Best of the Web, Monday, 13th September
(Click on the titles to read the full story.)
1. If you’re trying to sell stoves or briquettes to the energy poor, then this one’s for you!
Marketing to the bottom of the pyramid – Almost a third of the world’s population earns $2.50 or less a day. The enormity of this disparity takes my breath away, but there’s an interesting flip side to it: That’s a market of more than five billion dollars a day. Add the next segment ($5 a day) and it’s easy to see that every single day, the poorest people in the world spend more than ten billion dollars to live their lives.
Most of that money is spent on traditional items purchased in traditional ways. Kerosene. Rice. Basic medicines if you can afford them or if death is the only alternative. And almost all of these purchases are inefficient. There’s lack of information, high costs because of a lack of choice, and most of all, a lack of innovation.
There are two significant impacts here: first, the inefficiency is a tax on the people who can least afford it. Second, the side effects of poor products are dangerous. Kerosene kills, and so does dirty water.
2. I wasn’t really old enough to catch the “appropriate technology” wave born from Fritz Schumacher’s book, “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered” (1973). Still, the phrase is still kicking around although it seems to be falling out of favor, as explain in this interesting article tracking the evolution of this this mindset.
The Death of Appropriate Technology, by Paul Polak – The appropriate technology movement died peacefully in its sleep ten years ago. Launched in 1973 by Fritz Schumacher and his lovely book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered in 1973, it inspired politicians as different as Pat Brown in California and Jawarhal Nehru in India, thousands of middle-aged dreamers like me and millions of people from all walks of life around the world.
What happened? How could such an inspiring movement with deep spiritual meaning have produced so little in the way of practical impact?
The appropriate technology movement died because it was led by well-intentioned tinkerers instead of hard-nosed entrepreneurs designing for the market.
3. When people or companies claim something is “green” it reminds me of fmr. President Bill Clinton saying, “it depends what your definition of the word “is”, is…”
When Green Solutions Are Part of the Problem – The last few years have seen a massive increase in the number of “green” products, ideas, processes, businesses and policies. But are these green solutions really good for the local and global environment? More importantly are they actually making things worse?
4. We touched on this earlier but it’s worth probing deeper. The Role of Deforestation in Pakistan’s Recent Flooding: A land left to drown by the ‘timber mafia’
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