate to change a bit, please.

It's complex, and so easy for us all to get confused, I guess. But while dealing with possibly addressing possibly/probably man-worsened negative climate change is a rallying cry I could get behind, the shorter version used here is about as much use as Global Warming is... was.

Guess we should ask all those chaps I saw on the news recently who are going up to the Antarctic to race about how it's all going. Maybe when they meet the eco-racers driving round the country to see how little fuel they can use?

At least the atmospheric Deep Throat (one mighty suck for mankind) hoover sounds a bit more like DOING than talking, but I do worry about relative %ages near the things. Harking back to my A level sciences, if you suck all the C02 out locally and hence cause an osmotic (or is that fluids?) gradient towards them, won't that monkey around with the natural balances of the various gasses that make up air?

And is that a good thing?

I know it looked nifty (if in reverse) in Total Recall, but it's just that 'we' have not proven over nifty in our meddling with nature before.

Hur-di-Hur

It's about economics, but I sensed an interesting aspect...

Iceland would be mad to join the EU

As it cropped up at the end there, though not perhaps as a major point, I got to wondering about Iceland's energy independence.

Bearing in mind that it is, as far as I am aware, quite isolated from the vagaries of this aspect of economic development, is it just that they have been so profligate elsewhere that their commitment to renewables has not helped much?