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The good folks at “We Can Solve It” are still putting their marketing might behind changing consumer’s attitudes to demand clean energy within 10 years. However, this time, they are focusing on getting government officials involved in the fight. The video above is their new message to U.S. politicians. You might remember this goal of having 100% clean energy in the U.S. in 10 years from Al Gore’s Energy Challenge speech.

It is important that all countries reduce their reliance on a single source of energy, so I’ve listed all of the different sources of energy below. (The video only mentions wind and solar energy.)

1. Wind Energy
2. Solar Energy
3. Geothermal Energy
4. Hydro Energy (Dams, Wave Energy, Tide Energy)
5. Nuclear Energy
6. Fossil Fuels (Oil, Coal, Natural Gas)
7. Space Solar Power System

The technology that is most interesting to me is the Space Solar Power System as it allows electricity to be generated from outside of the Earth’s environment.

Through all of this, it is important to keep everything into perspective. As the U.S. moves to a new energy infrastructure, it needs to consider doing it in a responsible way so that it isn’t a reckless gold rush like it is in upstate New York. What are your thoughts?

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In a follow up to Danwen’s last post about Al Gore’s energy challenge to the public, I’m posting a video of the highlights of Al Gore’s speech.

To quote one of the best parts of the speech,

“we are borrowing money from china to buy oil from the persian gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet, every bit of this equation needs to change”

You can also read about Al Gore’s other efforts to fight Climate Change.

I have two confessions to make. First, I’ve been thinking a lot about health recently, but mostly because I’ve been fighting off a terrible stomach bug all week. Second, I work for a relatively large healthcare corporation, so I’ve been hearing about this for a while. That aside, I thought it was time to talk a little about Personal Health Records.

No one likes being sick, or going to the doctor, or (heaven forbid) the hospital. One of the worst parts of any healthcare experience (besides feeling awful, of course) is the mounds of paperwork and the wait to figure out what’s going on. Then, once it’s all resolved, you have to keep track of all of those papers until the next time you have a problem, and let’s face it, who among is really that organized?

So here’s a great movement in the healthcare world that I think can have a hugely positive impact on your life almost immediately: you can put your health records online! This means saving trees and your precious time both requesting and searching for those records. Some HMOs have had this capability for a while, but with large public companies like Microsoft and Google launching new Personal Health Record services recently, you have an unprecedented ability to organize and control over your records.

The idea of having so much personal information online might seem a little unsavory at first, but here’s the deal- the servers where this information is housed are INCREDIBLY well protected, so rest assured- this is a great, and most importantly, a safe step forward.

There’s a lot of talk about the healthcare system being broken in America, and while I think that’s an overstatement, there are active steps to insure that you have a better care experience.  Often your doctor won’t have the records of lab work, hospital visits or time spent with specialists, and this will delay or impede her ability to treat you properly. By using a personal health record service, you can insure that all of those papers are available when they should be, not when the hospital system decides to send them.

Take your health into your own hands.

From today onward, for as long as I post to PosiPeople I will dedicate each post to one of the most effective entrepreneurs I am able to find providing direct-services to the poor and needy.

At times I will highlight organizations based simply on a recommendation from an individual who’s opinion I highly respect, other times I will base my reasons for highlighting an entrepreneur on overwhelming evidence. Whether my post is highly subjective or objective - each program will embody natural, timeless principles like: liberty, opportunity, faith, character, hope, personal responsibility and charity.

Charity has largely and falsely come to mean: the mindless giving of money. I hope to help restore it to its original and truer meaning. If you can imagine what an all wise, loving mother feels for her child, you then have a good idea of what charity is. It isn’t something you give, it is something you posses.

In my old line of work as a manufacturing engineer it was almost unforgivable to make the same mistake twice. Nothing destroyed our image of competence faster than repeating a gross error. Continually giving money away without making a conscious effort to place that money where it will have the greatest positive impact is synonymous with making the same mistake over and over again. If an individual is not confident that their money is being given to the most effective organizations within the areas they care about, then they should stop giving until they are.

There is a significant amount of organization-level research that exists, but it is scattered across the world wide web, and I imagine even more so across personal computers and intranets. In order to identify the most effective entrepreneurs providing direct services to the poor and needy I will need to begin identifying and aggregating links to all the third-party organizations providing rigorous organization-level evaluations on organization effectiveness. Both those organizations who make their evaluations public and those that don’t.

Here’s the beginning of a list :
www.cachildwelfareclearinghouse.org
ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc
www.wsipp.wa.gov
www.calvinedwardscompany.com
www.genevaglobal.com
newprofit.org
www.ashoka.org

The more in-depth, professional evaluations we can amass, the more confident we can be that we have truly identified the most effective organizations serving the poor and needy. I hope you will add more links in your comments.

I will highlight the first high performing organization next week.

“The wealth of nations is no longer stuff in
the ground; the wealth of nations resides in
the human mind, in human creativity.”
– George Weigel

The Fourth Annual Tyburn Lecture, May 2004, “The Free And Virtuous Society:”

There are few messages that are more positive than the message above. It is a concept that has been said in many different ways by many people. Although Saudi Arabia and other oil rich countries are getting a “free ride” at the moment, as have many nations who have built the majority of their wealth from resource extraction, times are changing. The more and more I read and listen to experts’ words on the topic of resource scarcity, the more and more I become convinced that the central solution is productivity out pacing inflation. The solution to productivity has always been breakthrough innovation, and the source of breakthrough innovation has always been the human mind. This applies even in resource extraction.

Other than building strong individual character, the greatest cause that anybody can advocate is this:
Increase the percentage of innovative for-profit entrepreneurs. Why? because this creates a more competitive environment which results in more creative destruction which leads to higher productivity which leads to a higher quality of life for all citizens.

I have thought about whether or not I could make this claim for some time now, and have tried to “break it”, but I have found that the claim is unbreakable.

Last November, Jon shared some doubts about the San Francisco City Government’s decision to ban plastic bags. According to today’s NPR follow-up story on the ban, That translates into 5 million fewer plastic bags every month. Other cities, including Boston, Phoenix, and Portland (ORE), are considering following San Francisco’s example.

City planners might be interested in talking to Whole Foods about their experience. In January 2008, Whole Foods announced the intention to be “plastic bag free” by Earth Day, April 22, 2008. In my local Whole Foods, they phased out plastic bags for carrying out your groceries, although they don’t yet have many other options if you are buying fruits or vegetables.

I don’t have any empirical data, but I asked the manager of the local Whole Foods what their experience has been so far. She said she was surprised by how many people now bring in their own bags. The transition to paper only was pretty painless….It might help that Whole Foods gives customers a $0.05 cent refund per bag. While I agree with Jon’s point, I also think that behavior change is a step-by-step process. Banning plastic bags is just the first step.

Disclosure: At the time of the writing of this post, I have no financial relationships with any of the organizations mentioned.