Robbie MacKay

I just saw someone using a leaf blower to move grass cuttings out of the gutter… simply blowing them onto the road…

What the…?

So you used some energy to cut the grass – sure.. you want short grass, that I can understand…

But then you used more energy (petrol in this case) to blow the grass cuttings onto the street?

The wind is just going to blow them back again…

What a waste!

Its a mundane example, but it illustrates my point:
We’ve stopped thinking about what we’re doing

We use energy like it has no impact…

Well start thinking again because your actions have an impact

Find the things you do that waste energy
Then stop doing them

I noticed that now I have a car, I drive to my girlfriends place regularly
A ten minute drive where I used to take the bus or train..

So I’ve decided that I’m going to try running or biking there instead
Its a simple change (and for me not a huge inconvenience) which should reduce my carbon footprint

I don’t expect everyone to stop driving all the time
Find ways to save energy which work for you.. then share them

Find new ways to do things
Stop doing things which just waste energy
Keep thinking about what you’re doing

Barack Obama – first black president of the United States..

I never would have thought I’d see the day… I still didn’t believe it when I first heard… but there it is..

Today we wake to a different world… something new is possible…

Today is Blog action day… I only just discovered this thanks to bwagy… now what to contribute??

First up I’m currently working on a few related things: I work with Engineers WIthout Borders & I’m building a website for the Fair Trade Assocation.

But these seem like fairly minor contributions compared to the problem..

Poverty is such a big issue that we tend to just shut off when ever it comes up..

We don’t want to get present to whats really going on in the world..

Wake up!

We’re so busy trying to ignore the problem, we forget that small contributions eventually add up…

Everytime I see someone collecting money for an appeal – I think I should give them something… then I hesitate… by the time I’ve thought it through I’ve already walked past… ‘the chance is gone’ I tell myself..

It’s time to stop thinking, stop considering… start giving…

This isn’t just about poverty. It’s the environment, human rights, any other issue… we think we don’t make any difference so we don’t try..

Remember – ‘Eighty percent of success is showing up’ - The same applys for making a difference… show up, keep showing up… see what happens…

Ok – warning: this is a bit of a mind dump… hopefully its useful

I watched the movie Energy Crossroads a week ago – part of the Reel Earth Film Festival.

It covers similar subject matter to The Inconvenient Truth but with more depth, much less of a laymans view on it and more history. I could talk about it more but I’ll just say go see it if you can… it’s worth your time and money.

I’m not going to give you a big write up. I’ll just list my ideas and  do with them what you will (and let me know what you think!)

Ideas (starting with the obvious) on actions to take:

• Reducing rubbish
• Growing my own food
• Use public transport
• Sustainability meetup? Sustainable entrepreneurs meetup? Save the world meetup?
  Anyone keen? 
• Write books and start to research alternative solutions for energy
  Including: Transmission solutions, Low wind speed generation
• What do I need to study/get trained in to make the biggest difference?
• What big industry is there, that produces lots of waste, that has yet to reduce it?
  Start an example company that produces less waste and leads the industry. (like New Belgium)
• We continue to relate like seperate countries and it doesnt work – there are no REAL seperate countries – just 1 planet. We’re all the same people, now its time to start acting like it and stop blaming everyone else.
• Be the change I want to see in the world
• Look at my life time, the likely milstones environmentally (and otherwise), and what I can do to change the world . Then start doing it. Include studies and getting experience, changing my own lifestyle, and developing technologies.
• Blade servers – heatsinks that ‘plug in’ with the board. and connect to central cooling system which radiates heat out of the room. Eliminates energy wasted to circulate air and cool rest of the space etc. Use the heat to generate power?
• Also mentioned in the movie: http://www.newbelgium.com/ – a brewery that does some really cool sustainable stuffs!
• The only statement in the movie that bothered me was a comment at the end about not giving up our current lifestyle – houses, transport etc. I don’t think we need to lose it all but we need to change our lifestyle somewhat.

I recently read The Dip, a great little book by Seth Godin. It inspired these thoughts about tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand.

Tall poppy syndrome refers to the phenomenon where high achievers and/or people who stand out are criticised or resented for their talents or achievements.

We often talk about tall poppy syndrome and how bad it is.

The fear is that if we standout someone will cut us down.

It occurred to me however that the real crime is not that people cut others down for doing well or standing out. I honestly don’t know if people really do that.

The crime is that we let that stop us from standing out.
We let them cut us down.

And then we teach each other (and our kids) to be worried about people cutting us down and to be careful about standing out.

At the moment it doesn’t matter if people cut us down or not, we never do anything to stand out anyway.

We are still afraid, and we are letting that control us.

So start standing out, start doing great things.
If someone cuts you down? – Challenge them to better you instead
If someone thinks you’re great? – Celebrate with them, thank them.. and show them they can be great too!

What do you think? – Comment and let me know

Note: I’m going to try and post updates every Wednesday so look out for another post in a week

I want to do something that matters.

I have little or no interest in writing software, designing embedded systems or doing anything that I know how to do just to make money or because I know how to do it.
I just want to do something that matters.

Yes I want to make money. I want to get paid.

But I want to be paid to make a difference… to do something that matters..

I found this recently on Jason Santa Maria‘s blog:

…Jamie Livingston’s Photo of the Day (more background), a daily slice of one man’s life from 1979-1997 told through Polaroids (ending when cancer claimed the photographer). 6,697 Polaroids…

Jason Santa Maria

I’m not totally sure why but I found this absolutely fascinating – I lost an hour or so just looking through photos and reading about it. Have look and hopefully you find it as moving as I did.

Photo of the day (the original/beta site) – http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/
Links to some other versions – http://hughcrawford.com and some blog posts here.