A Facebook group called Upgrade Democracy (http://www.facebook.com/groups/upgradedemocracy) is collecting a list of

teams/organizations working on technology-powered solutions to the systemic problems of governance/group decision-making.

They want help in expanding the list but

Please don't add projects that simply use technology to slightly enhance our current political system (e.g. electronic petitions). We're upgrading the democratic operating system, not tweaking the interface. ;)

http://www.facebook.com/groups/upgradedemocracy/doc/167918099964799/

Teams / Organizations Working to Upgrade Democracy
By Frank Grove, Ben Woosley and 5 others in Upgrade Democracy Community

Circle Voting http://www.circlevoting.com
CodeForAmerica http://codeforamerica.org/
Deliberative Democracy (Stanford) http://cdd.stanford.edu/
DemDash http://demdash.us/
DemocracyLab http://democracylab.org/
Dynamic Democracy (US) http://upgradedemocracy.org
HackDemocracy http://hackdemocracy.org
Hypothes.is http://hypothes.is/
LayerVote http://layervote.com/
Open Assembly http://openassembly.org
Personal Democracy Forum http://personaldemocracy.com/
Participant Labs http://participantlabs.com/
ReFrameIt http://reframeit.com/
Seasteading Institute http://seasteading.org
TwoSides http://www.twosides.co/
Village Votes http://villagevotes.com/wiki/Village_Votes
VoteReports http://votereports.org/
VoteSF http://votesf.com/
Wecision http://wecision.com/

My sister sent my a link to a New Yorker article on the history of Occupy Wall Street:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_schwartz

It focuses on Kalle Lasn and Micah White of AdBusters, the organization that made the initial call for an occupation of Wall Street.  They are both interesting characters with ideas not usually voiced in the major media.  I do wish a little more time had been spent looking at David Graeber, the anarchist theorist who helped convene the first GA on the first day but you can read about him at
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/david-graeber-the-antileader-of-occupy-wall-street-10262011.htm l

For all this history, what I find lacking is the larger context, that Occupy is part of a world-wide movement against corporate globalism and for person-to-person globalism that started with Mohammed Bouazizi setting himself on fire in Tunisia and continuing from there to Egypt, Libya, Yemen but also Spain, Greece, Macedonia, Brazil, Mexico, the UK....  In fact, the US movement is rather late to the party and is missing a real chance by not expressing forcefully their/our solidarity with the demonstrators now being brutalized in Tahrir Square.  That would complete the circle, confuse the politicians and pundits, and make visible the global nature of this movement at last.

This idea may be moot after all the forced evictions of the Occupations from public spaces but I thought I'd share it anyway.

I've visited the Occupations in Wall Street, Boston, and Providence, RI.  Every time I go to one of them, I try to connect with somebody about making the Occupation green with, as yet, little success.  In New York, I saw the greywater treatment system Mobile Research Labs set up and talked to a couple of people about using some simple solar techniques.  In Boston, I've tried to connect the winterization team with the student Energy Clubs at some of the local colleges and universities and alerted my own network of solar enthusiasts to Occupy Boston's  efforts.  I've also tried to do the same by contacting OWS's Sustainability Group.  In Providence, I talked with the only occupier I saw up and around early on a Sunday morning.  He was picking up trash around the park and was disappointed that the group hadn't organized themselves enough to do recycling.  I gave him my card and my elevator pitch for a green occupation and he said he'd pass it on.

I look at the Occupations and see economic refugee camps and a possible test-bed for emergency response and sustainable economic development around the world.  Some may say that's crazy but the links are there if you look.

The Climate CoLab is part of MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence.

In both 2010 and 2011, the primary activities have been a pair of online contests, where teams of community members are invited to propose actions to key aspects of climate change.

The 2011 contest poses the question:

How should the 21st century economy evolve bearing in mind the risks of climate change?

In the initial stages of a contest, teams develop proposals on what should be done. Expert judges assess and select finalists among these proposals.

In the final round, Climate CoLab members are invited to vote. Winners are chosen based on voting and on a second review by the judges. A group of policy makers are briefed on the winning proposals.

On the national level, my proposal made the final cut:
How to Change US Energy in One Growing Season
http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/5/planId/15206

You can vote for it or other proposals in the contest until November 15 at the URL above.  Please take a look.

This interview with Ryan Hoffman of Occupy Wall Street by David Schuster on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on how OWS are self-policing touched me deeply.  I thought it a simple and succinct explanation of what is going on.

Video:  http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-wall-street-ryan-hoffman-on-security-detail-serving -the-undesirables

"It's irrelevant" whether the police are sending homeless people to Zuccotti Park. "Whether or not they are sending people down there, we'll take them because if they have been wounded by the system that we're in, that creates a systemic sort of foreclosure mill, kicking people out of their houses and sort of oppressing them and taking away their voices, taking away their enfranchisement to speak, well guess what, that's what our movement is about and we're not going to turn those people away. This movement is so that everybody can have a voice and we lift each other up."

Solar water disinfection
http://www.sodis.ch/index_EN
A two liter plastic bottle can be made into a water treatment system simply by filling it with contaminated water and exposing it to the sun.  Sodis is an organization that promotes this technology around the world.  

The disinfection process can be speeded by turning aluminized mylar snack food bags inside out and making them into reflectors as two young students in Belo Horizonte, Brazil discovered:  http://calais.phase2technology.com/content/isef-sterilizing-water-with-trash

Solar bottle bulbs for daylighting
http://www.elliottlemenager.com/2010/06/21/amazing-water-bottle-sky-lights/

In 2002, during a long electrical shortage, at Uberaba, São Paulo, Brasil, Mr Alfredo Moser discovered a way to gather sun light in the house through plastic bottles hanging from the roof. First shown at the Globo Reporter in the 25th May 2007.
Alfredo Moser was pressed by a scarce electricity substitution and found out that he could light his house with a bottle of water filled with water and a protection cap made of camera film.

The bottle is just refracting sunlight very effectively and produces an equivalent light power compared to a 50/60W lamp. In a rainy day, even without much light and direct sun, one still have some light. Scientist have now visited Moser and are looking into ways to take this concept to maximize its potential.

Here's my latest Solar PSA on how a south-facing window is already a solar collector:

"Any window that sees direct sunlight is a solar collector.  You can learn how to use that free energy to make your home more comfortable and secure.  Caulk and seal the window against drafts.  Install storm windows on the exterior, interior, or both.  Cover the window at night with an insulating curtain to prevent conduction, convection, and radiative heat loss.  A valence above the window will stop night-time drafts and reduce condensation.  A sunny window can double as a greenhouse for starting seedlings or growing house plants.  Expand the solar space below, above, or beside the window with a windowbox solar air or water heater.    You can even design a living system to provide fresh vegetables and fish year round while producing space heat, cleaning the air, and reducing waste.  A south-facing window is already a solar collector.  Learn how to use it."

Ages of US Nuclear Power Plants* at Closure
* Includes only commercial plants of significant size

Plant, Shutdown Date, Age, Reason

Connecticut Yankee, Dec., 1996, 29 yrs, Steam gen. cracking, ECCS undersized

Millstone I (CT), July, 199, 28 yrs, Improper operation, Cost of safety improvements

Maine Yankee, August, 1997, 25 yrs, Steam gen. tube damage, Electrical power cable separation

Yankee Rowe     (MA), October, 1991, 28 yrs, Reactor vessel embrittlement, Steam gen. tube damage

Indian Point I (NY), Oct., 1974, 12 yrs., Lack of an ECCS

Shippingport (PA), Oct. 1982, 35 yrs, 1st commercial plant in US

Peach Bottom I (PA), Nov., 1974, 7 yrs., Helium cooled graphite core

Three Mile Island II (PA), March, 1979, 4 mos., Partial meltdown!

Dresden I (IL), Oct., 1978, 18 yrs., 1st full scale private funded plant

Zion I (IL), Feb., 1997, 22 yrs., Steam gen. cracking,  Improper operation

Zion II (IL), Nov., 1996, 22 yrs., Steam gen. cracking

Big Rock Point (MI), Aug., 1997, 35 yrs. Economics

Fermi I, 1972, 2 yrs., Partial meltdown, 1966!  Restarted (?) 1970-72

La Crosse (WI), April, 1987, 17 yrs.

Fort St. Vrain (CO), Aug., 1989, 13 yrs.,  Helium cooled graphite core,Control rod failure, never dependable

Trojan I (OR), Nov., 1992, 16 yrs., Steam gen. cracking, economics

San Onofre I (CA), Nov., 1992, 25 yrs., Cost of seismic retrofit, Steam gen. cracking

Humbold Bay (CA), 1980, 17 yrs., 2nd oldest commercial plant

Rancho Seco (CA), June, 1989, 15 yrs., Poor operating history (39%), Only nuke plant closed by referendum

1993 ATT future - 14 minute video

2011 Corning Glass future - 5 minute video

2004 vision of "Googlezon" in 2014 - 8 minute video

When Wikileaks was thrown off Amazon's servers, some people began to wonder about the security of their communications on the Internet in a new way.  When Egypt shut down access to the Internet and mobile phones for the whole country, more people began to think about how easy it seems to be to pull the plug, even in the USA.  News that "Beijing plans to track all mobile phone movements", a test run in two areas of the city going on this summer, doesn't help either.

Now, people are beginning to think about what may turn out to be a People's Internet, a non-corporate, non-governmental Internet, that can't be shut down or turned off, perhaps in a variety of massively resilient and redundant systems.
Can it be done?  Should it be done?  Here are some initiatives that move in that direction:

FabFi is an open-source , MIT Fab Lab-grown system using off-the-shelf electronics and reflectors made of common building materials to transmit wireless ethernet signals across distances of up to several miles, a wireless mesh network.  With Fabfi, communities can build their own wireless networks for high-speed internet, connecting to each other and educational, medical, and a wide range of other resources.  FabFi services are working in both Jalalabad, Afghanistan and in Mountain View, Kenya, where JoinAfrica operates an Internet service provider at three sites.

A couple of years ago, Dr William Moomaw of Tufts mentioned a regional scale experiment with an all-renewable grid in Germany. I've been curious about that project since then. Today, I did a little googling and found a seven-minute youtube called "Fully renewable: biogas + wind + solar"

Dr. Jürgen Schmid at the University of Kassel, Department of Efficient Energy Conversion is the spokesperson from this December 2007 video. The system described is wind with pumped hydro storage and grid scale solar with methane from biomass (corn biofuels). When the sun isn't out in the South, the wind may be blowing in the North. When there's too much wind, it can be used to pump water into reservoirs that will provide hydroelectricity days or weeks later. When the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, biomass can be burned or converted to methane. They say Germany can have a 100% renewable grid by 2050. Dr Schmid, along with John Sievers, Stefan Faulstich, Mathias Puchta, Ingo Stadler, is the co-author of Long-term perspectives for balancing fluctuating renewable energy sources (pdf alert), which details the steps necessary to get to a fully renewable grid.

There's a Swiss consulate across the street from the new Cambridge, MA main library which sponsors a lot of events.  On 6/7/11, the subject was FuturICT (http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/FuturICT) (ICT stands for information and communications technology) with Dr Dirk Helbing of ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Dr Helbing  is the Chair of Sociology, with particular emphasis on Modeling and Simulation, at ETH.  He studies research on disaster spreading and disaster response as well as crowds, movement, and traffic. (I like his "outbreak of cooperation among success-driven individuals under noisy conditions" simulation at http://www.soms.ethz.ch/research/Videos/video_sim_pnas and wonder if he's looked at Temple Grandin's work with slaughterhouses and feedlots.)  He is also the scientific coordinator of FuturICT, a 10 year 1 billion EUR "multidisciplinary international scientific endeavour with a focus on techno-socio-economic-environmental systems."

Straw Centrifuge Pump
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5KX5TdJiYc

A lot of modern junk - plastic bottles, cups, refills, rubber slippers, pens etc can be reused in many creative ways to make joyous learning aids.  Children could make more than a dozen delightful pumps using all kinds of odd stuff.  For instance, push two film cans on the ends of a 15 cm piece of old bicycle tube to make an air pump.  The opening/closing valves are made using bits of sticky tape.  This high quality pump can easily inflate a balloon!  Or else make a scintillating sprinkler within a minute.  Poke a broom stick in the middle of a plastic straw.  Make two half cuts 2 cm away from the centre.  Bend the arms and secure them in place with some tape to make a triangle.  Twirl this triangle in water to make a most delightful centrifuge or sprinkler.

Arvind Gupta has been building science teaching toys from trash materials since 1978 and for the Children's Science Centre at Inter-University Centre for  Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune University, Pune 411007 Maharashtra India since October 2003.

On his website
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com
you can find hundreds of toys children can make for themselves with easily available materials
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys.html

He even has video demonstrations of many designs
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/films.html

"The best thing a child can do with a toy is break it !"

"And somewhere there are engineers
Helping others fly faster than sound.
But, where are the engineers
Helping those who must live on the ground?"

In less than 2 minutes, Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, Inc and author of The Truth about Green Business, makes a clear business case against coal:

Went to two full presentations and part of another presentation on the history and aftermath of Chernobyl on April 26, the 25th anniversary of the accident, at Harvard.  I was surprised that the room was so small.  The seminar's room capacity was 17 people and 15 attended this session, the largest audience during the part of the event I attended.

Guess that what happened in Chernobyl and is still happening because of it is not very important any more, even in the wake of Fukushima.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1038658656/rdtnorg-radiation-detection-hardware-network-in-ja

RDTN.org: Radiation Detection Hardware Network in Japan

RDTN.org is a website whose purpose is to provide an aggregate feed of nuclear radiation data from governmental, non-governmental and citizen-scientist sources. That data will be made available to everyone, including scientists and nuclear experts who can provide context for lay people. In the weeks following launch, it has become evident that there is a need for additional radiation reporting from the ground in Japan. This Kickstarter project will help us purchase up to 600 Geiger Counter devices that will be deployed to Japan. (The project minimum will fund 100 devices).

hat tip boingbong

They've raised $13,104 of their $33,000 goal from 128 backers and have 14 days left to fund their project.

A larger version of this chart, where you can read the numbers more easily is at
https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/energy/energy_archive/energy_flow_2009/LLNL_US_Energy_Flow_2009. png

Estimated US energy use in 2009 was 94.6 quadrillion btu's.  54.64 quads were "rejected energy," wasted energy.  39.97 quads actually provided energy services, did work.  We lost about 57.75% of the energy we produced to get the use of 42.25% of what we, mostly, burned.  At least, those are the percentages I get with my calculator.

A friend sent this to me.  I do not know if it is genuine, actually from the Ise Shrine and oracle, but the sentiments are real and, as with chicken soup, it couldn't hurt.

A Japanese Monk Sent this Prayer Request

The damage of the earthquake in Japan is devastating. Unable to cool down the reactor, we are facing a possibility of nuclear plant explosion [hydrogen explosions, not nuclear like a bomb]. Please join our prayer. Feel free to forward this prayer request to anyone. It would be great if more people can pray.

Here is a translation of a message/oracle from the Ise Shrine in Japan:

After sunset we need strong power of prayer.
Please let me deliver the message to as many as possible.
We can stop this earthquake with our prayers, but right now the nuclear
plant is in danger.

Please heal the suffering, sadness, anger, worry about nuclear plants.
Please do not think that this accident will bring justice.

Please care for each other.
The energy toward conflict and fight is also fueling the things happening right now.
Please stop the conflict and stop the fight and change the worrying voice to the power of prayer.
Please pray that as many people as possible can be saved.

We will be O.K.
If our hearts start connecting with each other the earth will be healed.

There are the sounds/vibrations that can release the karma of earth.
Anyone who can make a prayer sound, anyone who can do reiki,
anyone who can do long distance healing,
please direct your energy to the center of Japan .
The exact location is above the Hachiro gata, Akita Prefecture .

If you can sing, please sing.
Humming is fine too.
Let the earth listen to the sound.

Please send gratitude to the earth.
If mother earth wakes up, everything will stop.
The word Song/Sing writes in Japanese Kanji - small possibilities
support a big lack.
Please send your prayer to the Earth to wake up the Spirit.

I will be in meditation after the sunset.
I will pray for the light shining in the sky even in the darkness.
May everyone be safe.
Thank you for supporting my heart at this very difficult time.
Gratitude for our life.
Fuma

Today was the last seminar in a series on clean energy and the media at Harvard's Kennedy School.  The subject, scheduled months ago, was "The Seesaw Coverage of Nuclear Power" with Matt Wald, NYTimes, Ned Potter, ABC News, and Matt Bunn, Harvard.

My rough notes follow.

My friend, Tom Blue Newell, Uncle Scam, Deacon Blue, Nostrildamus, a Harvard Square busker and street performer ( http://www.unclescam.org ), stopped by this morning.  He's thinking about a new show, especially since he expects to be recuperating from an operation this season.  He wants a "Rascal," a motorized wheelchair with solar power that might also serve as a puppet in his show.  He already uses an amp for his performances and has a battery system mounted on his cargo trike.  He even has a little bit of solar.  He envisions a solar awning to charge the batteries that can run the wheelchair and power his audio and other equipment, too.  He also needs a place to keep it in Harvard Square.  He'd like something in the works within two weeks and a usable machine within two months.