While my memories from Silicon Valley start-up land are fading, I do remember one thing. If you have limited time and resources (which
most people do) and you want to succeed, focus on one important thing and
knock it out of the park.
Hence, I was excited to learn about the upcoming event Focus the
Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America. The magic day is January 31, 2008. On this day, millions of students, teachers,
and leaders will help to Focus the Nation on solving global warming. And focus is a good thing! It will lead to hockey stick results, and keep the venture capitalists at bay.
The core of the program is a Teach-In, not to be confused
with a be-in. Entire schools and
universities will turn their attention to global warming with an ambitious and
inspiring suggested Model Teach-In Schedule on January 31. Clearly someone who drinks a lot of coffee made this. Even a few sessions would be tremendous. Hopefully somebody will
film and assemble bits and pieces from this day across the country, as I’d like to be a (clean)
fly on the wall in these classrooms. Over 1450 teams have already signed up, and you can click on this cool interactive map to find like minds in your area.
There will also be a free, live, interactive webcast called The
2% Solution Webcast the evening of January 30 featuring celebrity Edward Norton, Stanford University climate scientist Stephen
Schneider, sustainability expert Hunter Lovins, green jobs pioneer Van Jones,
youth climate leaders, and audience participation. Help them achieve their goal
of 10,000 screenings. That should be a slam dunk. Sign
up to host a webcast - a great excuse to throw a party and serve organic vodka.
Why 2%? To hold
global warming temperature rises at the low end of 3-4 degrees F, it will
require global warming pollution cuts by more than 80% below current levels by
2050. Put another way, we need to cut roughly 2% of current emission levels a
year for the next forty years. Let's all help by turning off unneeded lights,
driving high fuel-economy cars, and putting electronics on a power strip and
switching to off at night! Regarding the
latter, you will be amazed at the decrease in your monthly electric bill.
Back to focus. We are
all shareholders in the Fight Global Warming Start-up. Let's join together to launch this start-up
into the carbon-free stratosphere. The
returns will be huge. We will gain the
benefits of a more secure planet for ourselves and our children, financial
savings from energy efficiency, more vibrant forests, new cleantech industries,
less pollution, a less violent world, and the peace of mind of knowing that we
are doing all we can to save this beautiful blue planet of ours.
Let the Teach-In begin. Consider it Ferris Bueller's Green Day Off. Bueller, Bueller... Focus the Nation
While my memories from Silicon Valley start-up land are fading, I do remember one thing. If you have limited time and resources (which
most people do) and you want to succeed, focus on one important thing and
knock it out of the park.
What an inspired idea - why don't you help the like-minds find out a little more about each other through www.findlikeminds.com ?
Posted by: Dan | January 20, 2008 at 01:44 AM