Hello world - Take 3.

Posted on March 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General.

So TDP has been gone for a minute, but now we’re back - call it the third generation.

A little background:

For those of you who have tracked our evolution through the years may remember that we started as a small group in San Francisco in 1999. While the mission changed fundamentally a couple of years ago, we have always tried to keep true to the original concept - A little edgy, a little irreverent, avoid myopia as much as possible.

When we refocused in 2003, we really wanted to talk about the rising “Green Economy”. At that point the frenetic energy around renewable energy and sustainability had yet to rise to its current heights. Credit Al Gore, Rising Oil Costs, whatever you wish - the point is “Green” is everywhere you turn, and by this I mean The Oscars, WalMart, G freaking E! You can’t get more disparate than that. It is an exciting time, and there are a set of news sites that will come up on this blog again and again in the coming years: Grist, Treehugger, Renewable Energy Access, Greenwire. We love these sites, and we felt like didn’t need to compete for attention when they are all doing such good job representing the space.

Additionally, it felt like sustainability and the green revolution, was just one piece of a larger shift going. It was something we could see going on everywhere, in every facet of life. Yet I seem to struggle framing the whole picture for myself.

And with that we begin. I don’t have answers, just a gut feeling that something big is on the horizon. Bigger than any of us can even imagine. Treehugger and Grist, GE and WalMart, these are tangible examples of the shift. Friedman touches upon it, as does Gladwell. Add in Jared Diamond into the mix.

Architecture, Global Trade, Rising Population, the changing strategy of messaging around the environment, Pop-Culture - the shift is everywhere.

And all of it fits together somehow, I just am not sure how yet.

It is my hope that I can use this site to help explain this shift for myself, maybe bounce some ideas off people I respect and start to build a framework of the new order of things in the world - what is coming and what is here.

Thanks for checking in.

0 comments.

Tags: , , ,

About TDP

Posted on March 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General.

The Distance Project: Observing the Ecology of Change .

Start with a premise: the world we know is changing. Like it or not change is rippling through every facet of life. From energy production issues, to rising populations, to massive changes in global trade, what we have come to understand as the “Systems of the World” are shifting.

A new age is rising around us.

This is a hard concept to grasp. Many of us have grown up comfortably under the old rules. It is a scary thing to watch that crumble. Yet there are some who see only opportunity in the shift. They are looking forward to the new world.

But what exactly is the framework for this new world? What are the rules? Where there already examples of people, companies, governments exploiting the new realities?

These are the distances we need to cross.

We need transition strategies that work. Broad-based, solution-oriented, nonpartisan and progressive - hopefully the Distance Project is a way to find them, a way to participate – actively and persistently – in this ecology of change.

The distances are real. So is the potential, greater than ever before, to overcome them.

Let’s get started.

0 comments.

Tags: ,