(How) can Web 2.0 help save the human race?

Via YouTube, via Twitter, via WordPress… to you.

Participation culture, creativity & social change - by Prof David Gauntlett (Age: 37), Professor of Media and Communications, at University of Westminster, UK.

Reduce carbon emissions by 90% by 2030 (or sooner)? How are we going to do that!!? David Gauntlett says, through encouraging more creativity in education and everyday life.

By moving from a “sit back and be told culture” (ie. school) to a “making and doing / connection” culture (assisted by web 2.0 participation and mass creativity).

Ivan Illich is yet again quoted (why do I so love defrocked catholic priests) and our friends at School of Everything will already know David I’m sure.

Richard Sennett’s wonderful book The Craftsman is also referenced.

I’m with them all the way…

But will we have the guts to offer our Bea (8) the South Down’s Learning Centre rather than mainstream factory-style high school, or maybe the local high is not as bad as it might seem…

Ahh - the personal and the political. But back to packing… we’ve got some carbon to burn (sigh). Train next time…

More from David Gauntlett here and here.

I wish I’d done this ages ago

I picked up a Efergy real-time energy meter for £39.95 from Maplin. At this kind of price it finally seems worth it, and after bringing it home and quickly installing it, I’ve now got a sense of how much power the house uses. I’m very happy with it so far, easy to use and nice clear display. It sits in the kitchen.

With all the lights off and the fridge idling, there’s still a little over 100W needed to keep the place running, which is mad. That is going to be a bunch of plugpack transformers (wall warts) that are just making heat while doing nothing. More of those are going to get switched off now.

Turning on the kettle is a shock. I know the kettle is going to use up energy like mad, but watching the display go from 0.100 kW to 3.100 kW was more shocking than I expected.

We’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping this will give us all enough awareness to drop our consumption of electricity about 20%.

Dopplr adds carbon calculations

I’m delighted to see that Dopplr has added a carbon calculator for the trips you take. This is just what we need. Once actual carbon data is visible, people can go ahead and make changes in their travel and lives.

Without the real data, we just all live in fear, doubt and uncertainty (and even denial).