the phones just are not ringing about the extermination of people. there seems to be more worried about the extinction of species, but not of the murder of people. yet today in the 21st century there seems to e a new movement that is indeed focused on the endangered peoples movements.

very compelling speaker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Power

spoke about the challenge that we face with the dilemma of technology being sold into repressive regimes that can be used for repression. much of it is being used to track down bloggers who were enabled by the very technology which nabbed them.

are we at risk of a nuclear attack? perhaps more important, can we permanently eliminate the threat of nuclear attack? by 1985 the world had 65,000 nuclear warheads. 95% of these were in the US and Russia. after 1985 numbers of warheads were reduced. so essentially, there are two chapters of the nuclear threat. chapter one was 1949 - 1991 when there was an arms race between the US and Russia. the second chapter has been manifested ever since the break up of soviet union. the challenge is that we no longer have one enemy, but is really about terrorism. today, there is a real threat of nuclear explosion. response planing is essential. in order to survive after such a blast, you have to get away. distance and time.

this was scary.

http://www.childrenshealthfund.org/whoweare/bio_iredlener.php

why don't we ask for the things we need? in praise of praise. peace starts household by household.

http://www.drlauramd.com/

an incredible talk about the lucifer effect. wow. another one to see again. standing ovation.

http://www.zimbardo.com/
http://www.lucifereffect.org/

http://sifter.org/~aglisi/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Garrett_Lisi

he spoke about quantum mechanics. it was a bit too out there for me. and the presentation was too mechanical to really get into. he did show some amazing graphics. but....

he spoke about the beginnings of the TED conferences with Chris Anderson....worth to see again if it comes up as a podcast. great story!

http://www.wurman.com/rsw/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin

wow. a historian who gave a really great talk. defiantly look at again!

he talked about the importance of lifestyle changes in preventative medicine. it was really interesting. worth looking up to learn more about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Ornish

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/

memes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme - essentially a unit of cultural evolution.

Darwin - if you have creatures that vary, and if you have struggle for life so that nearly all of them die, and if the very few that survive passed on whatever it is that allowed them to survive, then they must be better off. evolution is essentially variation, selection and heredity. if you have these, then you MUST get evolution. This is the simple version of the principle of Universal Darwinism.

she started off well.

she showed a bunch of photos of toilet paper that has been folded. useless but a cultural artifact that has been spread around the world.

life performs computation.
i have not heard someone talk so fast in a loooong time. good example of how not to do a presentation. he took a good hours worth of content and simply talked as fast as possible to get his standard talk into 20 minutes.

it was interesting. he made the DNA smily faces by folding the DNA. his thing is DNA origami.

http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~pwkr/

designing and synthesizing life.
after mapping the genome, now he is looking at digitizing life. one of his areas of focus is to create 'creatures' which can create ethanol or hydrogen. it was an interesting talk. it is not genesis, but manipulation of the building blocks in a conscious way. he looks at synthetic genomics as the way to do what is known as combinatorial genomics. there are 20 million 'blocks' which can be combined now.

he is now working on an on-line tool to create synthetic life. he believes that he will be making a new 4th generation bio-fuel within the next 18 months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter

the first day of the conference worked up to its grand finale which was to be a BBC debate on the role of media in shaping public opinion. technical glitches precluded the seamless transition to the debate. Robin Williams took to the stage to do about 25 minutes of stand-up comedy. fantastic.

covering britney is cheaper.

she spoke about the type of news which americans are consuming. she used great images from worldmapper.org

http://www.current.org/radio/radio0601miller.shtml

he talked about breathing. it was a bit hard to follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Sri_Ravi_Shankar
http://www.srisri.org/

author and paleontologist.

he rambled about life on earth and how the fossil record indicated the crater impact. he presented the evidence for this. it ended up being interesting. he talked about the longevity of bacteria. especially green sulfur bacteria. H2S can be given to a mammal and turn it into a reptile. then cool the mammal.

he suggests that humans have a reaction that allows us to produce H2S and survive huge heights of CO2. this very hard to understand and believe.

the earth has never had any ice on it when CO2 has been above 1000ppm. we are now at 380 and rising.

Rare Earth. Whey complex life is uncommon in the universe
the life and earth of planet earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ward_(paleontologist)

a bit of a comedian.....off the wall, but ok

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hodgman

a wonderful talk about the origin of our species. defiantly work seeing when podcast.

http://leakeyfoundation.org/foundation/f1_7.jsp

He has to be one of my most favorite current artists. his work is simply incredible.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

this man has seen amazing things. he shared some insights from his journeys to some of the most remote peoples of the world.

a MIUST see podcast when on-line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Davis

WOW!!! oh my what a way to start. she told a story that was beyond riveting. she had a stroke and is a neuroscientist. she lived thru her death. simply incredible.

a MUST see when the podcast is up.

http://stores.lulu.com/jibtaylo

stanford physicist. now looking at the largest scale. the talk will be about the 21st century universe.
ordinary matter makes up on 4% of the universe. 26% is dark matter. we only know it is there due to the gravitational fields. the other 70% is Dark Energy. she rambled on about both dark energy matter and dark energy.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/physics/people/faculty/burchat_patricia.html

presented the new www.worldwidetelescope.org. this will be launched by Microsoft in April of this year. it should be really cool.

http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?msr_tr_id=MSR-TR-2002-75

Bob - renewed focus on built environment; sustainability being brought together at a strategic level
Dan - what will happen post-Daly? sub-prime concerns; is interested in rapid-transit that is not publicly funded
Rod - increasingly focused on carbon footprinting; 40% of projects using BIM whether owner wants it or not; $11 billion in back-log
Neil - VACATIONS SHOULD NOT FEEL LIKE PAROLE - talent drain will continue and the mid-level dearth will continue to grow. they are more ambitious than the jobs that the profession is offering.
Jim - a year of transitions. globalization is the biggest challenge; Gensler is investing heavily in the 'Gensler University' very similar to the Arup programs. projects are so complex now that we seem to see the real challenge is in the organization and risk. it seems to be much easier to engage the 30 yr old group than the 40 year old group. they seem to be passionate and enthusiastic for contributing to the company.
Arol - he sees that the integration of building information and design coming into more prominence. he sees that there will be many more 'objects' integrated into Revit and similar. the goal is to empower the architect and designer as early as possible in the design process. he also noted that only 7% of architects identitfied that buildings contribute 40% of the Greenhouse gasses.
Gordy - IDP will be restructured. there will be a 6 month reporting requirement.

construction document phase replaced by a virtual construction phase.

Barry - integration within the new parent continues. sustainability remains important.
Carrie - committed to use San Francisco as a laboratory for sustainability. no commissions will be taken unless sustainability as part of the project. she brought up the issue of water....and the recognition of the pharma water problem.
Scott - overseas increasing importance. kids are great at video's but know nothing about making a building.
Karen - need to tranision from hourly to value billing
Clark - we know that the future is not about growth for the sake of growth. it must be a by product. introducing live energy consumption at each workplace into their offices.
Ralph - successfully working thru fourth generation ownership issues. internally focusing on technology and education - especially on healthcare. 30% of revenues now coming from US. 1% solution is part of their practices and it gives the youth opportunities to follow passions. real challenge is to manage civic and corporate responsibilities.
Peter - market south of the border is growing significantly. integrated practice is working well. it is at about 40% now and it seems like clients are now looking for this as a solution to break the current standard. they went to 100% Revit last year.
Jack - sustainability has been increasing in the management meetings, and cradle-to-cradle is now permeated into the firm. it seems that it is now at silent action. he talked about the 1979 Design Festival here in Aspen. especially that the DFC have the name that is recognized.

Carlota Perez [http://www.carlotaperez.org/] gave a really interesting talk. it started off really slow and a bit over academic. then as she warmed up, the topic really started getting interesting. she made the point that every age has an important relationship between technological and social innovation. My notes below are a bit scattered. there were times when her powerpoints were so dense with text it was impossible to multi-task. the bottom line is to try to imagine what the internet will do to society.....do we know?

Age of steam – Victorian living – the British middle-classes establish an industry based urban lifestyle different from that of the rural based arisrocacy.
Age of steel – Belle Epoche -
Age of Oil – the American way of living
Age of Information – Perhaps the sustainable global lifestyles.

Taking a closer look at the American way of Life which emerged in the 1910’s.
It was essentially unsustainable. Interesting slides, but too much to summarize here.

Three of the may new directions of the current paradigm shift:
Homogeneity of mass production to moving to Diversity of ICT/Flexible construction which is adaptable and recognizing the potential of the ‘long tail’.
National economies moving to globalization. This is really about a global economy with differentiated national, supranational and local spaces.
Unavoidable environmental damage moving to capacity for environmental protection.

She went on to talk about the impacts.
Fabrication industries - One will be minimum energy and materials. Zero defects, zero resource waste. Design for low energy use in operation. Planned upgradeability rather than obsolescence. Disassembly, recycling
In the process industries – energy saving and intelligent process controls. Low enery processes by products seen as sources of value. Trend toward closed-loop systems. Custom made materials, development of nano-technology and biotech.
Products profile – more services than tangible products – return of pleasure in quality leisure, not in objects. Very high quality f products, small and multi-purpose.

CAR AS THE LAST RESORT.

Notions of luxury and good taste emerge at the top of the icome scale and spread by imitation

Health vs hygiene

Some interesting observations……
rising prices of oil and raw materials
visible effects of increasing global warming with a rising climate risk. These two things will result in a reording o the economies of production, transport etc.

she talked about the a variation of Utopianism vs Realism. she then then went on to talk about the two phases of technological revolution – the first is installation and the second is deployment.

We have to return to a focus on production. She argues that the current financial markets are essentially like holding knives to the throats of the firms. Wealth should be the focus not the distribution of ‘sharholder value’. Which is a bunch of bunk.

http://www.architecture2030.org/2010_imperative/webcast.html

Chris Luebkeman’s presentation on Autodesk Island was quite a unique experience! During event preparations, Chris described an idea for creating a more ...

bg.wordpress.com/tag/chris-luebkeman/

29 Jan 2007 ... Chris Luebkeman asks whether we are ready to change everything. ... Chris Luebkeman is a director and leader of Arup's global Foresight and ...

www.newstatesman.com/200701290014

Thinking About The Future Hotel | By Chris Luebkeman | For ehlite.com. Introduction: The future is a subject which is very high on many individuals’ minds. ...

www.wiredhotelier.com/news//4020068.html

ENR's Editor-in-Chief Janice Tuchman recently interviewed one of the industry's visionaries, Chris Luebkeman, director of the foresight and innovation group ...

enr.construction.com/people/ multimedia/podcasts/2007/070212.asp

Luebkeman has written widely about design and sustainability. Recent works include. Books Drivers of Change (2006, Gustavo Gilli Press) ...

usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ item?siteID=123112&id=10513536

24 Sep 2005 ... Saturday Interview; Chris Luebkeman shows Stephen Armstrong a better world.
www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/sep/24/comment.comment

This was the session which I moderated. a challenge as the individuals presented a VERY wide variety of work and understanding of the theme.

Livia Tirone, Principal Architect, Tirone Nunes. Lisbon. talked about the framework of thinking about sustainability and buildings. she mentioned her work with the City of Lisbon to help them develop a better policy system for managing natural resources at a city level. [http://www.managenergy.net/actors/A7.htm]

Scott Moran, Manager, California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. talked about the building which he is trying to get finished up. He was clearly very proud of this significant building. He noted that the systems which are part of its make-up depend heavily upon modeling, computation and connectivity. He also pointed out that they had to create a new department to bring the traditional building management team and the IT team together without disenfranchising either. [http://www.calacademy.org/index.php]

Kirsten Kurland, Professor, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh. Gave a great presentation about data visualization and health/well-being. [http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/kurland/]

Volker Hartkopf, Professor, Carnegie Mellon. [http://www.arc.cmu.edu/cbpd/people/hartkopf_v.html] spoke of the importance of energy policy to national security.

William Hutchison, Executive Director, Intelligent Communities, Waterfront Toronto. [http://www.cipa.com/about/hall_fame/hutchison.html] Bill gave one of the most insightful presentations of the two days. His work focuses on the enabling of real projects with deep connectivity embedded in the planning. He gave an all too brief overview of his very impressive Waterfront Toronto project. [http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/index.php?home=true]

i would summarize the session by saying that the importance of information access cannot be underestimated. all of the presenters had this as an underlying theme. If we have access then we can visualize and then we can assess and act. if not, we cannot make change. i found this to reinforce my own thinking about this.

ALL the presentations will be found at the portal with the following web address: www.connectedurrbandevelopment.org

Pete Worden. Director, NASA Ames Research Centre kicked off the closing keynotes. His talk was really great. He started by showing quite an impressive array of NASA satellites that are observing the earth. There are a number which are there to specifically look at the status of our planet. He then followed with a series of movies that illustrated planetary change. WOW were they cool! have to GO TO NASA WEBSITE TO FIND MOVIES of cloud cover and total precipitable water. The latter looks like a big smoky globe. He also showed the subsurface water currents and flows in our oceans. These looked like electric eels snaking their way around. you could see HUGE subsurface eddies off of the coasts.

Current activities are really around working on how to interact with the data – the hyperwall. Collaborative displays in order for groups of people to synthesize data is the way of the future.

With Ikhana, a predator airplane, is used to overfly an urban area, or the napa valley, to look at the data. One area that they are now focusing on is night light from cities. This is to look at energy useage and urban environment. Cyanobacteria is the first key to life. They are looking at how this ‘pond scum’ was able to thrive and survive. This year is the 50th anniversary of the founding of NASA.

Bill Mitchell. MIT. Now leading the Media Lab. He started out with three circles in an overlapping Venn diagram: ICT systems, Mobility systems, Energy Systems. They converge in the centre to make Smart Cities. He presented the City Car that they have developed over the past three/four years. They asked themselves the question; what can we get rid of and start all over? The thing is essentially a chassis which is a container to hold the batteries with four snap on wheels that drive the vehicle. It it anticipated to recharge based on induction. It has come really far since I saw it last. He drew up a series of ‘efficiencies’ that would be created by the car. One was the ability to pack in more vehicles, another is that the car becomes the energy storage system for the city [battery and induction] car based e-bay like auctioning of parking spaces.

One-way bicycle to the shopping market and then one-way car back from it.
They should be thought of like Mobility vending machines.

Excellent presentation. It is wonderful to see that this has really made such good progress.

NEED TO LOOK UP Wireless electricity research at MIT.

Gary Bridges. Sr VP IBSG. People and Processes. This weeks SCIENCE magazine is about Cities. This is really a parallel processing issue. We need to have lots of programs going on simultaneously all focused on the future of the city. He went on to talk about Innovation phases: Invention, Adoption, and Implementation. He believes that the most important part of his team at IBSG is the adoption.

The history of the world population is the history of energy. He showed a series of graphs which indicated the parity between population growth and energy consumption. Was not sure of the point. I think it is really more about the efficiency of a society in the conversion of an energy source rather than access to energy. Although, the latter is the real basis of economies.

Woodrow Wilson Center's Foresight and Governance Project & Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies filmed sites within Second Life that address environmental, energy, and sustainability issues. It provides a quick overview of possibilities for people who are not in Second Life (or not likely to go).

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item_id=393493

courtesy of
David Rejeski. Director of the Foresight and Governance Project & Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

CHL commentary - it is a pretty interesting movie.

I never had heard of this place until i was to meet here with the Design Futures Council. I met with Amy and Kitty, COO and Program Director yesterday. impressive annual agenda.

this was a collection of individuals who spoke about different aspects of GreenIT.

Ms. TAE YOO, Sr VP, Corporate Affairs. Information is a common denominator across all domains and walks of life. This is the main driver behind our efforts.

Jared Blumenfeld. Director, Department of the Environment, San Francisco. Reviewed the development of their activism. Noted the huge gap between those that vision and those that implement. They spent two years figuring out their base-line. Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas production by 20% by 2012. All municipal buildings must be LEED silver with priority permitting for LEED gold. 49% of the city’s CO2 emissions come from automobiles. The goal is to be a 100% emission free, electric public fleet. They will now also have plug-in electrics beginning in March. T-12 fluorescents have also been banned. They are also working for environmental justice – which is working hard to eliminate the worst polluters that are adjacent to areas of poverty. Green Jobs are a focus as well. They are going to look to figure out how much energy they really use and . Current recycling rate is a 69% today, should be zero by 2020. Electronic waste is also a focus. A $10.00 fee is now levied at the point of purchase for all screens. Talked about the postcode map. They have 1000 vehicles that run on alternative fuels. SF spends $600 million pa in purchasing stuff.

XRF scanner can now reveal what is in a product. it used to cost about $150,000, now only $15,000 which is making it possible for more groups to access the information about the content of a product. LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS

Dr. Joon Byeong Yoon. Director General Transportation, Seoul Metropolitan Government. The city made a Green Energy Declaration in April of 2007. Currently 28.5% of emissions come from transportation.

Federico Casenlago. MIT mobility lab.

Ronald Prins. Director, Dept of Environment, City of Amsterdam. Reported on the things that they are doing. One of these is the laying of fibre in the canals as well as the coal-gas pipeline network. He talked about the recent court case which the city one in the European Court. He states that Fibre to the home is the blackbone.

CUD Cities.
The first three have been: San Francisco, Seoul, Amsterdam
The next four will be : Madrid, Hamburg, Lisbon, Birmingham

The CUD program will be focused on
Teleworking
Telepresence
Home broadband
Shared offices
Remote services

Traffic Management
Smart congestion tax programs
Dynamic Traffic-flow control.

Public Transportation
IP enabled public transport
Transportation on demand
Intelligent, car-pooling, shared taxi/minibus

Municipals Co2 reduction
Teleworking
Transportation optimization
Clean ICT
Connected real estate

Smart communities
Active citizenship
Innovative Green Business Models

Connected Urban Development Global Summit
Nicola Villa , program leader for the CUD, opened with a short review how the CUD project came to pass. The fundamental problem is climate change and the city. ICT contributes about 2% of greenhouse gas emissions; about the same amount as the airline industry.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, City and County of San Francisco, spoke very passionately about the of the evolution of the interaction between Cisco and the City; a strong partnership.

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco. Technology Innovation as a Drivers of Sustainable economic growth. He opened with a sort video from Bill Clinton. Leadership is the ability to make creams come true, not just to make dreams apparent.

The pillars of global competitiveness: Education; Infrastructure; Innovation / Market Transition; Supportive government; Collaboration

Catching market transitions has been the key to the success of Cisco. One of the undeniable realities of today - climate change is now no longer undeniable.

Sustainability is one of today’s most significant market transitions.. we have to paint a vision of what is possible. The key is the ‘and mode’ rather than ‘or mode’. He stated that all industries mst be part of the solution.
operations – how to operate
products - better, cleaner and leaner
architecture
employees – inspiring employees to action

new business models. CISCO is acting on the commitment. They have reduced their carbon load by 10% per employee. He talked about a recent global meeting which they had in which over 5000 attended with 3000 attending virtually from other countries.

Networks as a platform for sustainability.

Internet Phase 1 : transactional productivity
Oders over the internet, customer self-service, employee self-service, core vs context, out-tasking manufacturing. All of the bits were instrumental in productivity growth.

Internet Phase 2:
Collaboration and Web 2.0
Co-Labouring – working towards a common goal.
Technologies that enable user collaboration.

What can we do collaboratively that we could not do by ourselves????

CUD Cities.
The first three have been: San Francisco, Seoul, Amsterdam
The next four will be : Madrid, Hamburg, Lisbon, Birmingham

The CUD program will be focused on
Teleworking
Telepresence
Home broadband
Shared offices
Remote services

Traffic Management
Smart congestion tax programs
Dynamic Traffic-flow control.

Public Transportation
IP enabled public transport
Transportation on demand
Intelligent, car-pooling, shared taxi/minibus

Municipals Co2 reduction
Teleworking
Transportation optimization
Clean ICT
Connected real estate

Smart communities
Active citizenship
Innovative Green Business Models

PETER SCWARTZ opened the breakfast session with a short overview of what weak signals were all about. they are the little things which one should be able to pick up that give an indication that change is either occurring, or about to occur. PAUL SAFFO followed with his commentary that he is always looking for 'things that just don't fit' into the expected pattern. we then did an exercise in which our table was asked to make a list of those things/events which we note that 'don't fit' and could constitute weak signals. some of the things that we came up around the area of Values and Beliefs [which was our assignment] were:
1. Hamas blowing up the Gaza wall
2. multiple nation states
3. rise of intolerance
4. rise of multiple identities
5. desensitization to violence

we noted an interesting phenomina we branded the TOLERENCE TOGGLE. this was seen recently in Denmark. once known for its tolerence, it seemed to turn intolerent overnight.

i left before the end of the session.

Dear all, From a man who loves information and statistics, take a look at this interesting site on the state of the world:

http://www.worldometers.info/

Makes you think, huh?

Adrian Joyce

Today I came across this:

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

I thought it might be interesting to the group.

Vlassis Rizopoulos
_______________________
great! thanks Vlassis! CHL

The Energy Sector had its annual dinner high above Davos in the Shatzalp Hotel [www.schatzalp.ch]. It is a stunning venue at any time. The format of the dinner was simple: mill about and chat, sit down, three short talks, eat, responses, discussion, go back down the mountain. It was a fascinating and delightful evening. I was invited to be one of the responders.

JERRY LINENGER, US Astronaut and Mir Cosmonaut, spoke of his time in the station. he spoke of the visceral connection that you have when you are in space and looking down at the thin layer of blue which allows us to live on the planet. he is an amazing speaker who has a very important message.

BERTRAND PICCARD, physicist and balloonist, spoke of his flight. his current focus is on sustainable transport. he talked about the certainties, habits and assumptions that we make in life and how they related to a successful balloon flight. in flight you are a 'prisoner of the wind' which means that you have to 'change altitutde' to get new ideas and influences. 'Ballast is our old context.' so you have to get rid of some of that ballast if you are to move up to get a different wind that will take you in the direction which you need to go. he is currently focused on solar flight. he want to make an airplane which can circumnavigate the globe on solar power alone. a difficult task considering that night flight does not recharge the battery. he also stated my WEF take away about the difference between Dreams and Visions.....

DREAMS END WHEN YOU WAKE UP
VISIONS START WHEN YOU WAKE UP

VINOD KHOSLA - venture capitalist - His talk was all about 'how to make the impossible possible'. at the time i found him really difficult. but looking back at the evening and my notes, i think that he is/was really on to something. every time someone says 'thats impossible' then it is a challenge which could/must be met. he went on with 'what is possible, is what we believe is possible'. he continued with our four challenges to confront climate change:
1. replace oil
2. replace coal
3. replace steel
4. replace cement

he is working on the first one by funding four start-ups developing cellulosic methanol/biofuel technologies. he pointed out that in order for them to be successful, green technologies must be cheaper than unsubsidized oil. he feels that he will find a way in which to make a cell which can eat anything and excrete diesel. he closed with 'we need to think not outside the box, but rather outside the barrel.

The discussion at my table was broad ranging. in general, it was agreed that biofuels would be vital to the world's economy. however, the biggest problem was the creation of enough to satisfy the global thirst. it was agreed that the demand side had to be better managed, especially in consumer behavior and buildings. 'time is our opponent' was a great way to wrap this evening up.

the opening panel had quite a few luminaries on it. the most interesting for me were the following:

HENRY KISSINGER. Here was the man who i used to see on my black and white television when i was young. i know that he is a bit of a controversial figure. but, then again, who would not be in his position. you could have heard a pin drop in the room when he spoke. his deep gravely voice took command of the stage and room in an eerie way. he spoke to the need for our statesmen to better understand the parameters of a system to move towards goals. it was very insightful and made me think about the instant loss of diplomacy when one world leader stated 'you are either with me, or against me'. that black and white does not leave much room for negotiation.

JIANZHOU WANG - Chairman and CEO of China Mobile - He was a surprise. After noting that they are signing up over 8,000 new subscribers to mobile telephony a day, he started to talk about the environment. It is not often that one sees a Chinese man of his position speak openly with such passion. He talked about Climate Change and the need for action. It was impressive.

TONY BLAIR - talked about the need for a Palestinian State

JAMES DIMON - Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase - He really stretched credibility when he noted that "most corporations are good corporate citizens". Hard to believe much he said after that one.

I was ready not to be impressed; but i was. She was articulate and clearly a very smart person. She spoke to TURBULENCE and the need for optimism in the climate of anxiety that new pervades. She noted what she liked to call a new "American Realism" which has three goals:

1. to promote just economic development
2. to promote freedom and democracy
3. to promote diplomacy in problem solving

i find it interesting that she stated them in that order. She further referenced the increasing 'economic populism' and the 'need for more global democracies'. And she went on to discuss the relationships between the US and Russia as well as the US and N Korea and Iran. In all cases she noted that the challenges were political, not between peoples.

It was a good speech. Even though I was more impressed with her than i expected to be, I remain unconvinced by her messages. Actions speak far louder than words.

The meeting was officially opened by Dr Klaus Schwab in the afternoon. He shared the stage with the president of the Swiss Confederation and Federal Councillor of Home Affairs, PASCAL COUCHEPIN. Mr Couchepin gave the obligatory welcome and spoke of diluted risk.

They were followed by HAMID KARZAI and RAJENDRA PACHAURI. They were asked to speak about the two greatest threats in the eyes of the WEF: Terrorism and Climate Change. Karzai pointed out that the terrorism that he is observing in his country is not religious. he called it mutant extremism. Pachauri gave his stump speech again. both were well spoken and very heartfelt.

everything you never know that you would want to know......about Geko Hairs
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/01/29_gecko.shtml