In Italy, a successful experiment by a team of European scientists enabled a man who had lost his arm in an accident to control a computerized robotic arm attached to his neural network through several electrodes, which translated his thoughts into motions.  The experiment, called LifeHand, was the longest length of time that a human has been connected to such electrodes and has increased the odds that full range-of-motion prosthetic limbs will be available in the near future. It was also done for a relatively modest $3 million dollars. When considering that repairs to another experimental technology, the CERN Hadron collider cost $40 million Euros and the collider itself cost just shy of $5 billion! the LifeHand experiment has more comparative bang for its buck at this point (No pun intended).  It’s an important development in the challenge to create a viable interface between the nervous system and prosthetic limbs, but in order to have full utility the technology needs to be proven over a substantially longer temporal scale; years, even decades.  So, because all we in Vancouver ever talk about lately are the Winter Olympics I’d like to ask what the implications of technology like this are for the future of our Paralympic Games?

There are other technologies that have already called into question whether being “disabled” in fact opens the door to gaining an unfair advantage through supplemental technologies like runner Oscar Pistorious’ prosthetic legs, which have coined him the nickaname “Blade Runner” and also had him disqualified from the Olympics for being too fast. Incidentally, Oscar’s uncle Jaco Pastorious was also given an unfair advantage over all other bass players through his prosthetic rubber-fiberglass fingers; making him undoubtably the world’s greatest bass player as his own website attests to. (ed. That last thing about Jacko Pastorious is unconfirmed- but highly likely) But Canadians are very unforgiving towards use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. According to a recent Montreal Gazette article 93% of all Canadians feel that penalties should be stricter for athletes found to have used performance enhancing drugs…but what about performance enhancing technology in the Paralympic games? Could this become an ethical conundrum down the road? If it doesn’t I’m prepared to say that most of the speed, strength and other records set by humans will be broken predominantly by those labeled as being at a disadvantage.

If the materials and technologies that we use to replace lost appendages continue to advance to the point where artificial legs make us run faster, and artificial arms help us throw faster, lift more and hit harder, then one can only imagine that the Paralympics will be the more exciting and “extreme” and therefore the more popular and watched of the Olympics. Pistorious is the manifestation of that now, while LifeHand represents the further  potential of this reality moving forward.

I can see my great grandchildren now, complaining to their friends about how the outrageously expensive tickets to the 2080 Vancouver Summer Olympic, Paralympic and Cyborg Games were all bought up by corporate sponsors and the  government.  Though neural prosthetic limbs and other technologies will undoubtedly change, some things probably never will.

Today is World AIDS Day and although the disease remains currently incurable, the advancements in medical technology that prolong life and mitigate the effects of the sexually transmitted auto-immune virus  are impressive. We’ve come from a point where 25 years ago patients would be dying within months to a year of being diagnosed. Now, with early HIV detection, an HIV positive person in their 20s can enjoy a dramatically increased life expectancy, well into their senior years.  This is of course thanks to improvements and discoveries in treatments, but some are cautioning that the younger generation is placing too much faith in antivirals. 30% of new HIV cases in Quebec are from men and women  in their late teens and 20s. In some parts of the world the virus is increasing in both old and young alike. It is most commonly poorer regions of the world that see a continuing rise and spread of the disease but one of the world’s richest countries is also seeing a sharp increase.

Surprisingly, cases of  HIV and AIDS in Japan have been rapidly increasing and lack of education as well as cultural “hang-ups” are cited as the leading causes. Many other parts of Asia and Africa are heavily impacted by the socioeconomic damage of the persistent disease; Japan saw its first case in the early 1990s. Some areas of Asia are in danger of similar rapid increases like Japan’s. New research in  Pakistan shows that HIV/AIDS has been increasing there with a risk of the disease flaring up dramatically, led largely by IV drug use and the sex trade. Even in North America, aboriginal Canadians have a higher infection rate of HIV/AIDS than the national average and are a higher risk group than other segments of the Canadian population while the Canadian city of Vancouver, consistently cited as one of the most livable cities in the world and an affluent global destination has a persistent and serious hard drugs and sex trade HIV/AIDS challenge that is endemic to the city’s poorest neighborhood- the downtown eastside.  Vancouver’s gay community is also acutely aware of the dangers of this social and sexual disease. 50% of all HIV cases in the Province of BC in 2008 were from gay men, proving that the disease is still looming over the homosexual community in a profoundly serious way.

Though a global effort has been under way to combat the disease it remains entrenched in certain sectors of the population and in certain geographies,  but there are some who are optimistic that a combination of education and prevention, proposed universal voluntary HIV testing and treatment programs as well as a long term strategy and even an eagerly anticipated AIDS vaccine can potentially eradicate the disease in our lifetime. Technologies and practices such as condoms, abstinence, education pushes, topical microbicides (spray on gels and foams that prevent the spread of the virus during sex) and testing kits like the ones recently donated to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s 2009 Testing Millions Global Campaign by Chembio Diagnostics (an American Firm that manufactures, licenses and markets proprietary rapid diagnostic tests) are all examples of tools and practices that have been developed over time to combat HIV/AIDS. The disease presents a fascinating insight into how technology and science intersect with culture and economics around a microbe that can have such devastating personal and social impacts. World AIDS day is a reminder of just how complex the challenges are as HIV and AIDS continue to affect lives, cities and countries. Though the news may be good overall according to the UN, it isn’t good everywhere.

With the Vancouver Olympics fast approaching there are plenty of surprises, scandals and rising tensions bubbling to the surface as Canada gets ready to own the podium. So today I wanted to take a look at some new technologies that we’ll be seeing at the Olympics, and take a moment to examine the impact of technology in sport. The Canadian ski team recently announced that they’ll be employing the use of a real time GPS (Global Positioning System) called STEALTH. Just announced this week, the Olympic ski team and the University of Calgary have put 3 years of research and development into the system. It tells skiers the fastest and safest route down hills through a small lightweight box attached to the skier, that transmits satellite information to their helmet and then verbalizes the best path. Athletes and representatives from other countries have complained that it is an unfair performance enhancing technology.

Technology and sport have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship from the first ball or stick related games though, and on one hand we cry foul when someone comes up with a brilliant new material or method, yet it inevitably improves the performance, safety, and entertainment value of any given game. In hockey and football major focus has been placed on improving helmets and other protective gear, mainly due to the fact that technology, training methods and genetics have progressively increased the strength, skill and speed of athletes- oh I forgot drugs too. I guess we’ll lump that in with technology.

One kind of technology in particular is a hot topic during the upcoming Olympic games, surveillance. Over 900 closed circuit cameras have been implanted throughout Vancouver and area in an effort to make sure no funny business goes on during the games. The rigid security measures, parking and traffic controls, cameras, crowd control devices and harassing of liberal journalists like Amy Goodman, has numerous civil liberties groups very concerned that these Olympic games are going to turn Vancouver into a temporary Orwellian police state. But really, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear…

Funny how with over 900 cameras installed for the olympics that VANOC would fight to prevent the British Curling team from using their own single custom camera technology during the games. In the end the team won the right to use their camera-after much squabbling between Vancouver Olympics organizers and the curling powers that be who are headquartered in the UK- maybe it’s an example of post-colonial acquiescing. Or maybe the British curling team agreed to let it double as a security camera when they weren’t using it.  Considering how angry the public in Vancouver, Seattle, and elsewhere have been about ticket prices, hotel rates and every other detail of the games, it doesn’t surprise me that VANOC feels safer with Vancouver under martial law.

Can you hear it? A strange maniacal and giddy laughter faintly travels on the wind. I can hear it loud and clear from my office here in Vancouver…it sounds really close. Shhhh. It sounds like it’s coming from Washington State…yes, close to Seattle. Wait, I know that twisted giddy laugh…it’s Microsoft!

A few weeks earlier here in Senses Land we mentioned how Rupert Murdoch had basically lost his mind and was considering banning Google from accessing his many newspaper’s websites- like the blood sucking freeloading leeches they are. I mean really, don’t these guys at Google have any mid 20th century business-sense? Offering a free service that directs millions of people to Rupert Murdoch’s various newspapers and websites without asking anything in return. I mean come on! Where do they get off? It should be a crime to offer such a convenient service that millions of people use. To think that people would do that rather than walk outside in the freezing cold snow or pouring rain to the nearest newspaper stand and buy a physical copy of The Wall Street Journal or sit at home waiting for something interesting and newsworthy to be “reported” on by Fox News is just shocking. And Rupert Murdoch has been shocked long enough! Here’s the plan:

Murdoch blocks Google so that millions of people can no longer see his newspaper articles through that engine, meanwhile he convinces everyone to start using Microsoft’s search engine Bing; clearly it will be the superior search engine now based on the fact that it is the only one where you can get the twisted right-winged drivel produced by Fox News and other Murdoch owned companies. So if you want what the rest of the world considers news you can still use Google and if you want what Rupert Murdoch considers to be news you can use Bing- oh and you can gall dang paying for it too (Or Microsoft can). The details of how that all works will be worked out between Microsoft and News Corp, who I predict will soon become known as News Corpse, as this kind of backwards logic will surely kill this company. Microsoft paying huge sums of money for exclusive access to what many believe is the most slanted and biased news in the world is also, in my opinion, not good for their brand or their pocket book.

I’m not the only one who thinks News Corpse is doomed. The founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, recently spoke about Murdoch’s plans at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) in London England. To use the main sound bytes, Stone said it was a “vain attempt to put the genie back in the bottle” and that it would “fail fast“. When considering how rapidly the technology and software that powers the internet changes, one can clearly see that putting a “paywall” around your content and burying it inside a search engine with a 10% market share is akin to going cyber-Amish. (Yes I am coining that term, you heard it here first. Rupert Murdoch has officially gone cyber-Amish)

That hasn’t stopped the giddy laughter from Redmond Washington though, as Microsoft has been looking for any way possible to chip away at Google’s market share of the online search industry. I’m not sure if making your search engine the only one where users can pay to get right-winged conservative news from an old man who hates the internet is the best way to go about it though.

And so begins Murdoch’s exodus into the online wilderness, welcomed and aided by another global opportunist; it will likely end poorly for the both. They have officially begun to work against the forces of internet-nature and because of this will surely be covered over by the jungle or swept away by the tide. This story is beginning to read like a Greek tragedy, where two heroes are destroyed by their own greed, ego and ambition. Blinded by their own arrogance and sense of invincibility they feel beyond censure of the gods and nature. (in this case Google and internet users)

What a swan song this will be for Rupert Murdoch.

We’ve all read the stories of people being fired for a Facebook status exclaiming what a douche their boss was or how easy their job is or how they’re in fact at home playing video games instead of finishing a proposal etc etc,  but there are two recent ones that I think are incredibly unfair. Perhaps these unfair social media sackings reaffirm just how unfair this cruel world really can be. First Hollywood waiter Jon-Barret Ingels was stiffed by Hollywood actress Jane Adams who left to get her wallet from the car and never returned. After he tweeted about the incident he was then promptly fired after Adam’s Hollywood agency complained to the restaurant about the server’s righteous indignation. Wow- tough to make it in Hollywood even as a tweeting waiter.  A quick peruse of his tweets show that in fact he was a bit of a smarmy jerkoff who loved belittling the famous, so really it’s only partially cruel. First rule of social media- what happens in social media world doesn’t stay in social media world.

The one story that really gets the tears flowing involves a 23 year old Quebec woman, Nathalie Blanchard, who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder in 2008 and was on sick leave to combat it. She recently lost her medical benefits from having a photo of her on Facebook where she appeared happy (a single brief moment in a maelstrom of anguish and misery). The medical insurer Manulife halted Blanchard’s insurance support and claimed they felt it was clear that she was ready to work based on a photos of her smiling at a Chippendales bar show and another while on vacation. Now don’t be so quick to condemn her for being a complete moron. It was recommended by her doctor that she take small vacations to “cleanse her mind of worries and reintegrate with friends in social settings” and I can attest that winter in Vancouver makes even the heartiest of us crave a sunny tropical beach if only for a week.  The Chippendales is what sent it over the edge in my opinion.

While Manulife has clearly demonstrated that they are heartless and cold racketeers who would rather see someone sick at home crying in a pillow taking pharmaceutical drugs than out trying to shake the funk they’ve fallen prey to, if Nathalie had followed a few simple social media precautions she may have avoided all of this in the first place.

Firstly, THINK before you post. Will this offend your mom? Will it offend that one person of a sexual persuasion or ethnic heritage that you forgot you friended? Will this make you look like an idiot? Or your employer like one?

Try to remember that EVERYONE sees what you do. Not just the handful of people who may find your status or clip or photo you post funny. And not just your friends- the friends of your friends too.

Know the Facebook privacy settings or privacy features of your own computer or the social media platforms you are using and set them accordingly. If you don’t want everyone seeing your stuff then make sure your settings are as private as you need them to be. Manulife may be lurking!

When you do those BS quizzes that tell you what fruit or city or  member of the A-Team you are, remember that the answers you give say something about you. Even if you’re joking around some might not realize that. You could end up being a B.A. Baracas when in fact you’re a Templeton “Faceman” Peck and there’s a BIG difference to some employers.

As we continue to inch closer to the much anticipated second wave of global H1N1 pandemic, we are cautioned to wash our hands, cough into our sleeves, stay home from work if sick and above all else get vaccinated. I wrote an earlier post looking closely at vaccines,and new alternatives being developed, but don’t you worry about any of that anymore. The magic bullet has arrived. Vioguard of Bothell,Washington has introduced the world`s first self-sanitizing computer keyboard. It’s a simple “plug and play” tool that doesn’t require any additional software and uses ultraviolet germicidal irradiation to zap H1N1 and a whole host of other infections by retracting itself into its own clean, “light tight” enclosure and flooding the filthy keyboard with ultraviolet light. I wonder if it has a de-crumbing function too?

This is excellent news for healthcare workers in Vancouver and other major cities who are on the front lines of infectious outbreaks. The cleaning process takes 90 seconds, which is great if a healthcare worker doing data entry in the middle of a pandemic ever finds 90 seconds to stop and wait for their keyboard to take a bath. Sarcasm aside, it’s pretty relevant technology, but this is supposed to be a software blog today so let’s talk about Swine Flu software.

One of the most important weapons in outbreak management is accurate information about where outbreaks are and how they are moving. Upp Technologies and numerous other makers of software solutions have teamed with the Federal US government in an attempt to effectively deal with the logistics of a response to an outbreak. Taking statistical information from a variety of sources Upp’s Embedded Decision Support System can help EMS professionals and government to get vaccines or antivirals to where they are needed most. Logistical support from internet based data gathering platforms like Flu.gov now also aid different levels of government with needed support. Like most battles, military, legal, or other, information can be your most powerful weapon. This includes perhaps most poignantly the battle against disease outbreak.  The Upp Technology software is being used by the CDC to manage their statewide vaccine provider registration system. However, if you’re a champion of the free market and an anti big-government kind of person who is skeptical of taking bureaucratic channels for your swine flu needs, you can also turn to the Microsoft H1N1 Flu Response Center or YOU COULD READ the list of symptoms on any government web site. I don’t know why people think they need to fill out some kind of survey to be told whether or not they have swine flu symptoms. If you can read, you should be able to figure it out- but I guess we have a hard time trusting our own opinion. We like the finality of being told what we are, like in the hundreds of Facebook surveys telling us what city, fruit,car, or 80s tv-character you are. (Berlin,Orange,Toyota Prius, Alex P Keaton in my case) This brings me to my last point, one I’m hoping to explore more in the future. Any time we have private companies gathering information about the public I’m skeptical that there exists an absence of profit motive- although the Microsoft site does offer an opt-out for information being stored or shared if the user prefers- so that being said, Microsoft’s aims appear very decent. To alleviate the strain on the networks of our public services in the event of a major outbreak. But there still exists a huge profit potential in dealing with this much-anticipated outbreak. And I don’t say that in a critical manner, there are far worse things to be making money off of. It’s a simple fact that when information is both crucial to some and valuable to all- Swine Flu vaccine makers aren’t the only ones bringing home the bacon this flu season.

One of the challenges of eCommerce is being able to attract people to your site in the first place; after that, many other challenges follow. You need engaging design and layout that is both user friendly and informative, it’s essential to have a responsive and lightening quick Shopping Cart platform that is easy to use and secure (remember the 3 second rule) and you have to be able to track consumer preferences and behavior on your site- aka analytics. So it’s a very ornate structure of interrelated parts that eventually work together to facilitate a very simple process- you sell and someone buys. But let’s get back to the first point again, because I think this is where the most amount of change in eCommerce is going to happen.

The challenge of bringing people to your product is circumnavigated by being able to bring your product directly to the people, where they congregate. Like the zocolo or  piazza of old, this is what social media platforms like Facebook in a sense have become. It’s a place to peddle your wares to the masses in the most efficient manner- it’s where the action is. The creation of eCommerce Kiosks for Facebook is likely the beginning of what may be a far more extensive commercialization of social media. This may answer the question that many small business owners have been asking, mainly, how does this social media stuff make me money? It’s been a theme in social media, eCommerce and online-marketing in blogs in Vancouver and elsewhere. A conundrum if you will, full of voices both praising and questioning the success of social media for small medium and large-sized businesses. New Facebook eCommerce kiosks developed by Tucson, AZ based Artfire present a major step forward for those who have both lauded social media as a viable tool in eCommerce and online marketing and for those who have wanted it to be.  This kiosk format was designed by a company that in its own words has “…a passion for handmade, art, and indie business” so I really hope Facebook has incorporated this for the benefit of small business and entrepreneurs, keeping that spirit of Artfire’s intentions alive. I think it has great potential for any home business owners and small to medium-business owners who like many fortune 500 CEOs have been reluctant to see s0cial media and eCommerce in the same basket. This saves them a lot of money and effort to join the eCommerce race but the only concern I see is that you are surrendering a lot of power to Facebook concerning your company when doing this. So like many things in business and economics there is a tradeoff.  

What information is gathered? What are the integrity or safety of their servers? How much is your own brand or image being affected by using Facebook for eCommerce and what are your own analytical abilities concerning your kiosk? (anyone who knows please feel free to comment) Because other than those concerns, which are pretty major, I think it’s a very interesting development. That being said, any company able to be in complete- as possible- control of their eCommerce activities (meaning able to afford their own quality eCommerce solutions) I recommend they still develop and explore their own storefront rather than rely on FB. You can still direct traffic through social media to your own storefont and benefit from having more control over your image and analytics. But for a small startup or home-business this might be just the thing to bring in some needed revenue with a mimimal amount of cost incurred. I can see this catching on in a city like Vancouver, which enjoys a robust and sizeable population of entrepreneurs.

Right now there’s a technology and design competition going on in Washington D.C.’s National Mall (which is ironically the crappiest mall for shopping in the whole country). The contest, called the Solar Decathlon is pitting 20 teams formed of universities, colleges and design schools from around the world against eachother and aims at pushing the boundaries of self sufficient and energy efficient home design. Vancouver is represented by some talented SFU students whose Team Ontario/BC  or Team North as they prefer to be called (also comprised of Ryerson and Waterloo students) is within striking distance of the podium; currently in 6th place with 6 more days to go. The team scored the highest out of the 20 entries in the Comfort category – ironic considering most new homes in Vancouver are 500 square feet. Tell me…what am I going to do with 40 sq feet of “flex space”? More like a 40 square foot junk drawer. Anyhow…

This contest has laudable aims, but if I may be critical for a moment, we’ve had much of this technology and many of the concepts for a much longer time than many people think. The Earthship design concept has been in use since the 1970s and despite being in every state and, dozens of countries and having a major planned community in Taos New Mexico it is still largely a novelty housing design. Two of the fundamental ideas underpinning the Earthship philosophy is that we have enough post-consumer material to construct buildings with-we don’t need to cut down forests or mine new areas, and that we have enough energy to power a home coming directly from the sun, wind, or from geothermal sources. It’s a psychological barrier more than a technological or material one that we need to pass. In mainstream media these houses are said to be “made of garbage” when in fact much of what we use today is made of garbage. Green public building projects have adopted the Earthship philosophy into their concepts and many new roads, parking lots, and other projects are now made from post consumer products. At a civic level the impetus for it is frugality and utility, the barrier at the personal level is access and ego. We want new things, shiny things, but these materials themselves are not useful only in one specific format. And they become a technology when their use is altered. It is this notion that technology has to be new rather than useful, and its journey to our hands is through a top down distribution, that forms this barrier in my opinion. An old tire isn’t building technology- it’s just garbage. Rainwater isn’t drinking water, and electricity is something made by big companies, not something that can be harnessed by individuals. By and large these are in fact truisms, anchored in cultural static, but by no stretch are they absolute and unchangeable. Earthships defy this notion of technology by incorporating things like tires and cans to hold infill or insulation in foundations and walls. Old materials, new process, new technology. Is it accessible to the average man on the street? Economies of scale hasn’t entered the business plan lexicon of the Earthship community by my esitmation. Nevertheless, they remain pioneers and I believe they’ve helped to pave the way for events like the Solar Decathlon.  

Despite the fact that sustainable housing is in fact an older and more established idea than the Decathlon might let on, I am very excited about the event because it does put focus on making these concepts and designs more market-ready. Earthships (perhaps because of their outrageously hokey name) are still considered a fringe design- but these houses on the National Mall of the United States, the most powerful economic force on the planet, are bringing these concepts to the forefront. They incorporate modern design and convenience with the spirit of technological innovation. I hope they’ll be the rule and not the exception one day soon. That’s just the way things go though. It takes a while for new technology or approaches to bubble to the surface sometimes, and after that it takes even more time for the public to accept them as normal. The microwave became popular in the 80s- it was invented just after WW2. Don’t even get me started on the secret space program. I think we’re full on Star Trek next gen at this point. But that’s for another post. In THE FUTURE….(insert whoosh sound)

Good luck Team North!

It’s interesting how lately there has been a little bit of a backlash against social media in the workplace and traditional media. Most especially if your workplace is on a football field, basketball court, hockey rink or baseball diamond. While the NFL has banned Twitter from being used within a certain time span on game days, the other leagues are hot on its heels with their own clamp downs. And it’s not just pro sports franchises that want their employees to keep their head in the game. (no pun intended) The majority of companies in the US ban social media in the workplace; including Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Linkedin. (Seriously…that one was made specifically for business networking was it not?) This according to recent research from Robert Half Technology, the international IT staffing firm. The problem supposedly lies in businesses not seeing the profitability of social media. It is seen now by some as a distraction from the many tasks at hand instead of a tool to aid in connectivity. Or at the very least, employers are challenged by the new platforms and technologies, finding the utility of social media to be ambiguous. “How does this make me money?” The business owner will ask. To which the accountant will respond “It doesn’t appear to” but that’s a narrow way of looking at things. In fact a recent study done by Citibank shows that a minority but increasing number of small companies entering the social media sphere have found these platforms to be useful in generating business leads or revenue.

Small business have been timid in joining the party because of these traditional ways of looking at media, advertising and concerns about the valid role of social media in productivity and profit. But if social media didn’t generate profit then why did the American Federal Trade Commission roll out the first major piece of advertising legislation since the 1980s specifically to deal with issues related to companies using blogs and social media to market products? Advertising has adapted to the point where the old rules hardly apply to the new media and methods. And though social media and word of mouth can work for small business in Vancouver or elsewhere, it is the scalability factor that makes the tool so powerful for larger companies. Viral advertising is a great example. The FTC is continuing to work closely with the industry so it can better understand viral marketing and issues of legality. You can make a viral ad campaign for…well you can make it for free. And then you can send it out for…free. And it can reach millions and millions of people. Your overhead? Free. Your ROI on that piece of media if successful? About as good as it gets.

Viral campaigns are most powerful when they reaches millions, like grapeshot from a cannon. And it also works best when it includes a call to action that draws consumers into sites and stores; geographically dispersed and numerous like chains or franchises. They are also great if you generate ad revenue based e-commerce or by the number of unique visits to your content driven site. Mom and pop stores with a single location don’t benefit from social media grapeshot, they benefit from using it as a more focused and directed tool to engage their clientele and local market. So for the accountants that look at the numbers and say social media isn’t making money, just because the Facebook account isn’t attached to the cash register- they need to assess how it’s being used. This goes for both geographically dispersed companies and locally focused ones- because obviously it’s making money for a lot of other companies. It’s become such a powerful force in our world that it is being re-assesed by managers of companies, major sports leagues, our highest legal institutions and even entire countries as was the case of Facebook and the Canadian Privacy Commission. So unless a business owner or manager wants to exist in splendid isolation from the rest of the world, people such as myself suggest they work with the forces of nature rather than against them. If a business is anti-social media, they are being anti-social-period. And we all know how successful anti-social people are in the marketplace.

In an earlier post I lauded Angela Merkel for seeing greentech (or cleantech) as a means to propel Germany and the EU out of the recent recession and not just a bone to throw out to voters, like some Canadian politicians seem to view it. Turns out that Greentech allround has truly come into itself as a strong investment engine once again, not only in Europe but here in North America and perhaps most of all in China. It’s only taken 30 years- including Tesla’s inventions about 100 years I suppose- but I’m feeling pretty positive about the recent news that Cleantech has become the largest U.S. venture capital sector and that China’s cleantech market was now potentially valued at one trillion annually. But really, we have few other options considering the finite and externality plagued industrial sectors of old are running out of gas- literally. So is it Obama’s generous opening of future American’s wallets that has caused this impressive growth? Some believe it is. I’ve been critical of Obama not putting enough funding into specific large scale greentech projects in the past- but maybe he and his super genius advisors knew that the scent of government funding to VC is like the scent of blood to sharks. In any event the funding for greentech still remains lower than it was in 2008 according to Daily Finance but the news is positive.

Instead of a frenzy of survival investments, the “IPO market has clearly reopened” as  Parker Weil, co-director of the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America’s North America Energy and Power Group stated at a recent conference in San Francisco. Basing this belief on a number of things but perhaps most notably on the explosive success of A123 Systems’ IPO on the market late last month.  As the A123 System website shows, they were recipients of a US Department of Energy Grant to build better batteries. That grant money came out of the Obama stimulus bill. So maybe my past criticisms can be abayed for now.

So what’s going on in Canada and in British Columbia?

Well, in Alberta the new Carbon Technology Fund has been growing thanks to the abundance of greenhouse gas emitters in that province. Now with $120 million to burn, Greentech is the buzzword in Edmonton.

In March Ontario announced a $250 million Greentech fund while shortly after that the Canadian Federal Government launched a $850-million clean energy fund, about $650-million of which goes more or less directly to Alberta in the form of carbon capture and storage initiatives. Something I believe the oil companies should be using their insane profits for instead of receiving tax dollars.

In Vancouver, Premier Campbell and Minister Stockwell Day celebrated the arrival of a hydrogen fuel cell powered bus.  The bus is the first of what will eventually be the world’s largest fleet of fuel cell busses at 20 strong. The 2008 BC energy plan makes lots of noise about new emissions standards and in the process through the ICE (Innovative Clean Energy Fund) has “approved investments of over $47 million in 34 projects” throughout communities in the province (even though the fund is only $25-million) helping to develop clean and renewable energy; the exact details of which I would love to know. The Provincial Liberals seem committed to hydrogen, even though it has proved to be less viable than other forms of energy. Could it be that when they started thinking clean was cool, Ballard’s stock was roaring, and they haven’t really put much thought into it since? In any event, the fact that a new coal mine in the province is being seriously proposed, discredits any green credentials the current BC government is trying to build in my opion.  And the mine has nothing to do with our energy needs either- 40% owned by Japanese and South Korean interests it will be for coking, in the manufacturing of steel products made in those countries. Much like Norwegian Salmon Farming corporations who own 90% of industrially farmed salmon operations in BC, keeping the profits but leaving the province with 100% of the pollution and problems, the BC government is keen to open the door to our environment to foreign interests once again. If the BC liberals really want to get greentech cred they’d embrace closed containment technology for salmon farms, like China has for trout, and put a stop to the Raven Site mine proposal.  Both activities will otherwise take their environmental tolls in the same area of our Province, the Georgia Strait. And to the overall health of our environment globally.

So to sum it up, BC is being outdone by both China and Alberta when it comes to investing in clean, green technologies. How does that make you feel? You Alberta and China slagging, granola chewing, MacBook using, lululemon wearing, mountain biking, grouse grinding British Columbian?

$25 million to greentech in our province? And 100 million to a new coal mine? When Alberta is dwarfing BC in funding for cleantech, and China is embracing the clean technologies produced and rejected here, you have to shake your head and wonder how hypocritical it makes us look? Or rather how hypocritical the current provincial government make us look? Maybe, if and when, Gregor Robertson is Premier, he’ll take the same kind of leadership he’s shown in Vancouver with the Vancouver Greenest City initiative and we can really have something to show for in the province. Until then, we’re chasing the cleantech train instead of riding it.