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Much has been made of rising aspirations of the middle class in developing countries, with the implication that this must mean literally hundreds of millions of cars — and hundreds of millions of tonnes of oil use and a resulting CO₂ emissions increase. Last month the Asian Development Bank held its first “Transport Week,” hosting key stakeholders from most Asian nations from Turkey eastward, including several pacific island states. Not surprisingly sessions on CO₂ attracted a large audience on the first day. At the next big confab, “Better Air Quality ‘08” in Bangkok, in November about 1,000 Asian experts and decision makers are expected to develop policies and techniques to transform the discussion into real policies to change how Asia develops.

Getting real stakeholders to the table is the only way to clear the air and reduce CO₂ emissions from transport. With the lack of any real initiative matching the national level programs in the US, engaging the leaders of nations representing close to three billion people in Asia may be a more viable strategy since, with few exceptions, Asia has only started to bury itself in CO₂-intensive development — yet. But time is short. The exceptions — the hopelessly snarled mega-cities of the continent — are attracting more and more people to perennial gridlock. Since so few people in Asia own cars, it may not be too late to change course.

         

What happens when one size fits all becomes one size fits none? If you’re trying on a pair of stretch pants, it’s an awkward sartorial moment. When you’re talking about the education of our children, however, it’s a disaster of a higher order. But that’s the very question we all should ask our public education system.

In the business world, there is a manufacturing concept known as mass customization. It sounds oxymoronic, but companies such as Dell Computer take it to heart and have built great businesses on it. Simply, Dell takes a commodity product — the personal computer — and personalizes it according to the buyer’s needs. Want to upgrade the RAM? No problem. A different video card? Easy. The result is a PC simultaneously standard (that is, it’s assembled like every other PC) and customized (it reflects your needs and interests).

Unfortunately, that is not the case with our public schools. Our formalized public education system is a state-sponsored project by which, in concept, students become mature members of their communities through a thirteen-year program that helps them develop knowledge, skills, and character. To do this with millions of kids at the same time requires some sort of standardization — that’s understood. To free the process of all such guidelines would be an invitation to chaos.

         

For many of us, the gateway drug toward a lifetime of experimentation with world-saving endeavors was food. With so many points of personal relevance — from health concerns to the pleasures of taste to the simple fact of its frequent necessity — food can be an opportunity to see the immediate positive effects of changed behavior.

In many ways, advocates of sustainable food can already boast many achievements: Mainstream grocery stores and big box supermarkets sell organic foods and many of them are sourced from local producers; television networks and celebrity chefs frequently reinforce the idea that farmer’s markets are a great place to shop and fresh foods taste best; and many home gardeners are selecting edible rather than decorative plants.

That said, we still face many challenges in our efforts to create a more sustainable food system and promote good health. One of the most significant obstacles is access. If you laid a city map showing low-income neighborhoods over one illustrating the distribution of grocery stores and markets offering fresh produce and unprocessed foods, the intersections would be disappointingly few.

         

I started a blog a couple of years ago in honor of “Flight School,” the name of my annual conference for entrepreneurs in air and space. Last June, we canceled this year’s event; we were getting a foretaste of the current rotten economy — Eclipse’s troubles, DayJet suspending operations, a general malaise — and didn’t think we could get enough attendees to put on a good show. I’m still hoping to revive the conference — but probably not until 2010.

In the meantime, however, I’m embarking on another kind of Flight School, and trying to play it cool as I mention casually that I’m about to start training as a backup cosmonaut for Charles Simonyi, who will be making his second trip into space this coming March 25. If for some reason he doesn’t go (and I can scrounge up some extra cash), I get to go instead!

         

It’s time to vote.

Yes — in the elections in November — but not only that. I’m talking about the voting you do every day.

Every time you drop a dollar, yen, mark, yuan, frank, rial or pound on the shop counter or wire it through cyberspace, you’re voting. Every purchase you make — or don’t make — large or small, meaningful or trivial, thoughtful or thoughtless, sets in motion a chain of events, and a flow of resources embodied in everything you buy, that has inescapable effects on the world we live in — and the choices that remain available to you, or that close off to you. Every time you do your duty as a “consumer,” (remember “if we don’t the terrorists will have won”?), you cast a vote for a future. You’re designing the world you and your children will live in.