Fabulosity in the Room

 Robin Chase, cofounder and former CEO of the car-sharing company Zipcar, was described in 2007 by Business Week's Helen Walters as a transportation design visionary, and she is still hard at work challenging groups and individuals to confront the reality of global climate change. As ACRL's invited green speaker, Chase knew her audience on Sunday morning was already eco-committed, so she got our attention by noting there was "Lots of fabulosity here." After quoting Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James E. Hansen — who stated in 2008 that if we just go ahead with business as usual for the next 10 years, we will have 0% chance of averting the catastrophic effects of a global temperature increase of 3 degrees — Chase said that only massive behavior change in collaborating on the use and reuse of scarce resources will begin to reverse this trend. As an example, she said that in 2008 alone, 300,000 zipsters (users of urban Zipcars) averted 600,000 pounds of CO2 emissions by using 5,000 shared cars across North America and in London. Indeed, she noted that libraries, as repositories of shared information, are the true precursors of the Zipcar concept and challenged the audience to come up with other ways to engage in Sharing 2.0 — the collaborative sharing of many resources (work, play, infrastructure, financing) by many groups. Wikipedia is a  good example of people making use of "excess mental capacity," with the reward of pride in contributing to the world's knowledge. The secret of shared resources is that they must be greasy (easy to use) and fill a genuine need (beyond mere curiosity). Collaborative use of excess capacity could also involve building open wireless mesh-networking systems on the backs of existing single-use systems. For example, the E-ZPass system in place on toll roads uses single-use automobile transponders that key into an existing wireless network. What if a way could be found to free up the unused bandwidth to provide other wireless services for the driver? The sticking point, of course, is trying to convince corporations to buy into this new way of thinking; it can be done, as Zipcar demonstrated when it had to deal with insurance companies that had never covered risks on automobiles shared by multiple users. "We had to retrain the insurance industry to think in a different way," Chase recalled. Also, there should be a different set of rules for small-scale businesses than large-scale ones. Michael Pollan, in Omnivore's Dilemma, described how government regulations required meat-packing companies to have a separate and exclusive restroom for the industry meat inspector. That might work for corporate giants, but not for small, rural chicken farms: "When you go to a small scale, you need a different kind of contract between individuals." One questioner asked for concrete strategies to deal with vendors who are still forcing libraries into traditional contracts and university administrators who are not ready for a paradigm shift. Chase answered that the strategy is different for every company and each individual; but the best way is to appeal to their personal or financial incentives. Self-interest still rules, she said.