It was a beautiful sight to see live on the evening of April 1 in Stockholm’s City Hall: Two former world leaders hugging each other on stage after they both had given inspiring talks. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were invited by the Swedish Post Code Lottery—a branch of the Dutch Post Code Lottery—to be the keynote speakers at SEI's Climate Symposium. They didn’t give hard, factual speeches, but instead spotlighted the possibilities we now must explore to find solutions to the crises the world faces.

Clinton pointed out the possibilities that are out there now and repeatedly stressed the importance of answering the “how” question: How are we going to solve this crisis? He got worked up about the cynicism that always appears in the media when the climate crisis comes up, referring to quasi-experts who claim it’s not really so bad. “What if you’re wrong?” Clinton asked. “What then? Why would you take that gigantic risk?” It makes much more sense, Clinton argued, to focus on solutions to the climate crisis, solutions that will also create jobs—good for the economy, and good for the planet. “How can you be against that?” Clinton asked.   Read more...

These are times that wrack our nerves. Every day seems to bring more news of job lay-offs and stock market losses. Walk around most neighborhoods and you’ll see vacant storefronts and foreclosed houses. USA Today recently reported that one out of nine U.S. residences was now empty.

If you don’t feel at least a twinge of panic, you’re out of touch.   Read more...

Earlier this week, Tom Ammiano, a California Democrat recently elected to the state legislature, announced that he was introducing a bill that would “tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol” in the state of California. According to Mr. Ammiano, the Assembly Bill 390 would impose a tax of $50 per ounce on marijuana sales. “With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes”, said Ammiano. “California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”

I'm Dutch. And, believe it or not, I have never smoked marijuana. You might be surprised, but most Dutch people have no interest in marijuana. Few of my American friends can believe that. If I say, I'm Dutch, their eyes start rolling, they whisper "Amsterdam" and they think about the free world of drugs. But here's the key thing: I grew up in a country where soft drugs were easily available and -- I argue -- because of that they were never really of any interest to my friends and myself.   Read more...

Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced Tuesday his company will invest $7 billion in new computer chip factories in the U.S. He explained the decision by referring to the same dire economics that keep other companies from investing so much money in, well, anything. "Taking that leap can be downright scary but it is the only proven path to pull out of bad times," Otellini said. "If we want to see a return to American prosperity, we have no choice than to invest in creating the future."

In the midst of doom and gloom stories about companies scaling back, you would expect that Intel’s bold step would make frontpage headlines. After all, anybody seems hungry for some good news. In fact, President Obama called Otellini Tuesday night to congratulate him on the company’s decision and applauded him for his call for other businesses to follow suit.   Read more...

So what if Michael Phelps smokes marijuana?

Last year, the 23-year-old winner of 14 Olympic gold medals, with seven world records in swimming, was at a party where he used a bong -- a pipe typically used for smoking marijuana -- and someone took a photo. Months later, British tabloid News of the World slammed Michael's photo on its pages (“the astonishing picture which could destroy the career of the greatest competitor in Olympic history”) and now, Phelps has been banned for three months by USA Swimming and Kellogg’s has announced to stop its endorsement contract.   Read more...

Barack Obama has surfaced some long-buried communal instincts in the American people. Millions of folks were not content to merely watch his campaign in the isolation of their living rooms—they wanted to talk about Obama face-to-face with friends, neighbors, family, even complete strangers. I remember a rousing discussion last January in the back of a bus rumbling down Selby Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, with three young men I had never met before.

This communal spirit carried over to the inauguration, as people packed moviehouses across the country to watch Obama take the oath of office on the big screen with their neighbors. I joined 700 people at Minneapolis’ Riverview Theater. Together the whole crowd cheered, laughed, wiped away tears, and wildly waved as Bush’s helicopter lifted off from the capitol, everyone singing “Na-Na-Na-Na, Na-Na-Na-Na, Hey-Hey-Hey, Good-bye.”   Read more...

Savvy social observer Malcolm Gladwell deconstructs the modern myth of the self-made man in his latest Number One bestseller, The Outliers.

This is a very timely book, coming at the crashing close of an era defined by full-scale worship of self-made men. The conventional economic wisdom for several decades has been that successful people deserve every reward possible, because they alone are the creators of prosperity and progress.   Read more...

You can glimpse the future of clean, green transportation right now on the streets of Paris, and it might astonish you.

We generally assume that solutions to declining oil supplies and global warming will burst forth from a laboratory where engineers are masterminding the next high-tech wonders.   Read more...

Here in the United States, we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving, which is when families gather together (parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, close friends) for food and kinship. It’s the one day when American domesticity expands beyond the narrow circle of the nuclear family: mom, dad and the kids.

It’s interesting to note that this familiar nuclear family has been the organizing principle of Western society only since the Industrial Revolution, and that in many parts of the world today a broader network of extended family and fellow villagers are still the primary social glue. I remember a Brazilian friend, who grew up middle-class in cosmopolitan Sao Paulo, telling me that he was a teenager before he was completely sure which people living in his house were blood relatives.   Read more...

Last week the Supreme Court lifted judicial restrictions on submarine training exercises. These restrictions were in place as a result of campaigns and lawsuits by environmental groups which have fought the use of sonar by the Navy for about a decade. The environmentalists argue that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals – particularly whales – to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding an migration patterns. The Supreme Court has now overturned these restrictions saying national security has to prevail over environmental concerns. A few years ago our magazine Ode published a long story on this issue that gives some solid evidence for the damage that the use of sonars is causing at sea.

But beyond the arguments, there is an underlying issue that concerns me even more. By saying that national security is more important than environmental concerns, the Surpreme Court acknowledges as much that the use of sonar has such negative impact. It appears that it is not disputed that there is damage. It’s just that that damage is not important enough. In other words: men are more important than animals. That kind of competitive reasoning is behind almost all the problems in our world. Behind environmental degradation, poverty and global warming, there is always that same driving force: competition. I can only survive if you perish. I’m only safe when you’re not. Gandhi couldn’t have said it better: ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’. When do we start to approach difficult issues from an inclusive perspetive, directing all our efforts to finding a solution that works for all?   Read more...