“The organism is an organism.”
The title of this blog post is a quote from David Berry. It comes from a truly fascinating article from Boston Magazine, linked here.
The quote is not from Dave Barry, the columnist from The Miami Herald, and author of some fairly funny books…but David Berry, 33-year-old founder of Joule Unlimited.
To draw from the article, and whet your appetite to consume it all – despite the fact that it features pond scum,
“Berry and his team have figured out how to grow algae that are little diesel-making machines, designed to do nothing in life except ingest sunlight and CO2, drink water, and crap pure, clean fuel. And if Berry’s done his math right, these bacteria are the secret to a petroleum-free future. It’s only a matter of time, he says, until they eliminate the need for oil pulled from the ground. Joule Unlimited is not going to reduce our reliance on oil. It’s going to wipe it out.”
This is fascinating stuff.
The quote, “the organism is an organism”, comes from a part of the interview when Berry did not want to get any more specific about the type of cyanobacteria (pictured above) which was being “trained” to become the next major provider of the Earth’s energy needs.
And it’s a “green-by-definition” project, one in which the product of the project is related directly to sustainability or environmental issues.
Remember, we say that you don’t have to be on this type of project to think green, but it’s still inspiring to take a look at this side of the green project spectrum for inspiration – and just to have a peek at some of the brilliant work being done in this area.
We suggest reading the article and getting some of that good ol’ pond-scummy inspiration!
What’s a “green job”, and what’s a green PM?
We came across an interesting series of postings, tweets, and links, totally by serendipity, but it led to some good questions and reinforced our belief in the word greenality.
Below, in italics, you will see a United States BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) definition of “green jobs”. Below this post, you will find the detailed description. But start with the basic one:
Green jobs are either:
There were two immediate discoveries when we did some detective work here.
First, when we followed up and went to the actual US Government sites, we noticed that the supporting text constantly and repeatedly stumbled looking for a word to describe greenality. They used “greenness” in most of those cases. Greenness? Really? Our word – greenality -fits the bill. We will send it along to the author of the document and continue to push for its use. Remember, greenality means: the degree to which an organization has environmental (green) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond”.
Second, the two-part definition the BLS uses mimics what we say about the spectrum of green in projects. There are some projects – such as the creation of a new biofuel facility – in which the project’s outcome is, by definition, green in its purpose. There are some, however, like a new version of game software, for which the green element is not so obvious. Like us, the BLS seems to be asserting that “making their establishment’s production processes” (or in our view, their projects) – :more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources”.
This BLS definition is new, but it is reassuring to see that it reflects our thoughts and what we continue to convey to PMs and their organizations via this site and our book.
Here are some references from which we drew this information.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/10/government-looks-green-jobs/
http://www.thegreenjobbank.com/stories/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-publishes-definition-of-green-jobs
http://www.bls.gov/green/
What do you think? Never mind the US Government for a moment, how would you define a green job? How would you define a green PM? We’ve very interested in hearing from you on this topic.
View full article »