Photo: Ed Yourdon

I was really at wit’s end last week, when not just one but both of my laptops died the night before a trip. “I’m going to walk over to Staples to check out laptop prices,” I told my husband, who reminded me that we weren’t exactly in the market for making a big purchase.

He fancies himself something of a handy man, so he logged on to YouTube and entered the search phrase: “laptop battery hack.” He found this video, then bought replacement Lithium batteries and a soldering kit for about $20.00. Thirty minutes later, voila: a laptop battery almost as good as new… and for a price that was a lot more comfortable than the cost of a new laptop.

Community Connection:

There’s another reason why the battery hack trick is good: it keeps dead batteries out of landfills. To get some perspective on where your e-waste goes, check out the photo essay, “Intolerable Beauty: Chris Jordan Photographs American Mass Consumption.”

Photo: Franco

For 52 years, the U.S. Marine Corps has sponsored Toys for Tots, an annual charity drive in which toys are collected for needy children.

People who want to participate in Toys for Tots can take a gift to one of their local drop off centers, which are usually located at toy stores.

One San Francisco strip club has gotten in on this year’s Toys for Tots campaign, potentially generating interest among a new group of gift givers. The Market Street Cinema is offering free admission AND a free lap dance to patrons who bring in an unwrapped toy.

There are all sorts of jokes I could make, but I actually think the campaign is a great idea. I’d love to know about other non-traditional venues participating in holiday charity drives. If you’ve heard a good story, drop me a line at julie@matadornetwork.com.

Community Connection:

Feature photo courtesy of Anna Brones

You may remember reading about Anna Brones and her new social media start-up on Matador Pulse. She’s now competing to become the Huffington Post’s Hopenhagen Ambassador at the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference.

Anna took a few minutes out of her day to answer a couple questions.

Why do you want to cover Copenhagen?

I’ve been wanting to go to the Copenhagen conference for a long time. First of all, the importance of the conference itself is huge; our global future is at stake. Second, because of new media, the whole world gets to take part.

The Copenhagen conference won’t just be happening with political leaders making decisions behind closed doors; because of blogs, video interviews, Twitter updates, etc. everyone is going to be able to stay up to date with what is happening in real time. That’s a pretty amazing thing.

Why are environmental issues important to you?

I [grew up] spending my time outdoors, and over the years I’ve come to realize that if I don’t personally take steps to protect it, the natural spaces that are so key to our existence may no longer be here.

As a writer I’ve committed myself to educating others about these issues, so that they too can push for change. We need to learn how to live in balance with nature, and that means changing how we live our lives.

Vote for Anna Brones on the Hopenhagen Ambassador website here.

Community Connection:

Keep in the loop about what other Matador members are doing and what’s going on at Matador on Matador Pulse.

Feature Photo: m.a.r.c / Photo above:Frenkieb

I passed by the latest issue of the Utne Reader several times, even flipped through it once before I actually bought it.  It was the story, 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World that caught my attention.

With the Dalai Lama on the cover, I figured the usual suspects would be on the list – Bill Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Oprah- but was surprised (and a bit disappointed in myself) to find that I didn’t recognize any of the names.

I chose to highlight a few of them here, and you can find the full list at Utne.com.

Will Allen – Founder and CEO of Growing Power

Growing Power is a national non-profit whose vision is to “inspire communities to build sustainable food systems.”  The organization creates Community Food Centers in the city, then provides training, demonstration, and outreach to get it going and get people involved.

Hiroshi Sunairi – Founder of The Tree Project

The Tree Project takes seeds from trees that are still alive from the time period of the Hiroshima bombing and gives the seeds to people who then plant them across the world.  In December 2009, the seedlings will be exhibited at the Horticultural Society of New York.

Daniel Kish – Co-founder and Executive Director of World Access for the Blind

World Access for the Blind (WAFTB) is a non-profit organization that approaches blindness as non-limiting, promoting public awareness and advocating for people with blindness to follow their goals, from biking to hiking mountains.

David Bacon – Documentary Photographer and Journalist

Bacon is a photographer and journalist who tells the underreported stories of average yet inspiring people, mainly focusing on the forces behind migration and poverty.  He has written books, including Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, Communities Without Borders: Images and Voices from the World of Migration, and The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexico Border (also in Spanish).

Patricia van Nispen tot Sevenaer – Executive Director of International Legal Alliances Microjustice for All

International Legal Alliances (ILA) Microjustice for all is a network of lawyers and activists that help people who are unable to fight for their basic social and economic rights, based on the structure of microfinancing.  The organization has also developed a handbook to assist communities in setting up their own microjustice services.

Who would YOU add to this list? Share your favorite visionaries in the comments below.

Community Connection:

Some of our very own Matadorians are changing your world! Read about JoAnna Haugen, who co-founded a fund for Machu Picchu porters, or Anna Brones, who launched a social media start-up.

How much could one piece of paper cost? Feature photo: Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Photo: Bekathwia

A few years back, I took a tour of the United Nations.

I stopped by the information desk and noticed a stack of booklets, each stamped with the date. The UN publishes information about its proceedings and resolutions in a daily brief that rivals the page count of many towns’ newspapers. Produced in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, any official UN document requires the work of many minds and hands.

It also requires a lot of money.

According to an article published in The New York Times a couple weeks ago, “it costs the United Nations an average of

$2,473 per page

to create every single document in its six official languages….”

Outside contractors could produce the same page for what seems like a bargain basement price in comparison: $450.

Obviously, the UN can’t keep its members in the dark about what’s going on with respect to decisions related to peace-keeping, aid, and development missions around the world. The cost of being uninformed is just too high.

But with a single UN committee producing more than 10,000 pages of documents a year, the organization is facing a few tough questions: What information is truly critical, how can it be presented in the most concise way possible, and who needs it?

Is there a solution to this costly form of communication? What are your thoughts about documents costing an eye-popping $2,473 per page? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Community Connection:

In addition to its peace-keeping, aid, and development operations, the UN performs vital functions like designating World Heritage sites, a status which confers protection on important historical sites around the world.

Read about 13 of Asia’s Most Spectacular World Heritage Sites or check out Hal Amen’s round up of Overlooked World Heritage Sites.

Photo: rq?

Recently, The Fun Theory, a group promoting behavioral and environmental change, turned an average subway staircase in Stockholm into a giant, musical piano to see if they could motivate people to take the stairs more if fun were a factor. Watch the video of their results:

Additionally, the group is promoting recycling by creating a recycling bin arcade machine that makes the act of recycling ordinary bottles and cans feel a bit like playing skee ball and some serious fun.

The Fun Theory believes that “the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better.” And after watching the videos, it’s easy to see why they are so consistently successful. As BNT Editor Christine Garvin points out in her article “Yogis At Play”, one of life’s most important qualities is play.

Now, discuss.

Photo: Marcin Wichary

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Matador is constantly scouring the Web and assembling a collection of the best travel video the world has to offer.

Would practicing poverty really help the world’s poor? Photo: Let Ideas Compete

Over on the Guardian’s environmental blog, a debate is raging.

On one side–and he’s pretty much a one-man team–is writer Tom Hodgkinson, who argues that “far more sensible than a ‘make poverty history’ campaign would be a ‘make wealth history’ campaign. “It is, after all,” he says, “the wealthy people who do all the damage.”

In his rather convoluted defense of this somewhat interesting, albeit totally unlikely to ever be realized idea, Hodgkinson grumbles that we’re all too divorced from the land, ourselves, and each other. We’re too tech dependent– “addicted” is the word he uses (though, curiously, he’s sharing his thoughts on a blog… I’ll leave you to ponder that one)– too consumerist.

We’re destroying the planet, he suggests, though we could save it, maybe, “[i]f we lived poor for just one day of the week….” In addition to “instantly reduc[ing] pollution by a seventh,” we–the world’s wealthy– “would rediscover the simple pleasures, such as cards, chess, backgammon, draughts, talking, dancing and playing music.”

I’m all for reducing consumption, unplugging more frequently, and spending quality time with the people I love. But I’m not sure I buy Hodgkinson’s argument that a “make wealth history” campaign would solve the world’s problems or make the world any more just for the poor, especially when he doesn’t really describe what such a campaign might entail besides harking back to the supposed “good ole’ days” before Blackberrys and iPhones.

I’m not the only one at odds with Hodgkinson–check out the comments section of his post.
What do YOU think? Share your thoughts in our comments section below.

Community Connection:

“Does traveling abroad = less conspicuous consumption at home?” asks Matador Abroad editor Sarah Menkedick.

Perpetually with one foot in the future, Japan recently brought on board a team of companies and researchers for what has got to be the most astro-ambitious project of the 21st century: the Space Solar Power System (SSPS).

The SSPS project, which Japan hopes to become fully realized as soon as 2030, will put into orbit giant solar panels just outside Earth’s atmosphere to gather the sun’s energy and beam it down to us in the form of lasers or microwaves. In the absence of clouds or that pesky ozone layer, solar energy can be over five times stronger in space than on Earth and according to the report from PhysOrg, Japan has been dead serious about this project since 1998.

Just a svelte island floating in the eastern Pacific, Japan depends on oil imports to run much of its machinery. If SSPS becomes a reality, Japan estimates the electricity produced will be six times cheaper than current in-country costs. “We’re aiming to produce stable, cheap power and hydrogen at a target price of 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour,” research scientist Hiroaki Suzuki was quoted saying in the Scientific American.

But powerful lasers beaming down from space don’t exactly inspire confidence in the court of public opinion and the very twilight zone nature of the SSPS project has got all the science and technology blogs aflutter. Tonic admits that the plan “sounds so very far-flung and fanciful,” while Tech.Blorge refers to it as “as a nod to science fiction.”

And while Matador is committed to greener living (hey, we sent one of our MatadorU students to take on the No Impact Week Challenge), we’re reserving opinion until the 2020 test launch.

Around this time last year, Matador published this article about US commitment to renewable energy, though it is clear that, much like as with cell phones and robot girlfriends, the Japanese have outpaced all others once again.

What do you think about a giant laser beaming super concentrated solar energy down from outer space? Share your thoughts with us!

A wind farm in Scotland; Photo: beltzner

Last month, I drove from New York to Boston.

Along the way, I noticed a couple wind turbines dotting the landscape, their blades turning slowly in the coastal breeze. I wondered how much energy they produce.

According to this 2006 Boston Globe article, a single modern-day windmill generates a lot more energy than I thought: One turbine is capable of powering an entire town’s streetlights and traffic lights.

Wind turbines haven’t taken off in the U.S. yet, but it’s hard to understand why with news like this: wind farms in Spain generate more than 50% of the country’s electricity needs.

In fact, the total output of Spain’s wind farms exceeds the energy generation capacity of 11 nuclear power plants.

If this is the case in Spain, which takes third place in the top 10 list of countries using wind power, then imagine what’s going on in Denmark, which claims the top spot on that list. It gained that position, says TIME journalist Bryan Walsh, because it had the “political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader.”

With the conversation about the imminence of peak oil intensifying, maybe it’s time for other countries to exercise that same kind of will to explore the power of wind energy.

Community Connection:

Learn more about peak oil in these articles:

What Cuba Taught Us About Peak Oil

Interview with Derek Wallace from OrganicReform.org