Making growth in the developing world more sustainable

Home-grown ideas can turn resource limitations into a competitive advantage:

The most salient quality of these companies is that they turn limitations (of resources, labour and infrastructure) into opportunities. Thus, India’s Shree Cement, which has long suffered from water shortages, developed the world’s most water-efficient method for making cement, in part by using air-cooling rather than water-cooling. Manila Water, a utility in the Philippines, reduced the amount of water it was losing, through wastage and illegal tapping, from 63% in 1997 to 12% in 2010 by making water affordable for the poor. Broad Group, a Chinese maker of air conditioners, taps the waste heat from buildings to power its machines. Zhangzidao Fishery Group, a Chinese aquaculture company, recycles uneaten fish feed to fertilise crops.

via The Economist

Young Professionals in Energy - Austin kickoff

Sorry for the late notice. Tomorrow night there will be a meet up of energy yuppies in Austin, courtesy of the Austin Chapter of Young Energy Professionals. The event starts at 6pm at Fado’s.

I’ll be there, possibly on my bike.

Roger Duncan, former General Manager of Austin Energy and current President of the Pecan Street Project will speak.

There might be food.

Bicycle Visionary

More bike lane love, this time from NYC:

If you did any biking at all in Manhattan or Brooklyn this summer, you may well have noticed the improvements, including protected bike lanes (ones that separate cyclists entirely from street traffic) on such major arteries as Columbus and First Avenues in Manhattan. I know I did, and when I rode through the Upper West Side and the Lower East Side, Williamsburg and Boerum Hill, I felt something I hadn’t before, a kind of full permission and robust encouragement, even if motorists continued to behave obtusely. The city has also plotted a far-reaching and potentially game-changing public bike share program, whose details and timetable are expected to be announced this month. In a swift manner all the more impressive given government sclerosis these days, New York is truly transforming itself.

In related news, I will be restarting my bicycle commute from Hyde Park to Barton Springs this week.

In traffic-choked L.A., a car lane is given to bicycles

L.A. Times:

In a city known for traffic gridlock, deliberately eliminating an entire lane for cars could be politically dubious. But that’s just what officials did Thursday as they unveiled Los Angeles’ newest bicycle lane, a 2.2-mile stretch along 7th Street from Catalina Avenue in Koreatown to Figueroa Street downtown.

I love Los Angeles in the way that it’s already so fucked up with its square miles upon square miles of urban sprawl, development, miles of highways, and wretched asthma-attack inducing air that it can’t get much worse. And that it can do something so forward thinking, so contrarian to its way of life as building a bicycle lane in the middle of downtown. Awesome.

“Are We Still a Nation of Science?”

Jonathon D. Moreno, writing for Science Progress:

President Lincoln chartered the National Academy of Sciences just as the modern meanings of the words “science” and “progress” were emerging. Especially in the industrial boom times after the Civil War, moral values were seen as a key consequence of scientific progress. Historian Charles Rosenberg has observed that “[t]he vast majority of nineteenth-century Americans never doubted that human beings had progressed and that this progress — inevitably — subsumed dimensions both moral and material. It was inconceivable to them that the steam engine and morality were not somehow interconnected.” Piety, productivity and, by the end of the nineteenth century, efficiency were all within the same universe of desirable values and consequences of science and progress.

How did we go from this to a Nation where scientists are under investigations, like Penn State climate researcher Michael Mann, who was just cleared (again) by the National Science Foundation as part of investigations of scientific misconduct. He was, if you remember, one of the scientists wrapped up in the stolen climate emails from awhile back.

Allegations against (climate) scientists amount to little more than mafia-style bullying and intimidation tactics.

But the problem goes beyond attacks on climate scientists. Culturally, science is not regarded with the esteem and trust of prior generations. Movies and TV shows typically depict scientists as zany, out-of-touch characters with frazzled hair and even more hair-brained ideas. Think Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future.

Now, there are a few instances in popular culture were scientists are depicted in a positive light. 1997’s Contact is a great example, with Jodie Foster - a woman, nonetheless! - taking the lead role as a strong-willed scientist who becomes an ambassador for human civilization into a far off world.

Perhaps psychology offers an explanation. Maybe the zany, out-of-touch, and more vocal minority are really projecting their own personalities onto scientists to deflect attention on themselves. Whatever the reasons, science doesn’t appear to be highly regarded much more in American society.

In political science, the pendulum theory is used to describe the ebb and flow of political ideals and party preferences. Public opinion drifts towards more conservative ideals for a few decades, then figures out it went too far, and reverses course.

Is the same thing happening with the role of science in modern American culture? Will the public realize it has distanced itself from science too much, and swing the pendulum back the other way? Or is this mindset here to say?

Hurricane Irene is a reminder that adapting to climate change is smart policy, regardless of the climate change part

New Scientific American post.

I admit, I felt a little silly writing an entire post about my childhood memories of using Apple Macintoshes and posting it to Scientific American. Why would anyone want to read about that? But today, across the internet, I have been reading story after story of people’s childhood accounts of Macintoshes, or short tale about their time with Steve, or what Apple and Steve Jobs means to them. It makes me feel part of a community, which to be honest, has always been such an important part of being an Apple user. I think Bob Boilen of NPR puts it best:

I find the news of Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple’s CEO particularly sad. In some ways, I feel something like I felt when The Beatles broke up. Sure, I’d always have the band’s music, but damn, what a special time. What special chemistry. It will never be the same.

And:

Of course, Steve Jobs has found his legion of haters as well as followers, but no matter what camp you fall into, spend 15 minutes and watch his commencement address at Stanford University where he talks about his time at Reed College, the school he dropped out of (and where he also became a college drop-in). He tells three very candid, uncharacteristically Steve Jobs stories about life, love, and death from a guy who wasn’t wanted by his mother, was booted from the company he created, and battled cancer. Anyone stuck in a miserable job — or anyone trying to figure out what to do with their life — should watch this. He’s an inspiring fellow human. Whatever his future holds, this is my thank you. You changed lives, Steve Jobs, mine included. Thank you.

More stories and quotes as I come across them.

"But in the end, when I think about leadership, passion and attention to detail, I think back to the call I received from Steve Jobs on a Sunday morning in January. It was a lesson I’ll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday."

Vic Gundotra

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

Steve Jobs’s Best Quotes - Digits - WSJ / via @jenvalentino (via amzam)

Technology for the rest of us

I penned a quick note about Steve Jobs over at Scientific American about his influence on the masses through technology. I don’t think it’s the best thing I have written, but I love technology, and deeply respect Mr. Jobs and Apple, so I felt I should express that. Hope you enjoy.