Catherine T. Hunt Speaks on Sustainability at Elon University

This past Monday, November 10th, Catherine Hunt, the former president of the American Chemical Society and a leader of the Technology Partnerships, Emerging Technologies of the Rohm and Haas Company, spoke at Elon University on the challenge of sustainability.

She started her speech by saying that "Sustainability is about prospering today without compromising tomorrow" and that the "Sustainability challenge is creating new ideas and products that are environmentally friendly, economically viable, and socially responsible."

Much of the problem surrounding the need to create awareness and promote sustainability is human nature. We all love the 'green movement' but in actuality we want a sustainable substitute good that is roughly just as effective, environmentally friendly, and will not cost us more. To answer this dilemma, Hunt proposed using "innovation."

However, with this term she cited a partially new and extended definition. Innovation involves "the act of creating a new product or process" as well as incorporating "invention to bring the sustainable product into its final form."

Hunt pointed out a commonly preformed flaw amongst advocates of sustainability: the need to recognise that multiple components are involved in truly creating a sustainable item. For example, energy, food, and water are all intertwined when initiating innovative development for farming. Hunt called this "systems thinking" and stated that many whom are in charge of allocating government funds for sustainability programs are not aware of this, causing less progress torwords goals many want to see.

This brings us to Hunts final thoughts, we need to learn to educate and market sustainability not only to consumers, but also to the government officials in charge of implementing policy and allocating funds. They don’t read the American Chemical Society Journal,” Hunt said. “They read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. We need to be writing for these types of newspapers.” We need to report the issues in a way people understand, briefing staffers, giving testimony, and celebrating success.

Hunt identified four groups involved in the sustainability challenge: the scientific society, the government (both state and federal), industry, and academia. According to Hunt, it was not just a matter of discoveries in the scientific communities but the teamwork and alliance between industry and academia and legislators and researchers.

“I really believe that no one can do this alone and it’s going to take all of these sectors working together,” Hunt stressed. “It’s not a question of whether you want to do it but how well you do it.”

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I believe sustainability is an important issue and topic for discussion. We need to find ways to create awareness and promote innovation to solve the dilemmas at hand. To learn more about socially responsible business, sustainability, and Catherine T. Hunt, please visit the links below.

Thanks for reading and please come back soon,

Kyle Gay

http://community.worldofgood.com/

http://www.rohmhaas.com/wcm/index.page

http://www.fairtradefederation.org/

What to Remember Before Election Day

So the big day is is coming and we're just two days away. But what do we need to remember before we make our final decision?

Think for Yourself.

I have been following nearly every major news station, website, and political blog that attracts large amounts of readers and the fact is they just don't cover everything. Rather, they will cover what the mainstream media covers in order to keep up ratings and in turn also attract more readers. However, you must remember that there are more topics then the economy.

To name a few, I would advise you think of each candidates stance on the following topics and as well I as strongly urge you to pursue research on each one.

1. Taxes

2. Afghanistan and Iraq

3. Energy

4. Health care

5. Education

6. Trade

7. Housing

8. Our political relationship with "radical" leaders and states

9. Economic reform

10. Social reform

I will warn you, it may be every hard to find any viable sources on some of these topics, however, keep looking, and always look at at least one more place other then the candidates homepage alone.

To analyse some of the sources I assume you, an educated, somewhat tech savvy, blogger/blog reader might use, here are my opinions on a few of our favorite websites:

http://www.digg.com/

This has some good articles. However, I wouldn't advise you believe articles published by the Huffington Post - often one of digg users favorite news sources. I have read many of their columnists posts and have seen vast generalizations such as equating the the republican United States Treasury Secretary Henrey Paulson' decision to suggest the last resort bail out plan as evidence that the entire Republican party is in fact Socialist. Also, note that the vast majority of popular dugg election stories are predominately liberal. Still, glance over the articles on digg.

http://www.politico.com/

Use it. At first it will seem lopsided to the democrats, but if you have a keen eye, you will learn they lean more left-central.

http://www.foxnews.com/

Although quite right, right-central, they have very rarely been accused of distorting the facts, and if you feel much of the media is too soft on the democrats, take a glance at here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

I advise you take a look, no bad at all, not absolutely amazing.

Also, feel free to e-mail me at kylewgay@gmail.com if you would like my view on a news source.

Remember! This is possibly the most important election in decades. with an unstable economy, and both parties promising radical reforms, we are looking to start our next administration with two balance beams of our democracy being repaired and restructured to the likes that has not been seen in decades. To go further, I truly believe it has never been seen to date given the rapid changes in technology, politics, and the global community over the last 15-20 years.

Please think responsibly and vote responsibly.

Kyle W. Gay