Saturday 01 August 2009 3:18:44 pm

Hi Rob, I would love to hear your own thoughts on this topic,

Your friend, Margarit

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Thursday 06 August 2009 11:18:46 am

I reckon our best way to change things is to come up with products which save money and are green at the same time, then its a no brainer to choose the right solution.

Though for many good solutions you need a very large scale connected solution, eg. reused glass bottles instead of plastic might require for example low cost transport (aka electric milk carts..) to compete economically, plug in the cost of picking up litter and recycling costs, and ultimately glass wins, but only if all the costs are connected. (Building new communities where such costs are all joined I see as the way forward in going green and saving money for everyone.)

I hope that explains what I had in mind with large scale connection, as at the moment the market is driven by the need to pass costs along the chain to someone else to becoming competitive with many products, eg. you produce a plastic bottle, its not your problem to dispose of it later on. (This can lead to overall inefficiency in the lifecycle of a product (This might mean for example, water delivery, I'm sure having it piped to your sink is more efficient than buying bottled water!) and greater waste and costs.)

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Monday 10 August 2009 4:53:36 pm

Been away for a few days but nice to see the debate has produced some interesting points.

Josh, have to say (thanks for the kind comments about the idea by the way!) that I'm not completely in agreement that we should just work from the grassroots up and not focus on the political level. I worked for a while in politics and I'm quite convinced that politicians HAVE got the ability to change things and need to be part of the story. But you need to get their attention: politics is ultimately about priorities. I think the truth is that people should both act locally AND pressure their politicians to make changes.

Nigel, I think that we certainly agree on a couple of things: firstly that the combination of green and money-saving is a killer. That's what our idea (and I guess yours) is based on. Also interested in your point about looking at the whole, holistic picture - totally agree. The real problem is many so-called "green" ideas just push the nasty, un-green side-effects further down the chain. What concerns me particularly is also the opposite effect, however, that we are often so bombarded with conflicting information, on what is green and what isn't, that we enter into a kind of "green paralysis" where we don't do anything. In my opinion, we need to prioritise what's important in the huge number of green priorities that we have - without this we kill ourselves trying to do everything at once.

Back to the original questions about Copenhagen - Carl is your idea mainly directed at Western or developing nations?

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