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We have to craft new political realities, not only in places like India, Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan, but here at home as well. Another world is possible.

Alex Steffen

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Alex Steffen
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Environmentalist
Writer
Oakland
California
Political
Pakistan
Another
Craft
Reality
Afghanistan
Home
Crafts
Wells
India
Well
Places
Like
Poverty
Kenya
World
Possible
Realities

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Cabbies in particular seem to like discussing the fate the Earth.
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I think there's a gigantic generation gap in terms of how people understand the Internet and how much they think technology is an important factor in social change.
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If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite.
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There is no such thing as garbage, just useful stuff in the wrong place.
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Saying the Tech Bloom is not commercially driven is like saying Mother Teresa had an interest in the poor.
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By looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we're setting ourselves up not to solve it.
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There's no law of physics that says we have to be an unsustainable society - in fact, quite the opposite. The planet's ready to work with us if we're ready to think differently, but we do have to make that jump and start to do things in new ways.
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The planet's biggest problems have to do with sustainability, environmental decline, global poverty, disease, conflict and so forth. Really, they're all interconnected - it's one big problem, which is that the way we're doing things can't go on.
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At its very heart, Worldchanging is about using the best of people's new ideas, bringing them together and applying them to the massive problems that we all face.
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Carbon zero simply means that the emissions you are releasing either are zero or balance out to zero.
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Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives – and may even extend our stay on Earth.
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I think we're going to start to see a new model of civic advocacy where people get together once in a while to protest, but it's more about an ongoing, sustained engagement in issues, networks and communities about which people care.
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For carbon-neutral cities, there are things worth talking about in how our consumption patterns can change - sharing goods, etc. - but those are a fraction of the impacts of transportation and building energy use. If we need to choose priority actions, the most important things are to densify, provide transit, and green the buildings.
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Copenhagen has done a remarkable job creating streets that are focused on bicycles and pedestrians.
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In almost all city governments in America, the small group of people who don't want change are able to block change.
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Deep walkability describes a city that is built in such a way that you can move from one area to another on foot, on bicycle, on transit and have an experience that remains a pleasant one, that you feel you are welcome not just in the neighborhood but moving between neighborhoods.
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Cities offer us powerful leverage on our most stubborn, wasteful practices. Long commutes in our cars, big power bills from our energy-hogging buildings, shopping trips to buy stuff that'll spend a few short months in our homes and long centuries in our landfills.
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Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy for us to think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience.
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Cities are responsible for the vast majority of the creation of the economy. They're also places into which we pour the vast majority of resources, the vast majority of energy and the places where a huge percentage of the decisions about how systems are built and how products designed, etc., happen.
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It's not just enough to survive. We've got to make something better than what we've got.
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