COGEN Europe, the European federation of cogeneration industry, has made the first industry projection focusing attention on the role of cogeneration out to 2050. According to this report, "with a suitable policy framework, cogeneration is projected to take a foundation role through to 2030 and provide ongoing efficiency and sustainability advantages as the energy mix changes to less carbonated sources through to 2050."

COGEN Europe report "Cogeneration as the foundation of Europe's 2050 low carbon energy policy"

Download the report

In Roanne, an interesting idea came up in order to promote soft mobility and public transports. The local public transport company, STAR (Transports en commun de Grand Roanne agglomération) produced a reality TV show on the local Web television. The TV show followed 5 local celebrities in their daily life faced to the challenge of not using their car during 5 days. Viewers were given the possibility to vote for their favorite candidate among the five, each representing a local NGO. The winner was able to give a prize to the NGO she/he represented. The TV show enventually got great success and 20.000 persons voted.


Teaser "Star sans ma voiture"

Visions of the future are focus of the IMAGINE initiative. The webdocumentary Collapsus, Energy Risk Conspiracy gives its own version. Collapsus is a new experience in cross-media storytelling that combines interactivity with animation, fiction and documentary. The result: a dark vision of the future, quite close to the peak oil drama scenario elaborated by the german army.

http://www.collapsus.com/

Collapsus Introduction from SubmarineChannel on Vimeo.

The british council has developed and manage the Future City Game. Future City Games have been played in different European Cities with diverse results.

"The Future City Game enables people to find solutions to the long-term challenges facing cities. It is played during a two-day event by city inhabitants from diverse backgrounds, representing various disciplines and led by a trained games-master. The aim of the game is to generate the best idea on how to improve the quality of life either in a specific area within a city, the city as a whole, or in response to the common challenges facing cities around the world. "

Creative cities - British Council

The Sustainable Development Commission, a UK government body, has published a list of 19 breakthrough ideas which could help make the UK more sustainable. The list started with 285 suggestions coming from a bright spectrum of participants (see the list of Breakthrough ideas contributors), which was then shortened to 40, and finally to 19.

Read more

The UK Royal Town Planning Institute promotes a professional response to the challenge of climate change under the form of seven commitments.

Read more

The US journal, the TIME, published a remarkable dossier in its March, 23, 2009 issue. The dossier, called '10 ideas changing the world right now' investigates possible changes responding to the global economy remake. 'When the old answers don't fit the new questions, that's when ideas happen', and this is also what we want the IMAGINE initiative to be about.

Three ideas out of the ten especially fit in the IMAGINE concept.

Recycling the suburbs - click here

Reinstating the interstate - click here

Ecological intelligence - click here

The Norwegian Ideas Bank Foundation presents an interesting website. The website hosts a database of ideas. More precisely, these ideas are innovative projects that promote environmental sustainability, global justice and/or democratic community development.

Most of these examples are from Denmark, Norway or Sweden. They involve various actors, mainly at the local level - including municipalities, businesses, community groups and individual "fiery spirits".

To take a look at the website and browse the database: http://www.idebanken.no/english/main.html

A few things I read this week on different websites and that sound close to the IMAGINE initiative:

The Planum newsletter tells us that on May 15-18, the next annual congress of the SCUPAD (Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development) will focus on "Planning for the Carbon Neutral World: Challenges for Cities and Regions".

"The major challenge facing this and the next generation of architects, planners and builders is how to develop land use patterns that respond to the demands of the post-carbon age and provide a high quality of life for future generations. How our profession adapts to the need for reducing dependency on fossil fuels and contributes to the use of new technologies and approaches to planning and development that foster sustainability is critically important and will be the focus of this year’s SCUPAD Congress.[...]"
More info:
http://www.planum.net/Nnews/detailNews.php?ID=1016
http://www.scupad.org/congress01.html

In its last newsletter, Climate Alliance echos a very interesting abstract from the Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. It's about... "Anxiety as method against climate change?"
"Will a group of people reach a collective target through individual contributions when everyone suffers individually if the target is missed? This "collective-risk social dilemma" exists in various social scenarios, the globally most challenging one being the prevention of dangerous climate change. Reaching the collective target requires individual sacrifice, with benefits to all but no guarantee that others will also contribute. It even seems tempting to contribute less and save money to induce others to contribute more, hence the dilemma and the risk of failure.[...]"
More info:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18287081