Good Stuff

Making medicine as ubiquitous as Coca Cola

I just read about this fantastic initiative. I remember thinking about this when I was in Kenya last year. You can drive for miles and miles along dusty roads to communities without even the most basic amenities, yet you are never more than a few miles from the nearest bottle of Coca Cola. It must be the most efficient distribution network on the face of the planet - so why not use it to do distribute some good?

"It's a tragic fact of life today that one in five African children die before their fifth birthday from simple causes like dehydration from diarrhea. Basic medicines could save those children's lives, yet no means has been found to make them readily available. A new grassroots project, however, aims to tap into the formidable distribution network of none other than Coca-Cola to get life-saving medicines to the children who need them.

The ColaLife project aims to distribute oral re-hydration salts and educational materials to people in developing countries through a partnership with Coca-Cola by which its distributors carry medicine in addition to soft drinks. The concept actually dates back 20 years, when its originator—Simon Berry, who was then an aid worker in Zambia—was struck by the realization that one could buy a Coke virtually anywhere on the planet, yet medicine was hard to come by. He proposed designating one compartment in every 10 Coke crates as "the life saving" compartment to transport medicines. His idea fell on deaf ears back then, but today the power of social networking is giving it new life." Specifically, Berry's ColaLife project has tapped the power of Facebook and other social networking tools to amass a group of more than 6,000 supporters, garner widespread media coverage and—at least as important—get the attention of Coca-Cola.

Berry has since met with high-ranking officials at the company, and talks are under way to push the idea further. Meanwhile, ColaLife groups have been added on Google and Flickr, and a YouTube video was created earlier this month to promote the project's submission to Google’s Project 10^100 initiative.

Currently, ColaLife is seeking an NGO to participate in the project as well. The web is facilitating social change in ways that simply weren't possible before, uniting like-minded activists and gathering support from around the globe. Will Coca-Cola jump in with both feet? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, one to watch—and learn from." Via Springwise.

pets are obsolete

At the risk of sounding like a bit of an extremist, I have decided to write a short post about my views on pets. Now, I know there are many of you out there who might think I'm a little cold hearted or a bit of a kill joy for suggesting this but I feel I have a rational argument against pet ownership.

Pets are an unnecessary luxury.

Just to make it clear, I am referring only to household pets here of course. There is no doubt that keeping animals to provide us with food or as work animals is a perfectly sound thing to do. (this type of animal can also provide companionship too) but for the purpose of this article I am talking about animals we keep for pleasure.

Here are some figures relating to pet ownership in the US in 2007. (I'd imagine they are fairly typical of most developed countries)

72,114,000 dogs
81,721,000 cats
11,199,000 birds
7,295,000 horses

That's a lot of luxury.

Imagine the carbon saving we'd make if we could just get over our obsession with keeping animals at home for our 'pleasure'. When you start to try and define just how much energy we use it starts to become significant.

Related car journeys (walking the dogs, horse riding events, trips to the vet)
Food production and related industries
Food transportation
Accessory production (they get Christmas and even birthday presents these days)
Accessory transportation
Vets services (heating, lighting, development and production of medical products)
Pet care during holidays (heating, light)
Dare I add extra heating/lighting to this list. (I'm sure there are people who leave the radiators on for the cat)

Does anyone else think amount of love (and energy) lavished on let's face it, dumb animals is totally disproportionate? Isn't it time we stopped pampering our own egos and started to think rationally about animals again? Am I just too grumpy for words or what?

yes!

Don't you just love it when someone has a good idea. I love the way this company has re-thought food retail. I guess in a market where food retailers are much of a muchness, this concept could do really well here in Denmark.

What I really love about it is the way it's been put together. (without having been into a store) You know that feeling you get when you hover outside a health food shop and wonder whether you belong in their or not? I really get the feeling this place is for me. Their site is stylish and inclusive. I would imagine their stores are too. I wish them all the success in the world and hopefully we'll see one opening in Copenhagen soon.

Thanks to John Grant for pointing it out.

Food miles - an over-simplification?

We all know now that choosing what you fill your shopping bag is quite a responsibility and increasingly confusing. Is it organic? Is it fairtrade? What about the food miles? Should I buy locally produced goods?

This article points out that local isn't always greenest and rightly points out that sometimes it's not so much 'where' food is produced it's 'what' kind of food it is. For example, meat products are much more energy intensive than vegetables for many reasons. Farming, production, storage, etc. I also noticed some of my personal favourites are up there with the bad guys. Cheese and wine are big on carbon-usage and chocolate is up there too. Damn. I don't think they mentioned baked beans so I'll be able to enjoy them in blissful ignorance until I read the 'baked beans almost solely responsible for melting the ice-caps' post.

Food from Britain

I was at a meeting this morning in a north west of Copenhagen when I came across this sign. As if food from Britain hasn't enough problems what with stories of mad cows and deep fried pizza! The rusty d-i-y stickered sign itself is bad enough but if you look closely you will see that they are neighbours with the District Psychiatric Centre.

Your name on toast

Thanks to Guerrilla Innovation for pointing to this. I'm toying with the idea of buying a slice.

Zero Street Cred?

Street credibility is something to strive for, and a lot of companies try their best to get some.

During the last couple of years we have seen several good examples of companies trying to address the youth. VW launching the Fox a couple of years ago, creating the Fox Hotel, and Danske Bank has managed to take the step from a company with great respect in the financial world, to a company that actually appeals to a young audience.

Yesterday evening I saw something, that caught my attention. And if one didn’t know better, he or she could be let to think that a large company in the business of soft drinks is on the street, trying to get some street cred.

At least there is a striking resemblance between these stencils (by the lakes of Copenhagen) and the label of a newly launched low-cal soft-drink.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? What is going on?