Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will dispatch a “human-sized likeness of Doraemon” that will “participate in events hosted by overseas embassies and other diplomatic establishments to help introduce Japanese society and culture” to foreign audiences.… the “feline envoy … promised to use his roving role to convey ‘what ordinary Japanese people think, our lifestyles and what kind of future we want to build.’”
ps. chances are you have no idea how important that cat is in asia. no i-dea. they’re not kidding about soft power.
mar 24. meanwhile the chinese continue their program of “exporting” living pandas — hostage exchanges, if you ask me — bamboo-based brutality is not sustainable — but even worse — not only do they not talk, they remind people how funny ranma was — and japan wins again.
We seek a world society wherein we use clean, alternative energy to fuel our machines … healthy, organic and local food to fuel our bodies … and hope, solidarity and love to fuel our movements for change. Our cause itself must become irresistibly beautiful, vital and sustainable. Success will come when our networks are practical enough to “organize” tens of thousands — and soulful enough to “magnetize” millions.
So let us dare to imagine: a healthy, joyous, self-confident liberation movement. A movement that celebrates more than it condemns. That solution-izes more than it problem-atizes. Imagine a movement for justice — with its arms wide open.
Dr. King — and many others — fought, bled and died to racially integrate a pollution-based economy. Today, America is creating a new, clean and green economy. From the start, it should be designed to have a dignified place for everyone.
Dr. King linked the solutions of civil rights, peace and economic opportunity. We must link the solutions of social justice, peace and ecological sanity. Our dream must uplift the people — and the planet, too. This is the calling of our time.
barack could say “this is a pollution-based economy.” that would be ok.
and hillary could say it. anyone and everyone could say it.
ps. here’s my contribution to solution-izing. you gonna go house-to-house, you better be doing work that will last. be building not for tomorrow but for 2050. aim high, get tough — locally and system-wide.
pps. and from this, among many things, subsidized higher ed (smarts) and healthcare (sociability, scalability). you want to solve these problems, you have to send people to school. you want them to think easy, you have to ease their worries.
Why aren’t bigger companies more engaged? Do they not foresee a need for talent in this arena? Are their labor pools overflowing? Or are they simply not tuned in to the opportunity? Any ideas?
i tend toward one-note answers, maybe, but i’d say the issue is that green isn’t really happening yet. billions for green compared to trillions for brown. low-hanging fruit compared to factory farms.
we’re not repairing houses yet, we’re not moving roads, laying track, switching plugs for pumps, we’re not phasing out two energy plants in three or rewiring the grid, we’re not swapping water fixtures, we’re not recycling everything, we’re not recovering natural water infrastructure and forests, we’re not, not not not not. those are above and extra to the ordinary flow of services and goods that would replace equipment according to 2050 standards or near them.
when programs like that are here, when the numbers for hydrocarbon and renewable purchases are swapped, that will be because there came to be engineers, architects, planners, builders, knowers and doers who did it here, and there, and over there, and underneath; and because tough goals came to be set, without which today’s brownest industries say they will not act, without which even today’s greenest can’t reach down deep.
For now, groups like the Apollo Alliance and Green for All will have to go it alone, and they have their work cut out for them, helping to ensure, in the words of Green for All founder and president, Van Jones, that “the clean-tech wave lifts all boats.” It won’t be easy, especially without the active participation of companies in the clean and green sector.
As Jones told me recently: “The next set of challenges have to do with going from rhetoric to reality.”
you want to see it as an economy, don’t fool yourself thinking it’s a sub-economy — we’re talking about a complete overhaul — not how businesses or governments want it. they’ll go clean like pampered kids, kicking and screaming.
pppps. oh yeah, and, can we do it by 2020…? i’m not the only one thinks those storm clouds coming look perfect.
ppppps. i live in the san francisco bay area. there are black kids growing up here now because their great-grandparents migrated to build and stock ships for the war with japan. “sayonara, ’sippi-delta,” pretty much.
our new hobby looks bigger — continent scale, actually, but don’t let that stress you out — fair trade is possible.
pppppps. did i mention i think mexico city will need all the help we can offer?
ring ring ring