Young Indonesian Covers "Hurricane" / Leslie T. Chang's Factory Girls

"Peculiarly self-obsessed... inaccurate and disrespectful"   

- See Leslie T. Chang's TED Talk.

Windyasari Septriani of Indonesia can learn Bob Dylan's song Hurricane, and can share it with us, because she is part of the 3B3K... 3 Billion People who live in countries earning, plus or minus, $3K per year.  You know, the fastest growing segment of internet users.

Firehose 8: Leyla Acaroglu and "Environmental Folklore"

"There's no denying..."  Below are tweets sent last night from Australia, where the New York Times opinion author wrote yesterday's column about how cell phones and electronics are exported for primitive burning.  I tried to reason (and am still trying)...

Leyla Acaroglu ‏@EcoInnovators2h@AdamMinter There is no denying that the US exports and in cases dumps waste on other countries. Just one example http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/12/01/e-waste-investigation-nabs-green-recycler-eri …DetailsLeyla Acaroglu ‏@EcoInnovators2h@AdamMinter Even what is 'donated' eventually becomes a legacy that has to be dealt with. Read what the UN says http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=612&ArticleID=6471&t=long …

Here's the fascinating part... While she appeared to deflect the studies showing that the E-Waste Myths had exaggerated the dumping by tenfold, and even sent links to the UN studies back to me (and Adam M), and sent links from the "dark year" of 2010 which is when the studies were commissioned... her TED talk is actually - fantastically - titled "Question what you think".  It's all about using science and lifecycle to define sustainability, and to beware "environmental myths".

Leyla Acaroglu's TED Talk is called "Environmental Folklore".  It's about using Lifecycle analysis to determine the real environmental costs of our decisions.   She talks about the scatalogical focus of "end of life", which is the same theme/mantra of this blog.  She should be open to the idea that the carbon, energy, and environmental cost of a display device are mostly embodied from before it's even sold or initially used, and therefore (like UNEP) agree that reusing it makes more sense than shredding it.  But she says "even what is donated eventually becomes a legacy..."

In the TED talk on youtube, I agree with her thinking about plastic vs. paper.  What we need to do is get her to apply the same "looking at the entire system" to assess CRT reuse vs. CRT shredding, the "green myths".

"Before you listen to this little guy in your head..., you should stop and question what you think you know". 

She and I completely agree on the Lifecycle.  The problem is, that when she writes about "e-waste" and cell phones, she's letting the Little Green Gal do all her talking.   Greenpeace and BAN are telling little green lies, and it's not turning out well for Technicians of Color.

Myths, Folklore, Hoaxes and little green lies

"Bazaaristan" or "Bizarrestan": $10 Trillion Per Year Generated by Poor

"There is nothing 'underground' about it.  It is our preconception that says it is 'underground'".

FINALLY someone else is explaining what I've been screaming, via this TED Talk.  Thanks very much to our 2012 intern from Univ. Paul Cezanne in France, Adelaide (author of the French blog at right).



This is what I took away from my time in Peace Corps.  The defamation of 1.8M people is way off base, and the fact it is primarily coming from non-profits in Seattle should be a big wake up call to liberals.

Biography of speaker Robert Neuwirth, Author of "Stealth of Nations", below.

In his 2012 book Stealth of Nations, Robert Neuwirth challenges conventional thinking by examining the world's informal economy close up. To do so, he spent four years living and working with street vendors and gray marketers, to capture its scope, its vigor--and its lessons. He calls it “System D” and argues that it is not a hidden economy, but a very visible, growing, effective one, fostering entrepreneurship and representing 1.8 billion jobs worldwide.