Cleaner Cook Stoves

There is a nice article in today's New York Times about Envirofit's work on figuring out the cookstove opportunity. As with our earlier work, the challenge is to figure out how to build a business from reducing pollution. Pollution is waste, whether it comes from unburned fuel in a 2 stroke motorcycle, or from inefficient combustion of biofuels with traditional cooking methods. So, as with the motorcycles, we are trying to take the savings from using less wood, producing less smoke (and CO2), and improving health to make an affordable stove.

There have been a number of cleaner cookstove designs in the past, but few have acheived any scale or longer term impact. Envirofit, Shell Foundation, and our local partners are working to change that. We are trying to learn from the past, and bring new approaches to the problem.

Envirofit is working on a line of cookstoves, for a variety of cooking styles and needs, that will be affordable, durable and attractive, as well as cleaner burning. It is challenging work, and the numbers are mind boggling. Shell estimates that 500 million households cook with traditional fires or charcoal. To put this in perspective, Apple just sold it's 100 millionth iPod, and they seem to be getting more than one per household. So to make a dent in this problem, we have to start small, but think big.

If you are interested in more, please check out the Envirofit website and the upcoming ETHOS conference in Seattle.

Dear Larry(s) and Sergey (Part 2):

Wanted to write you again, and catch up. Happy to see the news about where you are going with google.org. Seem to have lost your email addresses, so figured I'd just use my blog.

I first heard about the new directions in the New York Times this week, and have now had a chance to poke around your updated website and blog. Good stuff and glad to see progress. The mission of the organization looks good: "to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease." Seems like a start at "moving to a new space" as we sort of discussed in my last post.

I am also pleased to see you have picked five initiatives to further this mission:

1) Renewable energy cheaper than coal
2) Plug in vehicles
3)Predict and prevent catastrophes (climate and disease)
4) Inform and empower to improve public services
5) Fuel the Growth of SME's

I also enjoyed looking over the "Initiative Briefs" for each, which provide more insight on your approach.

While I have been critical (but constructively so, I hope) in the past, it is good to see that you considered several of my suggestions. I always wonder who reads my blog, and it is reassuring to know you guys are checking in. I guess I should expect that, since, I mean, you did invent google and all.

It seems that you are taking a "First who, then what" approach. That's fine. And the press seems to be picking up on the idea that this is not philanthropy as usual.

I do have a few suggestions:

1) You have the opportunity to do something big. The philanthropic arena is filled with funders that don't want to fail. You guys have built google. You can do whatever you want to. Failure should be an option. Place real bets on real ventures that will have a significant impact. To me, the biggest failure would be if you took an incremental, long term approach. As the X-1 test pilot, Chuck Yeager said, if you are going to crash, "make a big hole."

2) You have posted what you have funded. Larry B said in the NY Times that google.org has received a lot of requests. How about using some of that cool software and sorting out the reasons for refusals. Don't need names, but what are you guys turning down? Why?

3) Consider some type of grant pool that is decided by the internet voting. Doesn't have to be a big dollar amount, but a hybrid of Ashoka's Changemaker challenges and Global Giving. It doesn't seem like you have enough fundable ideas in your initiative areas... so see what this produces for each of your initiatives.

4) I am still hung up on the networking thing. You guys know more about network effects than anyone. I can't imagine the kind of info you guys have on this at the G-plex. How can you use this to "match-make"? Many entrepreneurs don't need your money (though they may still ask for it), but could use some special resource (usually a person). How about an eHarmony for social entrepreneurs, or some type of online speed dating to provide advice to those who want to help and those who need it? Pandora is doing the musical genome... what is the entrepreneurial genome?

Keep working on raising the bar on "do no evil." Do good and be great at it.

Yours truly,
Paul

Change of Fools

Dave Barry had a funny column yesterday on presidential candidates all being for "change." Of course, he left out that all of them (well almost all of them) are against one kind of change- Climate Change. By their nature as politicians (poll probing, wind sniffing seekers of the center), they are also against another kind of change- Radical Change. And Radical Change is probably the only way that governments are going to have an impact on Climate Change.

While I claim to be an unrepentant optimist, sometimes politicians give me a few twinges of pessimism. Unfortunately, the energy policies of these candidates (to the extent you can find any details in them) suggest pretty minor changes. A political paradox- they are for change, but don't want to change anything enough to actually address the change that they are against.

If you want to look for yourself:

Hillary Clinton "Powering America's Future" (ambitious targets, not much on what she'd do in short term)
Barack Obama "Energy and Environment" (best of the bunch in terms of detail, but his actual record of involvment in these issues seems sparse)
John McCain "Stewards of Our Nation's Rich Natural Heritage" (straight talk? how about generic talk?)
Mike Huckabee "Energy Independence" (no mention of the environment in this one)
Mitt Romney "Ending Energy Dependence" (Ditto, this is version flipflop.14)

Compare these with the suggestions of IPCC or, if you are of a more conservative persuasion, The Economist's report. Perhaps the candidates should say "I am against climate change because I want your vote, but am unwilling to do much about it if elected." Oh wait, that would apply to most of the issues.

Huckabee and Romney would get points for integrity, in terms of saying the issue isn't climate change, but energy independence (a reasonable position, if more complicated than their websites would suggest). But their programs fall short on specifics for how they would accomplish this.

To paraphrase Aretha: "Change change change... change of fools." Anyone hear fiddles?