Healthcare: Not just another business

Health | Ano Lobb | Friday 20th November 2009

A reader comment on a posting about electronic medical records (EMR) suggests that medicine needs to follow other industries into the digital age. This is likely inevitable: Medical record keeping is bound to become more digitized over time. The primary reasons are monetary: It facilitates the generation of bills to send to patients and payers, the jury is still out on whether it increases quali
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Leading News and Opinion

	Buying locally to be an ethical shopper Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Thursday 12th November 2009 When thinking about how you can be a more ethical shopper, it is worth noting that it comes down to more than simply finding products that don't cause harm to the environment. While green living is a hot trend, and thankfully catching on, another aspect that can be considered is how buying locally can help your local economy and your community. Being that there are are a lot of terms thrown around today, such as buying locally, sustainable products, grass-roots companies, and organics, the simple trip to the market or store can leave you a bit confused. The principle of buying locally is that you are supporting farmers and tradesmen in your direct area. Instead of buying products that are shipped either over land or over seas, you are buying directly from the source. The benefits of this is everything from cutting down on the amount of gas emissions produced when a truck drives across states to deliver your food, to helping the state of your local economy. By giving business to the little Mom and Pop stores you are helping bolster your community and in turn helping the little men struggling to stay in business against the top corporations. The economic times are tough on everyone, especially the small businesses and many of them are finding themselves struggling to stay afloat. They simply can't compete with the larger business and are being driven out of business themselves, and left without income. In addition to simply helping your neighbor and receiving a more personal experience in your shopping, buying locally also reduces the amount of packaging waste. This is because often there is less processing local products go through as they aren't shipped very far. Read More

	The island of lost plastics Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Thursday 12th November 2009 Where do some of the plastic products, wastes, and other trash we discard end up if not in a landfill that is actually on land? Well, perhaps for you next holiday vacation you would like to pay a visit to the beautiful island of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sounds lovely doesn't it? This ideal travel destination spans hundreds of miles, is estimated to be roughly the size of the state of Texas in the United states, or was it the size of France? No one is actually sure, but at any rate, it sits in the northern region of the Pacific Ocean. Here you can see the many vibrant colors (okay mostly blacks, browns, and whites) making up all the residual waste from product consumption. These plastic particles, soda bottles, straws, and other trash offer up a tantalizing treat for all the surrounding sea life and birds soaring above. In fact, mama albatross birds find this debris particularly nutritious for their young babies, and have a habit of plucking such garbage from the swirling 'landmass' and offering it up to their young. Unfortunately, plastic doesn't necessarily do a body good, and the baby albatross birds are dying at an alarming rate due to poison by plastic. But the fun doesn't stop there folks, when frequenting this island of garbage, you really will only be stepping upon the tip of the ice berg. In fact, even the best estimates of how extensive this landfill is are merely guesses, as no one truly can comprehend just how deep it plunges. Deep below the ocean blue sits countless discarded tires and other items we have shunned. Read More

	The paid - and the unpaid Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Thursday 12th November 2009 I'm struggling with how I want to respond to the hard facts about what we get paid for - and what we don't get paid for. My last post on 'End unpaid internships' raised some interesting discussion and questions, including the real truth that many of the best opportunities for sustainable development are unpaid (especially when one is relatively new in a field, but not only then). Several people shared their experience that they would not be where they are today had it not been for the hours of unpaid labour they contributed to what they saw as worthy projects that gave them invaluable contacts and experience. In this lies a challenge. I want to get paid for the work I love to do. Me, and everyone else who has to live in a formalized economy, that is, where I can't survive (at least not that well) without hard cash. And I'm like many others- some of the most valuable things I've ever done, including starting up several for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, have entailed massive amounts of unpaid work. Those ventures never paid off for me financially, but I know I made a difference. 'Free' work isn't just volunteering in cool projects, interning or starting your own business. Most social movements haven't been run simply by paid staff - they've been successful because of people - often working class, often over worked - who put in their time (and often risked their jobs if not their lives) for 'free.' Some of the most valuable services - cooking, shopping, cleaning, washing, caring for my health, caring for sick friends and family, etc. - are things I do because they have to be done, not because I get paid to do them. Yet these things are not valued in financial terms. Read More

	Growing Change -- In the Dark Social Enterprise \| Marcia Stepanek \| Thursday 12th November 2009 Eben Bayer has declared war on Styrofoam - what he calls "that toxic white stuff" that can be found in the walls of your home, in coffee cups, in packaging, in your back yard and along the sides of the highway. Styrofoam, he says, takes up more space in landfills than any other type of trash. And the famous Garbage Patch -- that floating island of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean that's bigger than Texas? It, too, contains a huge amount of ground-up Styrofoam, Bayer says -- and it's killing the birds and fish that feed on it. "Our planet's toxic addiction to plastics is poisoning our environment and our bodies," he says. So Bayer, the son of a Vermont farmer, and his ex-classmate, Gavin McIntyre, co-founded Ecovative Design, a new company based in Green Island, N.Y., that uses the fibers in mushroom roots and seed husks to produce a type of organically-grown material -- called "greensulate" -- that can be used as a Styrofoam replacement. [The two met as mechanical-engineering students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.] But don't look for an assembly line at the 10-employee firm. Look for dark rooms instead. Ecovative grows mycelium (mushroom roots) in a bed of agricultural by-products including buckwheat husks. After about 10-14 days, the root systems, seeded on metal panels, are baked in an oven at between 100 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit and then "harvested" for use in any number of applications. One top app, Bayer says, is called "Ecocradle" - a strong, paper-like material that has the same thermal and physical properties as Styrofoam. Read More

	Networking for Career Success & Focus Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Thursday 12th November 2009 As I have shared in previous posts creditability, being an expert and offering value all interrelates into networking and building a community of people, who believe, and want to work with you. Networking is a lifestyle not just an activity. You need to make connections with people. It's the #1 most important thing you can do to accomplish your goals. Why network? More than 83% of all jobs are found and developed by word of mouth and by relationships build over days or years of contributing to one another. It's also a time to serve and give to another person and be given to in exchange. One important factor that is often overlooked in networking is the importance of a clear goal and focus for networking. Where to start? Clarify your purpose and your intention for networking. Do you want to attract a new job, move, learn something new or make a friend? Be clear and specific before you begin.Identify a way to introduce yourself. Develop a 30 second introductory statements or elevator pitch. Include your accomplishments, your goals and something unique about you. Please email me to receive a handout on this.Think of your life as one big canvas and opportunity to meet and network. Everyone you come in contact with is a person you can learn from, contribute to and be helped by. Read More

	The Land Provides: Sustaining Access to Traditional Foods Sustainable Food \| Tricia Edgar \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 A trip into a local grocery store tends to be an exercise in alienation from the source of my food. Although I can see that there are local apples and pears, most of the other food in the store has rather murky origins. Where did this meat come from? And what about this margarine - where did the olives grow, or the canola? Sometimes I want to whip out the microphone and interview my food to see if it can enlighten me about its past. I don't, though, since I want to be able to return to my local supermarket again. My work as an outdoor educator stands in contrast to this grocery store experience. This time of year, the rain pours, and there is no fluorescent light anywhere. The food is also different out in the forest. Here on Canada's West Coast, I can eat Western Hemlock needles as I walk along. If I'm lucky, I'll find a root of a licorice fern - this tastes like black licorice. In the fall, I can eat wild mushrooms, while in the spring I can harvest the new shoots of the salmonberry plant. At a workshop a few weeks ago, we discussed sustainable food. At one of the tables there was a discussion group about aboriginal access to food. The discussion participants made the point that access to and the ability to gather traditional sources of food was very limited, yet it is critical to the social and cultural sustainability of aboriginal people, and most of all, to their way of life. Read More

	American Policy: Saving Trillions Part 1: Biodiversity Costs Climate Change \| Juan Carlo Pascua \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 Part one of the American Policy portion of the Climate Change Policy Series: Act America, act now, sooner than later. Climate change inaction stands to cost Americans trillions of dollars due to loss of biodiversity, economic spillovers, national security, and migration. The bottom line, mitigating climate change now and swiftly will save Americans more money than inaction or slow action. Unfortunately, many of today's American policy makers misuse climate models for short term gain. These models should be taken with a grain of salt; they are educated predictions of the future that leave out some major considerations. One cost overlooked and underestimated by current economic studies is the cost of losing biodiversity in the environment. Studies either report optimistic temperature scenarios of 2-3°C and underestimate losses or don't mention them at all. One estimate values the services of the ecosystem at 1.8 times the world GNP, which at the time equaled $33T (Costanza et al., 1997). To compare, the world GDP in 2008 was $61T. Other studies suggest biodiversity to be worth $389B for the USA and $3.6T for the world, annually (Pimentel, 1997). Ecosystem services include provisioning (production of water and food), regulating (climate and disease), supporting (nutrient cycles and crop pollination), and cultural (recreational and spiritual benefit). An equally important service includes value for pharmaceutical research and anti-cancer and anti-infective drugs, 60% of such drugs are derived from natural sources or modeled after them (Adey, 2000). The Rosy Periwinkle (pictured above from E. Africa used for Leukemia research) and the Himalayan yew tree are sources of three anti-cancer drugs whose habitats are endangered by climate change (Rausser & Small, 2000). Read More

	End Unpaid Internships Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 Surely sustainable development is about long term positive changes - about supporting future generations. And surely it is important for young professionals to be engaged in sustainable development. And if we are concerned with sustainable futures for all people, then young people from disadvantaged backgrounds - or just your ordinary middle class young person - should be able to train with and learn from experienced sustainable development practitioners - whether that be NGOS, businesses, governments, But the system doesn't support this - not in the least. A friend of mine has recently started sending letters to organizations that say, in brief, 'hello, you look like you have a fabulous position, which I am highly qualified for, and I would love to work with you. I would bring tremendous experience to this position. But I will not be applying to it because it is an unpaid position, and I can not afford to live in England without being paid.' I applaud her efforts (and am considering sending some of those myself.) So many of my friends and colleagues are searching for jobs, and are finding great positions that are unpaid. My friends are not fresh out of University - they often have several years of working experience behind them (though perhaps in a different field) and a MA. Even so, they are not considered experienced enough for many paid positions. And its not just my friends who work in international development - the NGO and even some of the business community is filled with this tendency. The result - the young people who can fill those positions have some kind of financial support (usually parents) who can support them. Which excludes almost all of the bright young people I know from Africa, Asia and South America - not to mention myself, from the USA (and it effects UK citizens as well, though not quite as much, as they often have higher social capital).It also perpetuates a system where hard work and experience is not valued. Read More

	Build It Green - Part 2 Sustainable Development \| Kendra Pierre-Louis \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 As I touched upon on Monday there are a variety of lesser championed green building techniques that tread lightly on the planet and wallet. On Monday I profiled Rammed Earth building techniques and today I touch on several others. Despite the bad rap that straw gets from the three little pigs Strawbale buildings are cheap, easy to build and extremely energy efficient. They resemble rammed earth houses with thick walls, wide window sills and rounded corners but with additional insulation. They were first developed in the grasslands of Nebraska where there was plenty of straw and few trees. The structures are built by stacking bales of hay and then plastering the hay with plaster, stucco, or earth plaster. The resulting house is quiet (the thick walls provide natural sound resistance), warm, sustainable, and fire resistant. Because the bales of hay are so tightly wound they're exceedingly difficult to burn - a typical wood framed structure can burn in as little as 30-minutes, a Strawbale home will take 2-hours. They're also sturdy: strawbale structures from the 1800's are still standing in the US and Europe today, and strawbale structures have withstood California earthquakes while in wind tests bale structures see no movement in a sustained 75 mph gale. In addition, the United States burns or otherwise disposes 200 million tons of "waste" straw annually, releasing carbon in the process. Using this easily renewable material (straw has a one year growth/harvest season) for house building would reduce our need to destroy slower growing forests. Read More

	Map - or be mapped Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Monday 9th November 2009 Over 40% of human habitation is considered to be slums - that's over 1 billion people, or 1/6th of humanity. Slums have taken on a quite a connotation in the past few years, becoming one of the ugly face of fast economic growth, and one of the many examples of how-not-to-do-sustainable-development. More often than not, slums are within a stones throw of some of the richest areas in a given city, increasing people's lived experience of immense inequality that so increasingly plagues much of the developed and the developing world. And, in one of the great ironies of our age, most of those slums are not on any official map. Despite innumerable reports, visits by presidents and noted celebrities, many slums do not actually exist on most maps. Part of this has to do with the complicated politics of city planning. If they existed, then the government would have to provide services for them - like sanitation and access to water. But many local governments can't afford to do that (or don't want to), not least because those people often can not afford to pay enough taxes. There's a reason people live in slums - and a reason why their governments have struggled to get them out. Among the many human rights campaigns to address the often appalling condition of slums is variations of participatory mapping, Geo- mapping, mobile-cell-phone-mapping, and other ways for regular people to assert that they do indeed exist and that they can produce maps - maps that can then enable NGOs, outside experts, and the communities themselves to address issues from sanitation problems to violence inside of their communities. Read More

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Staples Receives Covalence Ethical Ranking 2008
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RSF's President CEO, Don Shaffer, at the opening of The Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.

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	Buying locally to be an ethical shopper Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Thursday 12th November 2009 When thinking about how you can be a more ethical shopper, it is worth noting that it comes down to more than simply finding products that don't cause harm to the environment. While green living is a hot trend, and thankfully catching on, another aspect that can be considered is how buying locally can help your local economy and your community. Being that there are are a lot of terms thrown around today, such as buying locally, sustainable products, grass-roots companies, and organics, the simple trip to the market or store can leave you a bit confused. The principle of buying locally is that you are supporting farmers and tradesmen in your direct area. Instead of buying products that are shipped either over land or over seas, you are buying directly from the source. The benefits of this is everything from cutting down on the amount of gas emissions produced when a truck drives across states to deliver your food, to helping the state of your local economy. By giving business to the little Mom and Pop stores you are helping bolster your community and in turn helping the little men struggling to stay in business against the top corporations. The economic times are tough on everyone, especially the small businesses and many of them are finding themselves struggling to stay afloat. They simply can't compete with the larger business and are being driven out of business themselves, and left without income. In addition to simply helping your neighbor and receiving a more personal experience in your shopping, buying locally also reduces the amount of packaging waste. This is because often there is less processing local products go through as they aren't shipped very far. Read More

	The island of lost plastics Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Thursday 12th November 2009 Where do some of the plastic products, wastes, and other trash we discard end up if not in a landfill that is actually on land? Well, perhaps for you next holiday vacation you would like to pay a visit to the beautiful island of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sounds lovely doesn't it? This ideal travel destination spans hundreds of miles, is estimated to be roughly the size of the state of Texas in the United states, or was it the size of France? No one is actually sure, but at any rate, it sits in the northern region of the Pacific Ocean. Here you can see the many vibrant colors (okay mostly blacks, browns, and whites) making up all the residual waste from product consumption. These plastic particles, soda bottles, straws, and other trash offer up a tantalizing treat for all the surrounding sea life and birds soaring above. In fact, mama albatross birds find this debris particularly nutritious for their young babies, and have a habit of plucking such garbage from the swirling 'landmass' and offering it up to their young. Unfortunately, plastic doesn't necessarily do a body good, and the baby albatross birds are dying at an alarming rate due to poison by plastic. But the fun doesn't stop there folks, when frequenting this island of garbage, you really will only be stepping upon the tip of the ice berg. In fact, even the best estimates of how extensive this landfill is are merely guesses, as no one truly can comprehend just how deep it plunges. Deep below the ocean blue sits countless discarded tires and other items we have shunned. Read More

	The paid - and the unpaid Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Thursday 12th November 2009 I'm struggling with how I want to respond to the hard facts about what we get paid for - and what we don't get paid for. My last post on 'End unpaid internships' raised some interesting discussion and questions, including the real truth that many of the best opportunities for sustainable development are unpaid (especially when one is relatively new in a field, but not only then). Several people shared their experience that they would not be where they are today had it not been for the hours of unpaid labour they contributed to what they saw as worthy projects that gave them invaluable contacts and experience. In this lies a challenge. I want to get paid for the work I love to do. Me, and everyone else who has to live in a formalized economy, that is, where I can't survive (at least not that well) without hard cash. And I'm like many others- some of the most valuable things I've ever done, including starting up several for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, have entailed massive amounts of unpaid work. Those ventures never paid off for me financially, but I know I made a difference. 'Free' work isn't just volunteering in cool projects, interning or starting your own business. Most social movements haven't been run simply by paid staff - they've been successful because of people - often working class, often over worked - who put in their time (and often risked their jobs if not their lives) for 'free.' Some of the most valuable services - cooking, shopping, cleaning, washing, caring for my health, caring for sick friends and family, etc. - are things I do because they have to be done, not because I get paid to do them. Yet these things are not valued in financial terms. Read More

	Growing Change -- In the Dark Social Enterprise \| Marcia Stepanek \| Thursday 12th November 2009 Eben Bayer has declared war on Styrofoam - what he calls "that toxic white stuff" that can be found in the walls of your home, in coffee cups, in packaging, in your back yard and along the sides of the highway. Styrofoam, he says, takes up more space in landfills than any other type of trash. And the famous Garbage Patch -- that floating island of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean that's bigger than Texas? It, too, contains a huge amount of ground-up Styrofoam, Bayer says -- and it's killing the birds and fish that feed on it. "Our planet's toxic addiction to plastics is poisoning our environment and our bodies," he says. So Bayer, the son of a Vermont farmer, and his ex-classmate, Gavin McIntyre, co-founded Ecovative Design, a new company based in Green Island, N.Y., that uses the fibers in mushroom roots and seed husks to produce a type of organically-grown material -- called "greensulate" -- that can be used as a Styrofoam replacement. [The two met as mechanical-engineering students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.] But don't look for an assembly line at the 10-employee firm. Look for dark rooms instead. Ecovative grows mycelium (mushroom roots) in a bed of agricultural by-products including buckwheat husks. After about 10-14 days, the root systems, seeded on metal panels, are baked in an oven at between 100 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit and then "harvested" for use in any number of applications. One top app, Bayer says, is called "Ecocradle" - a strong, paper-like material that has the same thermal and physical properties as Styrofoam. Read More

	Networking for Career Success & Focus Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Thursday 12th November 2009 As I have shared in previous posts creditability, being an expert and offering value all interrelates into networking and building a community of people, who believe, and want to work with you. Networking is a lifestyle not just an activity. You need to make connections with people. It's the #1 most important thing you can do to accomplish your goals. Why network? More than 83% of all jobs are found and developed by word of mouth and by relationships build over days or years of contributing to one another. It's also a time to serve and give to another person and be given to in exchange. One important factor that is often overlooked in networking is the importance of a clear goal and focus for networking. Where to start? Clarify your purpose and your intention for networking. Do you want to attract a new job, move, learn something new or make a friend? Be clear and specific before you begin.Identify a way to introduce yourself. Develop a 30 second introductory statements or elevator pitch. Include your accomplishments, your goals and something unique about you. Please email me to receive a handout on this.Think of your life as one big canvas and opportunity to meet and network. Everyone you come in contact with is a person you can learn from, contribute to and be helped by. Read More

	The Land Provides: Sustaining Access to Traditional Foods Sustainable Food \| Tricia Edgar \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 A trip into a local grocery store tends to be an exercise in alienation from the source of my food. Although I can see that there are local apples and pears, most of the other food in the store has rather murky origins. Where did this meat come from? And what about this margarine - where did the olives grow, or the canola? Sometimes I want to whip out the microphone and interview my food to see if it can enlighten me about its past. I don't, though, since I want to be able to return to my local supermarket again. My work as an outdoor educator stands in contrast to this grocery store experience. This time of year, the rain pours, and there is no fluorescent light anywhere. The food is also different out in the forest. Here on Canada's West Coast, I can eat Western Hemlock needles as I walk along. If I'm lucky, I'll find a root of a licorice fern - this tastes like black licorice. In the fall, I can eat wild mushrooms, while in the spring I can harvest the new shoots of the salmonberry plant. At a workshop a few weeks ago, we discussed sustainable food. At one of the tables there was a discussion group about aboriginal access to food. The discussion participants made the point that access to and the ability to gather traditional sources of food was very limited, yet it is critical to the social and cultural sustainability of aboriginal people, and most of all, to their way of life. Read More

	American Policy: Saving Trillions Part 1: Biodiversity Costs Climate Change \| Juan Carlo Pascua \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 Part one of the American Policy portion of the Climate Change Policy Series: Act America, act now, sooner than later. Climate change inaction stands to cost Americans trillions of dollars due to loss of biodiversity, economic spillovers, national security, and migration. The bottom line, mitigating climate change now and swiftly will save Americans more money than inaction or slow action. Unfortunately, many of today's American policy makers misuse climate models for short term gain. These models should be taken with a grain of salt; they are educated predictions of the future that leave out some major considerations. One cost overlooked and underestimated by current economic studies is the cost of losing biodiversity in the environment. Studies either report optimistic temperature scenarios of 2-3°C and underestimate losses or don't mention them at all. One estimate values the services of the ecosystem at 1.8 times the world GNP, which at the time equaled $33T (Costanza et al., 1997). To compare, the world GDP in 2008 was $61T. Other studies suggest biodiversity to be worth $389B for the USA and $3.6T for the world, annually (Pimentel, 1997). Ecosystem services include provisioning (production of water and food), regulating (climate and disease), supporting (nutrient cycles and crop pollination), and cultural (recreational and spiritual benefit). An equally important service includes value for pharmaceutical research and anti-cancer and anti-infective drugs, 60% of such drugs are derived from natural sources or modeled after them (Adey, 2000). The Rosy Periwinkle (pictured above from E. Africa used for Leukemia research) and the Himalayan yew tree are sources of three anti-cancer drugs whose habitats are endangered by climate change (Rausser & Small, 2000). Read More

	End Unpaid Internships Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 Surely sustainable development is about long term positive changes - about supporting future generations. And surely it is important for young professionals to be engaged in sustainable development. And if we are concerned with sustainable futures for all people, then young people from disadvantaged backgrounds - or just your ordinary middle class young person - should be able to train with and learn from experienced sustainable development practitioners - whether that be NGOS, businesses, governments, But the system doesn't support this - not in the least. A friend of mine has recently started sending letters to organizations that say, in brief, 'hello, you look like you have a fabulous position, which I am highly qualified for, and I would love to work with you. I would bring tremendous experience to this position. But I will not be applying to it because it is an unpaid position, and I can not afford to live in England without being paid.' I applaud her efforts (and am considering sending some of those myself.) So many of my friends and colleagues are searching for jobs, and are finding great positions that are unpaid. My friends are not fresh out of University - they often have several years of working experience behind them (though perhaps in a different field) and a MA. Even so, they are not considered experienced enough for many paid positions. And its not just my friends who work in international development - the NGO and even some of the business community is filled with this tendency. The result - the young people who can fill those positions have some kind of financial support (usually parents) who can support them. Which excludes almost all of the bright young people I know from Africa, Asia and South America - not to mention myself, from the USA (and it effects UK citizens as well, though not quite as much, as they often have higher social capital).It also perpetuates a system where hard work and experience is not valued. Read More

	Build It Green - Part 2 Sustainable Development \| Kendra Pierre-Louis \| Wednesday 11th November 2009 As I touched upon on Monday there are a variety of lesser championed green building techniques that tread lightly on the planet and wallet. On Monday I profiled Rammed Earth building techniques and today I touch on several others. Despite the bad rap that straw gets from the three little pigs Strawbale buildings are cheap, easy to build and extremely energy efficient. They resemble rammed earth houses with thick walls, wide window sills and rounded corners but with additional insulation. They were first developed in the grasslands of Nebraska where there was plenty of straw and few trees. The structures are built by stacking bales of hay and then plastering the hay with plaster, stucco, or earth plaster. The resulting house is quiet (the thick walls provide natural sound resistance), warm, sustainable, and fire resistant. Because the bales of hay are so tightly wound they're exceedingly difficult to burn - a typical wood framed structure can burn in as little as 30-minutes, a Strawbale home will take 2-hours. They're also sturdy: strawbale structures from the 1800's are still standing in the US and Europe today, and strawbale structures have withstood California earthquakes while in wind tests bale structures see no movement in a sustained 75 mph gale. In addition, the United States burns or otherwise disposes 200 million tons of "waste" straw annually, releasing carbon in the process. Using this easily renewable material (straw has a one year growth/harvest season) for house building would reduce our need to destroy slower growing forests. Read More

	Map - or be mapped Sustainable Development \| Sara Wolcott \| Monday 9th November 2009 Over 40% of human habitation is considered to be slums - that's over 1 billion people, or 1/6th of humanity. Slums have taken on a quite a connotation in the past few years, becoming one of the ugly face of fast economic growth, and one of the many examples of how-not-to-do-sustainable-development. More often than not, slums are within a stones throw of some of the richest areas in a given city, increasing people's lived experience of immense inequality that so increasingly plagues much of the developed and the developing world. And, in one of the great ironies of our age, most of those slums are not on any official map. Despite innumerable reports, visits by presidents and noted celebrities, many slums do not actually exist on most maps. Part of this has to do with the complicated politics of city planning. If they existed, then the government would have to provide services for them - like sanitation and access to water. But many local governments can't afford to do that (or don't want to), not least because those people often can not afford to pay enough taxes. There's a reason people live in slums - and a reason why their governments have struggled to get them out. Among the many human rights campaigns to address the often appalling condition of slums is variations of participatory mapping, Geo- mapping, mobile-cell-phone-mapping, and other ways for regular people to assert that they do indeed exist and that they can produce maps - maps that can then enable NGOs, outside experts, and the communities themselves to address issues from sanitation problems to violence inside of their communities. Read More