What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

Overview:

Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before. If you've used a car sharing service like Zipcar, experienced peer-to-peer travel on Airbnb, given away or found something on Freecycle or lent money through Zopa, you're already part of the rise of Collaborative Consumption.

Full Interview:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/rachel-botsman-explains-how-collaborative-consumerism-will-change-our-world-interview.php?campaign=daily_nl:

Snippets:

We are just in the nascent stages of Collaborative Consumption. We have already seen examples like Netflix, eBay and Zipcar become household names but that has taken a decade - technology and consumer values were playing catch-up. But I think the current massive cultural and technological shift is accelerating the next wave of Collaborative Consumption at an astonishing rate.

I think it's critical for more big brands to enter the space. BMW, Daimler and Peugeot have all recently launched car sharing models. Amazon just announced its 'Buy Back' scheme of second-hand unwanted books. I would love to see a big bank enter the social lending space; for a retail giant like Target to launch an innovative rental model; for a brand like Zappos to create a shoe swapping and repair platform....

Swapping sites for goods with limited value or that fulfill a temporary need such a baby goods, books and DVDs are growing at a staggering rate; Peer-to-peer space rental sites (homes, gardens, parking spaces, storage etc.) such as AirBnb, Landshare and Parkatmyhouse are exploding in mainstream popularity; Bike sharing is the fastest growing form of transportation in the world; Co-working spaces are popping up in the world's major cities; I think 2011 is the year that we start to see skill or 'favor' share communities such as TaskRabbit, Skillshare and Hey Neighbor start to take off.

Big picture (and I am talking in 10-20 years time), I think we will see the way we measure 'wealth', 'growth' and 'happiness' being completely redefined. We are already seeing countries such as the UK, Canada and France looking at reinventing measures beyond GDP that give a picture of the holistic well-being of a nation. As Sarkozy commented, "So many things that are important to individuals are not included in GDP."

Polar bear's epic nine day swim in search of sea ice

full article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9369000/9369317.stm

snippets:

"This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C," says research zoologist George M. Durner.

"We are in awe that an animal that spends most of its time on the surface of sea ice could swim constantly for so long in water so cold. It is truly an amazing feat."

By fitting a GPS collar to a female bear, researchers were able to accurately plot its movements for two months as it sought out hunting grounds.

The scientists were able to determine when the bear was in the water by the collar data and a temperature logger implanted beneath the bear's skin.

The bears hunt their prey on frozen sea ice: a habitat that changes according to temperature.

"This dependency on sea ice potentially makes polar bears one of the most at-risk large mammals to climate change," says Mr Durner.