The governments in Denmark and UK both have green IT strategies now

Interesting to see how the world is moving toward a perspective when IT is seen as an opportunity. Denmark has an action plan and UK have a Green IT strategy to encourage more sustainable use of IT. Denmark even encourage export of low carbon IT solutions to countries like China and India.

Would be good to do a quick survey around the world to see who is doing what. Japan is leading the work in many ways, but there might be other countries with interesting work going on. I wrote a suggestion for the Swedish Government together with Ewa Thorslund from the Swedish confederation of IT companies three years ago I think, still valid and the Danish Action Plan actually include a few of the key recommendations we had. The recommendations are quite obvious so might just have done that without looking at the work we did.

As the work continues on an EU level it would be interesting to see how the commission could get its act together and show some leadership.

Here in India Tata Communication “announced the launch of its Telepresence services, the first ever offering to deliver both private and public Cisco TelePresence rooms to businesses across the world. This groundbreaking service will enable a broader ecosystem of connected rooms for enterprises and their partners” earlier this month. Would be interesting to calculate the potential CO2 savings from this initiative. Here is the link to the press release on Tata's homepage.

Futurecast 2020 by Robert Shapiro

The subtitle of the book is “a global vision of tomorrow”, but this is really a boring book when it comes to visions. A more correct subtitle would be “a mainstream presentation of business as usual slightly more progressive, but not much, than George W Bush”… but maybe that subtitle was too long…

The reason I read to book, and many with me I guess, is that Shapiro claim to have been the advisor to many of the significant Democrats lately. My thought when I read this was that I hope Obama will keep Shapiro very far from any role where he can influence the US policy if he becomes president. Maybe the reason for Al Gore’s poor performance as a vice president was partly due to advisors like this?

It is so US centric and free market simplistic that is hard not to laugh in many places. I would not recommend this book as I think all the things Shapiro tries to do have been done much better in other book.

Two things could make a quick read of this book useful:
1. It is interesting to see the global consensus that is emerging in certain areas and where we most certainly will see discussions and changes in the years to come. Two examples:
- The very poor shape of the US economy and what will happen with the deficit, the demographic challenge [but ignore his suggestions for ways forward as they are more of the same and just create more problem further ahead].
- The need to approach the energy issue from a political perspective, not a simple supply and demand that many economists still do.

2. To understand how certain people cling to a worldview that does not work any longer, but instead of changing the worldview they want to change the world (or turn it back) so it fits with how they think it should be.

Futurecast 2020 by Robert Shapiro

The subtitle of the book is “a global vision of tomorrow”, but this is really a boring book when it comes to visions. A more correct subtitle would be “a mainstream presentation of business as usual slightly more progressive, but not much, than George W Bush”… but maybe that subtitle was too long…

The reason I read to book, and many with me I guess, is that Shapiro claim to have been the advisor to many of the significant Democrats lately. My thought when I read this was that I hope Obama will keep Shapiro very far from any role where he can influence the US policy if he becomes president. Maybe the reason for Al Gore’s poor performance as a vice president was partly due to advisors like this?

It is so US centric and free market simplistic that is hard not to laugh in many places. I would not recommend this book as I think all the things Shapiro tries to do have been done much better in other book.

Two things could make a quick read of this book useful:
1. It is interesting to see the global consensus that is emerging in certain areas and where we most certainly will see discussions and changes in the years to come. Two examples:
- The very poor shape of the US economy and what will happen with the deficit, the demographic challenge [but ignore his suggestions for ways forward as they are more of the same and just create more problem further ahead].
- The need to approach the energy issue from a political perspective, not a simple supply and demand that many economists still do.

2. To understand how certain people cling to a worldview that does not work any longer, but instead of changing the worldview they want to change the world (or turn it back) so it fits with how they think it should be.

Affluenza by Oliver James

Affluenza by Oliver James is not really a book, it more like a collection of short stories and emotional outbursts (that are structured in a good way). The format is not my favorite and I think the book could have been 50 pages instead of 500 pages (but I know that people love reading about other people in a ‘gossip format’ and if this tabloid strategy make more people read this is might be worth the prize). Among the 500 pages there are enough interesting observations and concrete suggestions to make it a worthwhile reading exercise. To have concrete suggestions is very rare and something that makes the book more interesting than 95% of the books out there “only observing” the state of society.

The main argument in the book is that we now have a society, that is spreading globally, that only wants “simple satisfaction”. This global hunt for more is not only destroying the planet it is making many of us feel bad. It is not just the occasional day when people feel “down”, but something much deeper that is going on. James travels around the world to meet different people and use their stories to discuss different aspects of “Affluenza”.

The end result is not too far from Kalle Lasn and Adbusters, but James also add a little conservative touch by promoting more traditional family value.

The four root causes Oliver identifies are however structural and something that I think will be increasingly discussed the coming years.

1. Companies only looking at the share price
2. Privatization of public utilities
3. The belief that business need as little regulation as possible and that the rich don’t need to pay tax
4. The conviction that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind.

To highlight these as (at least possible) fundamental challenges to our wellbeing, and at the same time also give concrete suggestions forward, is something more authors should try.

Affluenza by Oliver James

Affluenza by Oliver James is not really a book, it more like a collection of short stories and emotional outbursts (that are structured in a good way). The format is not my favorite and I think the book could have been 50 pages instead of 500 pages (but I know that people love reading about other people in a ‘gossip format’ and if this tabloid strategy make more people read this is might be worth the prize). Among the 500 pages there are enough interesting observations and concrete suggestions to make it a worthwhile reading exercise. To have concrete suggestions is very rare and something that makes the book more interesting than 95% of the books out there “only observing” the state of society.

The main argument in the book is that we now have a society, that is spreading globally, that only wants “simple satisfaction”. This global hunt for more is not only destroying the planet it is making many of us feel bad. It is not just the occasional day when people feel “down”, but something much deeper that is going on. James travels around the world to meet different people and use their stories to discuss different aspects of “Affluenza”.

The end result is not too far from Kalle Lasn and Adbusters, but James also add a little conservative touch by promoting more traditional family value.

The four root causes Oliver identifies are however structural and something that I think will be increasingly discussed the coming years.

1. Companies only looking at the share price
2. Privatization of public utilities
3. The belief that business need as little regulation as possible and that the rich don’t need to pay tax
4. The conviction that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind.

To highlight these as (at least possible) fundamental challenges to our wellbeing, and at the same time also give concrete suggestions forward, is something more authors should try.