Nature is the best business consultant
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Summer 2016 Nature provides the principles for sustainable business, but a fear-and-greed-driven mindset obstructs us from running business naturally. Why the “whole brain state” is essential to sustainability. By Rob Williams Photography: Bruce Read More...
Possibility: Windmills under the sea
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 There’s enough wave energy in the oceans to power the world, and scientists and businesses are finally close to harnessing it. For decades wave energy has lagged behind wind energy and solar because harnessing it is more complex. But for Jim Read More...
Nature's air filter
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 Air pollution is responsible for roughly 7 million deaths worldwide every year. Air-borne pollutants also cause heart disease, stroke, skin diseases, reduced fertility and miscarriage, and cancer. There’s a solution: Plants that clean the Read More...
Nature's air filter
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 Air pollution is responsible for roughly 7 million deaths worldwide every year. Air-borne pollutants also cause heart disease, stroke, skin diseases, reduced fertility and miscarriage, and cancer. There’s a solution: Plants that clean the Read More...
Ode to Ruth Buendía Mestoquiari, Pakitzapango Canyon, Peru
From The Optimist Magazine Summer 2014 Saving the forest For the Asháninka people of the Amazon rainforest, the Ené River Valley is their ancestral birthplace. This sacred home of the Asháninka was nearly taken away by the 2010 Peru–Brazil Energy Agreement, which aimed to build 60 large-scale Read More...
Ode to Guilin and Lijiang River National Park, Guangxi, China
Protecting China’s natural heritage From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2915 “The river winds like a green silk ribbon, while the hills are like jade hairpins.” So wrote the Chinese poet Han Yu (768–824), in praise of the area surrounding the Chinese city of Guilin, at the banks of the Read More...
Possibility: Let nature run wild
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 Commentary by Fred Pearce, a London-based environmental writer, is author of numerous books, most recently The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature’s Salvation, from which this is excerpted. Rogue rats, predatory jellyfish, suffocating Read More...
Jim Channon: Mobilizing the military to clean up the earth
Actor Jeff Bridges nominates Jim Channon, who wants to mobilize the military to plant trees, clean up freshwater reserves and restore reefs. Susanne Sims | Jan/Feb 2010 issue It’s a cold winter day in Kansas, with the windchill driving temperatures well below zero. Why would anyone leave a Read More...
Allan Schwarz: Nature conservationist
Summer Rayne Oakes, an eco fashion model, recommends Allan Schwarz as an intelligent optimist working to restore and conserve the forests of Africa and the dignity of the people who live there. Summer Rayne Oakes | Jan/Feb 2010 issue Allan Schwarz. Founder, Mezimbite Forest Center. Beira, Read More...
For the good of Gaia
Eco-visionary James Lovelock believes catastrophic climate change is on the way—and we should start preparing for it now. Marco Visscher | November 2009 issue He seems to lead the life of a typ_ical scientist-cum-inventor. For over thirty years, James Lovelock has quietly worked in his laboratory Read More...