Just came back from a conference in New York that BISG organized It was sponsored by codeMantra and Vista.
It turned out to be a pretty interesting conference. However, the big thing for me was being in New York, downtown Manhattan, for my first time. I have been all around Manhattan but never there. Publishers Row, McGraw Hill, Simon and Schuster, Random House, all located in these huge beautiful buildings in Times Square.

Oatmeal for breakfast, thoughtful discussion about the digital revolution that is happening in publishing till lunch, and then a stroll to Greenwich village and back.

John Seed was in Guelph town on Friday and had some interesting observations to make about climate change. John is a student of Joanna Macy who has a book out called Coming Back to Life.

A couple of the big insights I took away were:

1. If the US reduces the speed on their highways from 70 to 50 mph then there would be a savings of a billion barrels of oil a year. That, said Seed would keep things like the Iraq war from happening. That is a phenomenal idea!

2. Ruminate animals cause more greenhouse gases than all the cars on the planet. We need to eat less of that kind of meat. It isn't surprising that our agri business is as bad for the environment as our industrial practices.

One of the attendees of the conference said that he had just been at an environmental trade show and that there was a vendor there with a label for products that indicated the ecological footprint that was involved in manufacturing that product. There is a cool idea, let people decide how they spend their dollars based on that kind of information.

And finally, I don't have the article but a bunch of people were talking about a great article by Paul Hawken. I've read a Ecology of Commerce by Paul and it was great so want to track down this article that everyone was talking about. Fortunately I can just go talk to Stan Kozak down the street from me and ask him what it was. He sent it around.

Maude Barlow in Guelph:

Went to a talk given by Maude Barlow last night organized by Guelph Water Watchers. It was a great talk if not a little of a downer.

Here are the keypoints:
Humanity (that is us) is affecting the hydrologic cycle so that the planet is losing usable water. We are polluting the surface water, sucking out the ground water and creating polluted water. It is the ground level equivalent of global warming.

Our investment in nanotechnologies means we stop putting our efforts into conservation and thereby create bigger impacts on the eco-system. Not only that but water becomes a commodity under corporate control. The plants are nuclear powered, dirty and then we have to buy back the water for exorbitant amounts. The rich are the only ones who can afford water, not the ones who really need it.

Maude talked about NAFTA, North American Security and Prosperity and the efforts being put forward by short sighted business leaders to deregulate everything under the sun, which is nothing new.

Check out Council of Canadians, raise your voice, protect a precious resource, join the fight against Nestle who is basically stealing the future. Also think about joining this group on facebook if you are using facebook.