The first thing you notice when you see the graph is that the cost for many abatement strategies is negative. That means these strategies make money, they don't cost money. The second thing that you notice is most of the money-making strategies are in the building industry: better insulation, better HVAC, better lighting, better water heating. Also in the money-making realm are better vehicle fuel efficiency and sugarcane ethanol. Forestry has perhaps the largest single abatement potential but is one of the more expensive methods; the power industry has the largest total abatement potential, but different technologies have different costs. There are some aspects of the graph I am skeptical about. For instance, the extremely high price of biodiesel--in San Francisco right now, biodiesel is cheaper than petro-diesel. (But Jørgen Vos of Sustainability Planning Partners and Natural Logic has done a paper indicating biodiesel makes less sense ecologically than we might think.) Also, nuclear power shows up as cheaper than wind, which is not true according to Rocky Mountain Institute's Winning the Oil Endgame. And finally, sequestration by plankton in oceans and biochar in soils do not even appear on the graph. But still, the graph is a fantastic visualization of most strategies and their costs. It should inform strategic planning in companies and governments.

Planning Effective Emission Trading Schemes

One governmental strategy for CO2 abatement is cap-and-trade systems. Emissions trading schemes in the EU and US currently only count CO2 abatement at the source--energy generation. But anyone who knows about efficiency (such as Amory Lovins, LBL, LLNL, NREL, and many other research labs) will be quick to point out that avoiding one unit of end-user electricity use avoids three units of primary energy use, due to the inefficiencies of generating electricity. Therefore, end-user efficiency should be valued right alongside clean power generation.

A movement has started to get efficiency equal footing in emissions trading schemes. Lend Lease Corporation, Lincolne Scott, and Advanced Environmental (a subdivision of Lincolne Scott) have proposed an Integrated Emissions & Efficiency Trading Scheme (EETS). The 70-page document details both the rationale of the system and how it would work. For instance, they quote the Stern Report and Bill Clinton, saying:

"If upstream emissions from heat and electricity are included, emissions from buildings total 40% of global emissions and up to 80% of total greenhouse gas emissions in our cities and towns. The building sector provides more potential for quick, deep and cost effective greenhouse gas mitigation than any other industry..."

They also quote the McKinsey study, saying "High value carbon credits of AUD $34 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) could realistically achieve a carbon zero position in commercial office buildings at nil cost and, based on the McKinsey cost curves, energy efficiency in buildings represents an estimated cost negative abatement of US$45 billion to the United States economy, and $5.2 billion to the Australian economy."

How would cap-and-trade work for efficiency? It would be similar to emissions trading, but instead of caps on emission from power generation, building owners would calculate the amount of CO2-equivalent emissions their buildings use (adding up all their electricity, oil, gas, and other energy use), and there would be a cap for an allowable amount of CO2 emission per square meter of building. This would not replace normal emission trading. The integrated EETS system would have an efficiency cap-and-trade market in addition to the power generation emission cap-and-trade market, working in parallel.

Detractors have argued against efficiency counting for emissions offsets because of concerns about double-counting. (If a building uses less energy, couldn't the building owner trade abatement credits while the power company also trades abatement credits for not generating the additional power that would have been used?) The EETS avoids this by having the two separate buckets, one for power generation and one for building energy use. Each is its own separate market, and efficiency credits would not count toward a nation's Kyoto Protocol goals.

Another argument against such a scheme is that cap-and-trade schemes are a form of tax and subsidy, and there is no need to subsidize CO2 abatement methods that are already money-makers (and they clearly are, by the McKinsey graph above). Architect and consultant Huston Eubank, formerly of the World Green Building Council and Rocky Mountain Institute, explained that in existing emissions trading schemes, "A project only qualifies... if it can prove that the emissions reduction would not have occurred without the project. In its strictest sense, this means that the project must not have been financially feasible without carbon credits." This causes the unintended consequence of not encouraging financially sustainable strategies for environmental sustainability. True sustainability needs to be commercially viable as well as ecologically helpful: isn't it a much better use of taxpayer money to launch an industry that will become self-sustaining rather than spend money on things which would never be economically feasible by themselves? Obviously the scale of our environmental challenge is large enough that we can't limit ourselves to money-making schemes--we need to pump money into every technology that works--but it would be foolish for us to skip over the low-hanging fruit in favor of more expensive, slower, and less proven strategies. That is effectively what we are doing with the emissions trading schemes that exist now.

The exclusion of money-making strategies for CO2 abatement in the building industry also ignores the perverse incentives of the building industry's economy. This is an industry where the people paying for a building's energy use are not the same people who built the building, where first cost is nearly always at odds with life-cycle cost. A cap-and-trade scheme is perfect for an industry like this, because it introduces a new feedback loop that counteracts (and in the long run overwhelms) the existing perverse incentives. It effectively rationalizes the economy of the industry, internalizing some of the externalities of inefficiency.

Steps To Implementation

How likely is an EETS to be implemented? Eubank provided me with documents from the UNEP's Sustainable Buildings & Construction Initiative, which said, "At the moment, a number of projects regarding energy efficiency in buildings - such as those that introduce solar power, more efficient lighting devices, HVAC systems, and cooking devices, such as stoves in rural areas that require less biomass in their operation - are eligible for the flexible instruments of the Kyoto Protocol, particularly under the CDM. These projects are, however, still rather few in number and limited to active solutions, such as PV cells, or other technological options. Passive solutions, such as the design of better oriented and ventilated buildings, are not yet applicable under the instruments of the Kyoto Protocol." What's required for passive systems to count are universally agreed-upon benchmarks and measurement standards, so that legitimate quantitative values can be established for energy savings. Luckily, data and calculation methods for this have been built and refined for over a decade in the US, as part of the LEED rating system, and have been worked on by some of the best labs and consultancies in the industry. The World Green Building Council and other groups can work together to establish similar benchmarks and measurement systems for national and international EETS systems. However, as Eubank pointed out, "Getting UNFCCC approval for a new methodology is a long and arduous process. Thus the importance of supporting this initiative."

Encouragingly, one of the UNEP's documents said that "At a June side event in Bonn, Germany, the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] secretariats requested UNEP-SBCI's to assist in reviewing how to put the building sector on the agenda at the upcoming Conference of the Parties 14 in Poznan, Poland in December 2008." Public awareness of Lend Lease, Lincolne Scott, and Advanced Environmental's integrated efficiency and emissions trading scheme is still slim, however, and it needs to come to the attention of more policymakers. It would be foolish of us to bypass the low-hanging fruit of 40% of the world's CO2 emissions, which can be abated not only without economic hardship but with economic gain.

By Lori Williams

We know our environment, and the rules we live by, affect our health. The city around us influences how much time we spend walking, how clean our air is, even how anxious we feel. So how can we plan effective local infrastructure that also helps to keep our community as healthy as possible? An analytical tool called a health impact assessment (HIA), which has a long history of use in Europe, is now gaining popularity in the U.S. as a practical means of putting the well-being of people back into the policy-making process. These studies evaluate all potential public health effects (both negative and beneficial) of a project, program or policy.

The few HIAs that have been conducted in the States so far have had significant impacts. In San Francisco, HIAs have contributed to the passage of a citywide living wage ordinance and to an increase in affordable housing requirements in the downtown area plan. HIA recommendations led to the creation of a new cross-departmental Active Living Division in the city of Decatur, Ga., and an HIA in Minneapolis helped make the case for funding pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure as part of a redevelopment project (if you're interested in case studies, you can download more information here).

In my hometown of Seattle, HIAs have also made a difference in city planning discussions. Public Health – Seattle and King County and pedestrian advocacy group Feet First conducted a pilot HIA to evaluate the impact of the planned LINK light rail project in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. According to Seth Schromen-Wawrin, active communities program director at Feet First, the Beacon Hill HIA drove the decision to design the station as a "festival street" with public gathering space that could host a farmers' market and other community building events. Lyle Bicknell, senior urban designer with the city of Seattle, says that the HIA "added gravitas" to the discussion "about how to make the situation more walkable, more green."

A second HIA was mandated by the 2007 State legislature. In Senate Bill 6099, the legislature directed Public Health and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to conduct a health impact assessment for the SR 520 bridge replacement, a 6-mile highway project that will replace aging structures with safer ones, and add new HOV lanes. According to the most recently available documents, the SR 520 HIA is considering the impacts of the bridge on "air, noise, green space, water, physical activity, safety, social capital, mental health and emergency preparedness."

HIAs are customized case-by-case to examine the health-related factors that are most relevant to a specific project. Existing HIAs have researched impacts on general and pedestrian safety, air quality, physical activity, access to open space, noise, social capital, income, educational achievement and emergency preparedness. HIAs generally focus on intermediate variables, rather than health outcomes themselves, because the variables are often easier to relate to project activities. For example, an HIA evaluating a housing project might focus on housing affordability, and the potential for residential displacement and segregation. It would not include the myriad mental and physical health effects that may result from unstable housing, such as stress-related illnesses or poor school performance among children.

Health impact assessments range in complexity from simple, "rapid" HIA to more extensive "comprehensive" HIA. In a rapid HIA, a public health professional reviews existing evidence between a type of project or program and health, and may make recommendations to the responsible project team or government staff. A comprehensive HIA also includes data collection from surveys, focus groups or other methods, and a process for engaging community members to develop recommendations. A rapid HIA can be conducted quickly, with few resources, in response to emerging needs. A comprehensive HIA with a community engagement process requires significant resources, both human and financial.

HIAs can bring health risks and benefits to the forefront of public discussion in a practical way that engineers, designers, decision-makers and the community can use to guide their conversations. If your local government is considering a major project or program, as them if they have thought about conducting an HIA.

If you’re a professional interested in conducting HIAs or supporting the use of HIAs, you can also sign up for the National Health Impact Assessment Listserv.

Lori Williams is a community organizer for active living and sustainability in the Seattle area. She holds an MPH and PhD in Epidemiology and can usually be found riding her bike.

Photo credit: flickr/shelbytwhite, licensed by Creative Commons.

But like so many ratings systems, this one is very far from perfect. Walk Score's site admits as much when it says,

We'll be the first to admit that Walk Score is just an approximation of walkability. There are a number of factors that contribute to walkability that are not part of our algorithm:

* Public transit: Good public transit is important for walkable neighborhoods.
* Street width and block length: Narrow streets slow down traffic. Short blocks provide more routes to the same destination and make it easier to take a direct route.
* Street design: Sidewalks and safe crossings are essential to walkability. Appropriate automobile speeds, trees, and other features also help.
* Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?
* Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?
* Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you're carrying groceries.
* Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking.
* Weather: In some places it's just too hot or cold to walk regularly.

But these factors are not incidental. They're fundamental.

For Walk Score to be what it aspires to be -- a universal rating of the walkability of U.S. communities -- its current algorithm, which in essence measures population density through the concentration of certain sorts of amenities, won't do.

Walking is an inherently qualitative and sensory experience. Streetscape matters. A lot. Hills, dangerous street crossings, menacing alleys, mean dogs, dead-end streets, rushing traffic: these things can easily make a dense neighborhood pedestrian-hostile. It's telling to me that several of the neighborhoods that rank highly on their list are ones I know well, and ones that many people would find unpleasant to walk around in, especially at rush hour or at night. Not all dense neighborhoods are walkable, and we want to be promoting good design as much as density.

What's more, the claim to predicting car freedom is a bit flimsy, I feel. The main reason is that while essentially all neighborhoods in which it is easy to go car-free are walkable, not all walkable neighborhoods make it easy to ditch the car. Car freedom requires certain kinds of substructures that not all walkable neighborhoods provide -- not just transit, bike paths, shared cars, but less defined things, like easily walkable connections to other neighborhoods, or nearby markets that keep long hours (since you don't have access to a car to drive across town to get something).

Now, obviously, no algorithm is going to make all these qualitative and complex judgments. The obvious answer is to use crowdsourcing. Open up the mapping process and allow people to rate streets and amenities by certain criteria. Make Walk Score a Yelp for good pedestrian experiences. Allow bikers to collaborate. Include transit riders. Encourage the disabled to bring their own perspective to the streetscape (since not all pedestrians in fact walk).

Users might even be given a set of standardized tools to use to think about walkability, perhaps akin to this neighborhood pedestrian-friendliness checklist (PDF).

Of course, in order to really make something like this take off, the Walk Score guys will have to pursue a model of open distribution, and it seems like they are unfortunately thinking more in terms of a closed proprietary system that commercially licenses uses of the algorithm, for instance to realtors. This is an outdated business model, it seems to me, yet another example of sustainability advocates failing to embrace the power of innovative approaches.

A different sort of tool-building approach can be seen in the Carbon Goggles project. The premise here is simple: we increasingly know the carbon footprint of objects. We have virtual reality systems which can model the real world. What if you combined the two?

Carbon Goggles allows you to move through Second Life and see how much climate impact the things you see there (or at least some of them) would have in the real world, based on AMEE, the amazing carbon footprint database of ally Gavin Starks.

There's a lot to love here, and lots to kibbitz about (given the greenhouse emissions of computing, an avatar footprint view would be a cool feature as well), but the fundamentals are informative: a mash-up tool, based on an open data platform (AMEE shares) and a sort-of-open visualization platform (Second Life is taking steps towards openness), that allows us a window into what was previously opaque.

We also live in a time when, for the first time, it can be ecologically cheaper to think than to burn energy. (In the past, for instance, resources were cheap and engineering was expensive -- now the opposite is true, and in some uses where engineering can be automated, it's trending towards free).

Our world is already aswarm with data, and soon we'll be piping it through our lives in great gushing torrents. We have amazing platforms, brilliant protocols for sharing information, great ideas for mashing-up insights. If we get the systems right -- and that must mean, whenever it's useful and possible, that these systems are open -- we can use our newfound ability to understand the flows in our lives to transform the impacts of our lives, while making our lives more interesting and beautiful.

But only if we get it right.

(Thanks to Gabriel Scheer and Jim Purbrick for the information.)

By Nancy Scola

Inside each of the more than one million 3G iPhones sold so far, you'll find a lithium-ion battery. No big surprise there. But what's different here from early model iPhones is that the batteries are not soldered in place. That's good news. It means that when your iPhone has a dead battery, you can simply get a new battery, rather than sending the whole thing back to corporate HQ, or dumping it in the trash. And speaking of trash, there's more good news on that front: an unsoldered battery makes a phone easier and more economical to dissemble and recycle.

But you wouldn't know all that from Apple's marketing. It took the gadget gurus over at iFixit to buy and quickly break down a 3G phone to get the scoop on the removable battery. In fact, you wouldn't know much at all about the new iPhone's greenness from Apple. I put a call into a company press contact, who walked me through apple.com to find a brief below-the-fold environmental impact statement on the new iPhone. (This is not exactly transparent backstory management.)

But while the new iPhone is far from sustainable, Apple's tucked-away impact statement points to definite improvements from the first generation to the second. Beyond the replaceable battery, the handset, headphones and USB cable are all now PVC-free. The circuit board is produced without bromine. The LCD is made sans mercury. And let's back up a bit -- buying a new iPhone might not even be necessary. The software 2.0 upgrade means that owners of first-gen phones don't even need to buy a 3G to get most of the newest functionality.

Apple has long had a reputation, deserved or otherwise, for lagging behind the rest of the computing industry when it comes to the environment. Two years ago Greenpeace launched a campaign to Green My Apple. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has targeted the company with its Bad Apple campaign. Last April, Steve Jobs responded with a manifesto titled "A Greener Apple." In it, the CEO praised the company while establishing a commitment to quit using toxic chemicals and improve recycling.

Millions of pounds of electronic waste is generated in the U.S. each year, as we've documented here on Worldchanging. Much of the world's e-waste is shunted off to developing countries, creating landscapes that look like the trashed Earth in Pixar's "Wall-E." Producer take-back programs not only help solve what to do with that waste but also encourage producers to design for recyclability. Apple now takes back all cell phones, regardless of manufacturer, and has stated a commitment to recycle all of its North American e-waste in the United States.

This is all stuff Apple should be bragging about. We tech geeks obsessed over the details of the new iPhone 3G. Product images were examined with the loving care generally reserved for sonograms and release date was tracked as carefully as a due date. Battery life, the new app store, its $199 price tag and AT&T's new rate plans were hashed over. But iPhone's greenness rarely came up, if ever.

Do Apple's marketing wizards think that even their notoriously discerning and design-minded customers are unconcerned about the sustainability of the products they buy? Here, we're talking about smart baked-in design that reduces toxic exposure and waste -- much more game-changing than, say, a shiny but inefficient solar cell-phone charger -- but it seems that the latter type of "green products" often get more air time. Corporations are in the great position to educate consumers about paradigm-shifting ways of doing business. Until we're at a point when ethical, sustainable business practices are the standard and don't need to be shouted from the rooftops, it would be great to see a forward-thinking company like Apple push the edge of that envelope.

For more, don't miss Jeremy Faludi's four-part series on green IT in our archives.

Nancy Scola is a Brooklyn-based writer, blogger, and editor who focuses on the place where technology meets culture. She's worked in the past on Capitol Hill, in presidential politics, and in progressive radio.

Photo credit: flickr/Fr3d.org, licensed by Creative Commons

Whether at the local, national or global level, the plan for a switch to renewable energy involves two crucial pieces: policy and technology. As I discussed in my previous post, many of the discussions at last month's 7th Annual World Wind Energy Conference focused on the need – and best-practice strategies -- for firm political policy. Certainly, without effective policy, even the best technologies may not reach their potential. But policy relies on an infrastructure of effective tools to get the job done.

A technology geek at heart, I spent a good bit of the conference searching out those tools in the exhibits area, where ingenuity was bursting from entrepreneurs young and old alike. I found it incredibly inspiring to witness the ingenuity of individuals; their drive, passion and commitment to making a difference that fuels so many people in their search for technical solutions. What follows are some of the highlights:

CWIND
Some opponents of wind power claim the resource isn't reliable. But engineers are countering with the argument that the real problem is our inflexible method of harvesting wind energy. Wind has never pretended to be a steady, static resource – it comes in gusts, and sometimes slows to a whisper. So, in order to harness its power, we need a system that can respond to changes in input.

Engineers Na’ al Nayef and Duraid Nayef of New World Generation Inc., a privately held company with numerous patents in energy storage and wind power generation, have developed CWIND, an innovative variable speed turbine that generates 3-phase power. The main turbine is run by multiple smaller generators that can be engaged together or individually depending on the amount of wind available. The generators can also sense wind gusts and disengage, reducing wear on the mechanical drive. The more flexible system uses its turbine more consistently, and requires fewer costly repairs. An average 2 MW turbine can cost $600,000 to replace, and depending on wind gusts, might require replacement twice over a 20 to 30 year period.

Recent CWIND field trials proved the reliability of the technology. “This testing gives us full confidence to proceed with our commercialization plan to bring utility-scale CWIND turbines to market,” said Paula Mayor, Business Development Manager. “We are now actively seeking strategic partners to take our design to market.”

Lighter-than-Air Wind Turbines
The team at Magenn Power, founded by veteran airship specialist Fred Ferguson, has just found another application for airships in the wind energy arena (see more about this technology in the Worldchanging archives).

Their project, the Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS, pictured at top, image credit: Magenn) is a lighter-than-air tethered wind turbine that rotates horizontally generating electrical energy. The energy is transferred down a 1000-foot tether for immediate use, or to a set of batteries for later use, or to the power grid. It can fly higher than traditionally installed wind turbines thus catching nighttime jet streams. Other advantages, you can install it pretty well anywhere (locations only restricted by the Federal Aviation Administration & Transport Canada), it can handle a wider range of wind speeds and be deployed without heavy cranes. The crew at Magenn says the technology is perfect for remote areas and developing nations. But you never know, you just might find a “balloon wind farm” near you someday.

One House Revolution

Image credit: Volker Thomsen

A visionary and founder of many international companies, Volker Thomsen has worked on renewable energy projects in Denmark and Germany, and is a founding member of the World Wind Energy Institute. A dedicated educator and past president and CEO of St. Lawrence College (Kingston, Ontario), Volker is now using his home as a living example of how renewable energy can be used by everyone. He calls his project, "The One-House Revolution."

The entire project has been developed on a modular basis so that it can be scalable to any size, including apartment complexes. This conventional Canadian home has been converted into a unique self-contained system that generates 100 percent of its own electricity, heat, water and food year-round. The house employs a 5KW solar PV system for electricity, geothermal for heating and cold storage, and a FAST biological sewage treatment system for water regeneration. The winter garden yields fresh vegetables even during Canada's snowbound winters.

The Thomsens are recording their annual savings, which they currently estimate at more than $10,000. “My main purpose,” explains Volker, “is to give people the guidance to convert their homes in the same way. Here I have created a zero footprint home and I want to make this technology accessible to anyone.” Volker is penning his “One House Revolution” experience in a book that will be completed in the Fall, 2009. He will also open his house to schools and the public to share his learning.

The NDSS Stirling Engine Project

Photo credit: Kathryn Cooper

Next up, an educated tug of the heartstrings. A group of 17-year-old high school students from the Napanee District Secondary School (NDSS) in Napanee, Ontario presented a compelling and well-researched plea urging adult decision-makers to adopt and deploy renewable energy solutions.

Under the direction of teacher George Knight, the team of students spent the past 18 months building their version of a home-based solar powered Stirling engine. While leading firm Stirling Energy Systems (SES) has commercialized this technology for solar farms, it is not currently available for small scale applications.

“The question is whether we are going to take the big steps now to avoid the really big jumps later,” observed student team member Jake Mitchell before the international audience of world wind energy thought leaders. “I feel if we (as students) can take some of these steps, why can’t the rest of the world?”

Knight spoke proudly of his students' keen interest and commitment to finding a renewable energy alternative for home use. “I want you to picture how much better our lives would be if we could take the energy of the youth of the world, gave them the knowledge, the skills and the means, and challenge them to repair the planet we are leaving them.”

Photo credit: Kathryn Cooper

Wind Energy Training Centers in New Mexico and Alberta, Canada
Finally, on the education front: wind energy technology classes are gearing up across North America. General Electric Corporation and Mesalands Community College in New Mexico just signed a contract for a 1.5 MW wind turbine to support their Wind Energy Technology Program. The program will be similar to Lethbridge College’s Wind Turbine Technology course, where candidates learn to test, maintain and service wind generation equipment. Lethbridge is one of five Canadian colleges that will offer this program. St. Lawrence College, host of the 7th World Wind Energy Conference, is in the process of developing their curriculum to train wind technicians.

Kathryn Cooper is a sustainability practitioner and a researcher in sustainability and education at York University, Toronto, Canada.

“We really want to lift the taboo on talking about politics in a way that doesn’t necessarily involve having to say who you choose to vote for” says the game’s producer and ‘virtual electoral officer’ Craig Neilson.

Pulse of the Nation is the brainchild of Jimungo, a New Zealand company specialising in game design for the web. The new website is based on a game platform where communities of players are asked to predict the outcomes of sporting events. Players compete against friends, family and other community members and can win prizes.

Pulse of the Nation will run a virtual election every two weeks up to New Zealand’s next general election later this year.

After players register and cast a vote for their preferred party, they arrive at the prediction section. Players are asked to guess the outcome of the next election. While all the specific data about individual’s political preferences are kept private and confidential at all times, results from all the virtual elections are freely available on the Pulse of the Nation website.

The gaming experience is designed to be fun and welcoming, but there is a deeper intention. The interface aims to simulate the voting day experience as much as possible to encourage political participation. The creators of Pulse of the Nation hope that the game will to encourage people to have a good think about their vote, and the consequences of their vote, well before they step into the voting booth on election day. They also hopes that Pulse of the Nation will be a way for the nearly 50,000 New Zealanders who live in other countries to connect with the political life of their homeland.

Most political opinion polls in New Zealand are done by telephone and involve relatively small numbers of potential voters, usually between 500 and 1000 people. By contrast over 6000 people had registered and voted on Pulse of the Nation in the two weeks leading up to the first virtual election last week.

The results showed an even more dramatic swing against the current Labour government than recent opinion polls had suggested, with the National party receiving over 57% of the votes cast.

While New Zealand uses a MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) voting system that allows people to vote for both their preferred local candidate and their preferred political party, Pulse of the Nation is only offering one party vote. I look forward to the possible addition of two-vote functionality as the parties release their electoral lists. Watch this space.

Another obvious issue with voluntary data of this kind in an online environment is the ‘non-representative’ nature of people polled. When you register for Pulse of the Nation you are asked to provide basic information about age, ethnicity, and which electorate you are registered to vote in. The intention of the site is to provide information, not analysis. Neilson referred me to Farhad Manjoo’s recent book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post fact Society (Amazon Link).

Interested readers may also want to check out another similar initiative that has been developed by Qi-Shan Lim at Auckland University called The New Zealand Political Stock Market. Neilson has met Lim and says that while they had similar aims and interests, the approaches of the two projects are very different. Neilson says he is excited to see other young New Zealanders getting creative around the political life of their country.

See also: Gaming For Change

Note:
Craig Neilson is a contributor to WorldChanging. He has had no editorial control over this article.