The People Speak.com

http://www.thepeoplespeak.org/about/

What is The People Speak?

Welcome to The People Speak, a community of young people who are passionate about global issues. Here, you can exchange ideas and perspectives with young people from around the world and learn more about how you can make a difference.

Since the campaign began at the United Nations Foundation in 2003, there have been more than 20,000 TPS activities reaching young people in all 50 states and more than 60 countries. Below you will find links to our ongoing campaigns, programs and contests. Explore the site, poke around. Tell us what you think.

• Download the TPS one pager

  Youth Leadership Summit

  The first ever UNF Youth Leadership Summit was held in New York City from July 17-19, 2008. The summit was an amazing opportunity to meet UN officials, learn new skills and interact with other student leaders from around the world. Details for the 2009 summit will be available this fall.

  Global Debates

  Join a truly global discussion on critical issues by organizing a Global Debate in your high school.

  Climate Crews

  Climate Crews harnesses a valuable natural resource: college students’ creativity. Students propose innovative campaigns to raise awareness about climate change on their campus.

  Buzz Cuts

  Find out what all the buzz is about as 12 campus leaders create innovative and creative campaigns to raise awareness about malaria on their college campuses.

Think Globally, Report Locally

Got great video skills? Interested in journalism? Learn how you can enter this video contest.

Speak Up. Change the world.

A wise man named G.I. Joe once said, “Knowing is half the battle.” While a cartoon character might be an odd source of wisdom, this American hero is right. Learn something new about the world and then do something, anything, to make your corner of the earth a better place.

Featured Action

Do Something is calling on you to green your school. If you go to the Increase Your Green webpage you can register for the competition and you can find tips and Energy Saving Stats. Even better, if you sign up to DoSomething.org, you can gain access to many more activity ideas and resources! Competing schools are eligible for a $1500 first prize grant. Visit now to register and learn more about the contest, including additional prizes!

Other Ways to Get Started Now:

Stay Informed on UN Issues

UN Dispatch is a blog providing commentary and coverage on UN issues. UN Dispatch's intended purpose is to: -Offer thoughtful perspective on UN issues; -Provide factual information about the UN's work; and -Fact-check claims and coverage about the UN offered by pundits, journalists, bloggers, and others.

Say NO to Violence

At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her. Violence against women and girls is a universal problem of pandemic proportions. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.

Be a Young Visionary

Are you actively engaged in shaping a world where women and girls are free from discrimination, sexual coercion, and violence; where they make free and informed choices about sexuality and reproduction; or where health information and services are available to help them lead safer and healthier lives? Be a Young Visionary!

StreetFilm videos

Just in! Watch Clarence Eckerson's excellent StreetFilms video of Summer Streets.
http://www.streetfilms.org

From No Impact Man

What our cities could be

I always go on about how the current crisis in the habitat we depend upon for our health, happiness and security is full of opportunities for an improved way of life. What's good for the planet is often what is good for the people.

This principle is illustrated in the simple example of home care products. If the products, once they get washed down the drain, are non-toxic for the fish who end up swimming in them, then they are also safe for our kids who are exposed to them when when we use them in our homes.

Another example is the inevitable fact that we need to use the internal combustion engine--which burns fossil fuels to power our cars--much less often. This might sound like a hardship, and as our culture is currently structured, it might be.

But what if we structured our culture differently? What, for example, if we designed city life around the happiness of the people who live there instead of the ease moving cars around for those who don't? What if, in New York City, for example, we got rid of the 90% of air pollution that is caused by car exhaust and made the streets much better to live on?

Wouldn't that be an opportunity in the crisis? Wouldn't that be a case of happier planet, happier people?

Well thanks to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, DOT worker Dani Simons and a slew of her colleagues in the DOT and the New York Police Department, we got a glimpse this weekend of how it could look. Because together they turned the full length of Park Avenue below 72nd Street into one busy, well, park.

For three consecutive Saturday mornings (and potentially much more often if this test is a success), no cars or trucks will be allowed on Park Avenue. New Yorkers, in other words, get a glimpse of a world without cars. And it ain't half bad. Look at the pictures below and read this article in the New York Times.

One key fact: some businesses who worried that the lack of car traffic would make them lose money actually found that the thousands of pedestrians and bikers who turned out ended up making them more money.

Here is a picture of Park Avenue with cars (courtesy of BuddhaCab):

Now here's a Summer streets picture from Saturday (courtesy of the NYDOT and photographer Daniel Kukla):

We know fewer cars makes the planet happier. Doesn't this photo make it look like it makes the people happier, too?

Future Challenges of Transport and Environment

Vorträge vom 24. Juni

	Juergen_Resch_Greeting.pdf Introduction - Jürgen Resch, Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V.	24 K
	Anders_Levermann_Climate_Change__check_against_delivery_.pdf New Results from the Climate Change Science - Dr. Anders Levermann, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research	18.5 M
	Michael_Walsh_Global_Trenda_in_Motor_Vehicle_Pollution_Control.pdf Short Overview - Michael Walsh, ICCT	2.7 M
	Lew_Fulton_Energy_Technology_Perspectives_2008_Transport_Highlights.pdf Energy Outlook - Lew Fulton, International Energy Agency	2.0 M
	Leonora_Roja-Bracho_Transport_Development_in_Latin__America.pdf Transport Development in Latin America - Leonora Roja-Brancho, Instituto Nacional de Ecología, México	1.6 M
	Gabriel_Branco_Environmental_impacts_of_Mobility_Evolution_in_Brazil.pdf Transport Development in Latin America - Gabriel Branco, Institute del Medio Ambiente del Estado Imae, Brasil	361 K

	Guenter_Hoermandinger_Transport_Development_in_Europe.pdf Transport Development in Europe - Dr. Günter Hörmandinger, European Commission, DG Environment	1.1 M
	Geetam_Tiwari_Urban_Transport_in_India_Present_and_Future.pdf Challenges in India - Geetam Tiwari, Indian Institue of Technology IIT	1.1 M
	Cornie_Huizenga_Short_overview_on_the_overall_case_for_Asia.pdf Short Overview on the overall Asian case - Cornie Huizenga, Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities	3.1 M
	Drew_Kojak_Air_Pollution_from_Ocean-going_Ships_and_Commercial_Aviation.pdf Air pollution from Commercial Marine and Aviation - Drew Kodjak, ICCT	3.1 M

Vorträge vom 25. Juni

	Rudolf_Petersen_Transort_Demand_Reduction__TDR_.pdf The Role of the Planning Processes - Prof. Rudolf M. Petersen	2.2 M
	Joachim_Kettner_the_Role_of_Railways_to_reduce_Climate_Gas_Emission.pdf The Role of Railways to reduce Climate Gas Emission - Joachim Kettner, Deutsche Bahn AG	639 K
	Walter_Hook__The_Politics_of_Shifting_to_Cleaner_Travel_Modes.pdf Modal Shift - An important Part of the Solution - Walter Hook, Institute for Transport & Development Policy ITDP	14.2 M
	Wiebke_Zimmer_Technical_Reduction_Possibilities_and_Goals.pdf Technical Reduction - Possibilities and Goals - Dr. Wiebke Zimmer, Eco Institute Berlin	1.4 M
	Uwe_Fritsche_The_Role_of_Biofuels.pdf The Future Role of Bio Fuels - Uwe Fritsche, Eco Institute Darmstadt	1.4 M
	Horst_Fehrenbach_The_future_role_of_biofuels.pdf The Future Role of Bio Fuels - Horst Fehrenbach, IFEU Institut Heidelberg	611 K
	Peter_Wiederkehr_Lessons_learned_Guidelines_for_moving_towards_EST.pdf The international EST Project: Experience and Lessons learned ten Years after its Inception - Dr. Peter Wiederkehr, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management Austria	1.2 M
	Robert_Thaler_klima_aktiv_mobil.pdf Towards climate-friendly Mobility in Austria: Initiatives and Programs to reduce CO2 from Transport - Dr. Robert Thaler, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management Austria	1.6 M

	Ruprecht_Brandis_Fuels_and_Climate_Protection.pdf Speakers from the Auto and Oil Industry - Dr. Ruprecht Brandis, Deutsche BP	1.2 M
	Jos_Dings_Transport_and_Climate_Change-to_do_and_not_to_do.pdf Transport and Climate Change – the Way forward - Jos Dings, Transport & Environment	496 K
	Alan_Lloyd_Implications_of_longer_term_Policy.pdf Implications of longer Term Policy - Alan Lloyd, ICCT	730 K
	Petersen__Hook__Zimmer__Fritsche_discussion_paper.pdf Discussion Paper - Rudolf Petersen (Wuppertal Institute), Walter Hook (Institute for Transportation & Development Policy), Dr. Wiebke Zimmer and Uwe Fritsche (Eco Institute)	857 K

Research for Sustainability

Research for Sustainability
(URL: http://www.fona.de/download_publikation/research_for_sustainability.pdf)

Framework programme for a sustainable innovative society
Download (engl.)
(URL: http://www.fona.de/download_publikation/research_for_sustainability.pdf)
[915 KB]

5th BMBF Forum for Sustainability

Research for Sustainability - Driver for Innovation

hosting

12th European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (erscp2008)

23 - 25 September 2008, ewerk, Berlin

Online Registration
Conference Programme

Research for sustainability is driver for innovation. Whether it be in the field of health, agriculture, forestry, production, in the distribution and use of goods, in the transport sector or in the production and use of energy - everywhere attempts are being made to derive a greater benefit for all people with a far smaller impact on the environment.

The aim of the 5th BMBF Forum for Sustainability is to strengthen the collaboration of politics, science and industry for the generation of sustainable innovation. The German Federal Minister for Education and Research Dr. Annette Schavan will open this international conference. A central part of the programme is the „12th European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (erscp2008)“, that will be hosted in line with the Europe-wide networking in Germany for the first time.

The 5th BMBF Forum for Sustainability features discussions about the state of the art in research, about the collaboration between politics, science and research communities as well as future research priorities. In about 40 sessions and workshops more than 400 international participants will discuss projects, ideas and approaches and their contribution to sustainable development. The objectives are: to present best-practice examples, to explore solution-driven opportunities and to initiate joint projects.

The conference is expected to attract participants from politics, science and industry including high-level representatives from research policy from Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary with whom the dialogue on sustainability research was started at the 4th BMBF Forum for Sustainability (L2L) in Leipzig in 2007.

The three-day scientific programme will cover the following topics:

A Research for Sustainability - Opportunities for Europe
B Hightech for Sustainability - Collaboration of Science and Industry
C Resource Efficiency - Strategies and Implementations
D Sustainable Landuse - Implications for Europe and beyond
E Sustainability Science - Chances, Challenges and New Perspectives

erscp2008
I Sustainable Housing and Construction in Europe
II Sustainable Supply Chain Management
III Sustainable Production and Resource Efficiency
IV Sustainable Energy Supply and Consumption
V General Topics

In addition, the social programme with evening events, sight-seeing programme and the so called “Locations of Organised Coincidence“ will offer manifold possibilities for making new contacts and initiating projects.

The Necessary Revolution: Creating a Sustainable Future

Peter Senge and Bryan Smith "The Industrial Era is ending. Its extraordinary successes—advances in literacy, life expectancy, human rights, and technology—have propelled us headlong into a myriad of side effects: food and water shortages, cyclonic destruction, prolonged drought and rising sea levels. To delay acknowledging the need for lifestyle and business changes—'The Necessary Revolution'—risks our very survival.

What only a couple of decades ago was still a vigorous scientific debate has become as close to a consensus as scientific communities ever achieve: human-induced climate change from greenhouse gases concentrating in the atmosphere has reached a threshold of significant social and economic impact—and we are only now at the start of experiencing the effects.

Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide will require a profound reversal: a 60–80% reduction in growing worldwide emissions in the next twenty years. This is the '80–20 Challenge,' and this manifesto presents inspiring, real-life examples of how this is starting to happen."

Download link: http://changethis.com/49.01.NecessaryRevolution
http://changethis.com/pdf/49.01.NecessaryRevolution.pdf

Gridlock Economy: The Tragedy of the Anticommons

Michael Heller "Private ownership usually creates wealth. But too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. When too many people own pieces of one thing, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears . . . everybody loses. Gridlock is a free market paradox.

There has been an unnoticed revolution in how we create wealth. In the old economy, ten or twenty years ago, you invented a product and got a patent; you wrote a song and got a copyright; you subdivided land and built houses. Today, the leading edge of wealth creation requires assembly. From drugs to telecom, software to semiconductors, anything high-tech demands the assembly of innumerable patents. And it’s not just high tech that’s changed—today, cutting edge art and music is about mashing up and remixing many separately-owned bits of culture. Even with land, the most socially-important projects, like new runways, require assembling multiple gridlocked parcels. Innovation has moved on, but we are stuck with old-style ownership that’s easy to fragment and hard to put together."

http://changethis.com/49.02.GridlockEconomy
http://changethis.com/pdf/49.02.GridlockEconomy.pdf

14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas
by Mitch Ditkoff

"Is there anything a person can do--beyond caffeine, corporate pep talks,
or astrology readings--to quicken the appearance of breakthrough ideas? Yes,
there is. And it begins with the awareness of where ideas come from in the
first place."

http://changethis.com/49.06.14Ways
http://changethis.com/pdf/49.06.14Ways.pdf

Kite Power Could Generate Energy for 100,000 Homes

by Mike Chino

If we told you that a free-flying kite could provide enough energy to power your house, you might consider us crazy. How about all the homes on your block, or even an entire city? Scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands recently tested just such a technology, tethering a 10 square meter kite to a generator to produce 10 kilowatts of power (enough energy for 10 homes). They are currently planning to scale the experiment with a 50 kilowatt kite and a 100 megawatt array called the Laddermill that could potentially power 100,000 homes!

We’ve covered high-flying examples of solar and wind power in the past, and we’re always captivated by such inspired approaches to alternative energy.

The promise of kite power lies in its inexpensive materials and its potential to harness enormous amounts of power, since high altitude winds can carry hundreds of times more energy than those on the ground. Airborne kites produce power by pulling on a ground-bound generator, which reels the kites back once they reach their maximum height. Also, unlike a field-full of wind turbines, kite power requires a minimal amount of land use.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology plan to follow up on their successful test with the Laddermill, an array of kites that will soar up to 30,000 feet, generating around 100 megawatts of electricity. Check out guardian.co.uk’s video of the test flight below!

+ Delft University of Technology

+ Laddermill

Via guardian.co.uk

Related Posts on Inhabitat:

• POWER YOUR BOAT WITH KITES: Wind Power by KiteShip
• Using Kites to Pull Cargo Ships Across the Seas
• Kite Power Could Generate Energy for 100,000 Homes
• FLYING WIND TURBINES
• Power Generating Wind Dam by Chetwood Associates
• SHANGHAI GOING GREEN WITH WIND POWER

Climate Change Policies in the Asia-Pacific:

Second IGES White Paper

Re-Uniting Climate Change and Sustainable Development

IGES White Paper Climate Change Policies in the Asia-Pacific: Re-uniting Climate Change and Sustainable Development 21 June 2008 published 3.2MB

The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Hayama, Japan, is pleased to announce the publication of its second white paper Climate Change Policies in the Asia-Pacific: Re-uniting Climate Change and Sustainable Development.

This White Paper is a summary of current climate change policies in the Asia-Pacific region and new recommendations, based on strategic research carried out at IGES so far.

The Asia-Pacific is experiencing rapid economic development and, as well as being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it is feared that the region will suffer the worst impact. Climate change is the most urgent problem facing the international community and in pursuing a post-2012 framework, attention is focused on ways to deal with climate change in Asia Pacific countries.

This White Paper proposes climate strategies that fully take into account the needs of developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. It looks at the impact of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region and current policies from various aspects such as international framework, market mechanisms, forestry, biofuels, waste, water and business, and sets out policy recommendations that integrate climate change policies and sustainable development and shows the way for new development towards the realisation of a low-carbon society.

DOWNLOAD3.2MB
* To download each chapter separately, please visit our Output database "EnviroLibrary"

[Table of Contents]
Foreword
List of Authors / List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes / Abbreviations and Acronyms
Executive Summary
Part I
1. Introduction
2. Aligning Actions on Climate and Development: Asia at the Crossroads
Part II
3. Mitigation and Adaptation ? Sectors and Actors
4. Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities for Rural Communities in the Asia-Pacific Region
5. Prospects and Challenges of Biofuels in Asia: Policy Implications
6. Urban Organic Waste ? From Hazard to Resource
7. Groundwater and Climate Change: No Longer the Hidden Resource
8. Institutional Changes in Asia in Response to Climate Change
9. Responsible Business - Energy Efficiency Solutions
Part III
10. Conclusions and Recommendations
First IGES White Paper

IGES white paper Sustainable Asia 2005 and Beyond In the pursuit of innovative policy 174 pages; Published by IGES Details (Full-text PDF is downloadable)

World Resources 2008: Roots of Resilience - Growing the Wealth of the Poor

Strengthening the Poor's Roots of Resilience

http://pdf.wri.org/world_resources_2008_roots_of_resilience.pdf

The newly-released World Resources 2008 charts a path for how sustainable, nature-based enterprise can help the world's 2 billion rural poor escape the cycle of poverty.

Today, 2.6 billion people live on less than $2 a day. 75 percent of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid live in rural areas and are dependent on natural resources for some or all of their subsistence. The rural poor face even tougher challenges ahead, as climate change threatens to destroy the ecosystems and natural resources on which they depend.

But well-designed, community-based sustainable enterprises can improve the way the rural poor draw from their area's natural resources. Ultimately, these programs can make their communities more resilient against climate change and the other economic, social, environmental challenges they will face.

Three common elements nature-based enterprises need to be successful:

• Community ownership and self-interest: Legitimate ownership of local resources and a sense of self-interest must be granted to the community.
• Help from intermediary organizations: Governments and development agencies need to provide the rural poor with the technical and business skills they need to become more resilient.
• Formation of formal and informal networks: Support networks among communities and the organizations working with them must be present for the rural poor to sustainably manage natural resources and generate income.

When these three elements are present, communities can begin to unlock the wealth potential of ecosystems in ways that actually reach the poor. In so doing, they can build a base of competencies that extends beyond nature-based enterprises and supports rural economic growth in general, including the gradual transition beyond reliance on natural resource income alone.

Read more about World Resources 2008
Charts and figures from World Resources 2008
Find out more about the World Resources report series

Making a Life (Green Living)

Redefining Success and Rediscovering Joy

By John Ivanko & Lisa Kivirist

Adapted from the book ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits (New Society Publishers)

© Elizabeth Prager

Life offers more than a paycheck, corner office and promotional title. In fact, many of us are working ourselves to death. For many people, their identity is so closely associated with their job that when they stop working, they end up passing away not long afterwards, lacking hobbies, social connections or life purpose. A shift in perspective is underway, from desiring a standard of living defined by possessions and financial wealth to a quality of life defined by experiences and genuine well-being.

The New Quality of Life

When redesigning and reorienting our home life, my family started experimenting with our own ecologically modeled Diversified Quality of Life Index, measured by various factors including the health of relationships, enjoyment of work, level of satisfaction with life and opportunity for continued development and community involvement. Community involvement can be immediately local and place-based, or it can be virtual (on the Internet) or temporal (at a Green Festival or renewable energy fair). Our currency is composed of joy, happiness, friendship, satisfying self-reliance, peace. Generating cash flow, while necessary, usually accounts for less than five or six hours of work per day on average, leaving plenty of time for non-financial aspects of our Earth Mission and pursuit of happiness. As it turns out, much of our income-producing work does not command high compensation. And we’re not afraid to walk away from obligatory or harmful relationships any more than we are to divorce ourselves from our once dependency on the conventional food system.

The Gross National Product (GNP) is the total value of the free market economy’s output of goods and services, measured in money. We’d argue that it’s measuring a false sense of prosperity. In fact, such atrocities as the September 11 terrorist acts, the Exxon Valdez disaster, violent crimes, divorces, the wars on drugs or terror, and the expanding prison network all contribute to the GNP. Not accounted for within GNP is the loss of natural capital: soil, forests, water and wildlife. Nor are the ecological services rendered by the biological processes of nature: the cleansing of water, wetlands buffering coastal areas from storms, sequestering carbon dioxide taken in by trees—all of which foster climate stability.

As if GNP is not enough, add to it the Consumer Confidence Index, an index developed to measure “consumers’ expectations” toward employment and other conditions that, statistically speaking, influence their willingness to keep spending. The Consumer Confidence Index and GNP measure the wrong things. Our health, our happiness, our deep connection to the natural world and our local community are far more important than helping support the continued—and unsustainable—increase in spending. Our family’s business life dovetails and intersects with the Multiple Ec-onomies of Ecopreneurship in which we thrive, bartering for a granite countertop installation, writing an article in exchange for an advertisement for our book and donating a set of multicultural children’s books to help raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foun-dation.

Spend Less, Live More

It turns out that our questioning of the GNP is similar to what the nonprofit organization Redefining Progress has been proposing with their Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which values things like volunteerism and accounts for loss of natural capital and for the loss of leisure suffered by people working excess hours. According to their scientific methodology, while the GNP has continued to rise, their Genuine Progress Indicator has steadily fallen since the 1970s. Economist Mark Anielski, author of The Economics of Happiness (New Society Publishers), developed Genuine Wealth, a practical economic model that helps redefine progress based on five capitals: human, social, natural, built and financial.

Our family’s life changes have helped us focus on what’s important, meaningful and authentic—and probably interpreted negatively by those calculating the Consumer Confi-dence Index. We’re not advocating millions of Americans to take a vow of poverty. Rather, we’re inviting everyone to join millions of Americans who are living below their means, downshifting their consumption, sharing instead of hording and simplifying instead of spending more at the mall. Spend less, live more.

JOHN IVANKO and LISA KIVIRIST are coauthors of Rural Renaissance and Edible Earth, and innkeepers of Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast.

The World is Flat (free audiobook)

The World is Flat - Part I

(mp3, 132MB)

The World is Flat - Part II

(mp3, 123MB)

The World is Flat - Part III

(mp3, 133MB)

To download, right-click (or Control+click) and select "Save Target As".

Discussion Guide

2.56 MB

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Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Hardcover
September 2008

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Why We Need a Green Revolution - And How it Can Renew America

Thomas L. Friedman's no. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way. Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy—which he calls "Geo-Greenism"—is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure.

As in The World Is Flat, he explains a new era—the Energy-Climate era—through an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street. But they have not gone very far down Main Street; the much-touted "green revolution" has hardly begun. With all that in mind, Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need; he shows that the ET (Energy Technology) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive; and he explains why America must lead this revolution—with the first Green President and a Green New Deal, spurred by the Greenest Generation.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman—fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today.

www.ThomasLFriedman.com