[cc-community] [Icommons] Green at the iSummit
Alek Tarkowski
alek at creativecommons.pl
Tue Apr 1 18:43:45 EDT 2008
Hello,
I agree with the voices that have stated that a "green track" will
stretch very much the spectrum of the commons that is addressed at
iSummit. I think that with limited amount of time at our disposal, if we
mutiply the number of distinct topics, especially if they also require
specific and differing expertise, we might end up having thematic
"silos", which is not good.
Having said that, I believe the tie between information/cultural commons
and the environment as a commons is very important. Maybe it would be
best to have it addressed as a keynote? A person that comes to my mind
is Vandana Shiva, who actually gave a talk on this issue in London, I
think it was called "imagining the cultural commons". We are not
environmental scientists or activists and thus lack the knowledge - but
we have an attitude that let's us understand these issues, and this
could well be used in a keynote format, which - in my opinion - should
address broad, crucial issues.
Regarding the practical greening of the conferences, personal carbon
offsets seem to be getting hip, though in my part of the world *no one*
is talking about them... And they seem a partial solution - a way to
excuse the strain, rather than lessen it. I think that a good way to
make this summit green is simply for all participants be aware of the
environmental strain of global travel - and therefore make sure to make
the best of the fact that they dragged themselves across half of the
world or more on average, just so that they can do some work and talking
face to face. In this way, the cost is not just offset, but also
accounted for.
cheers,
Alek
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