Mister Huang Ming is visiting GlobalFOCUS and Sweden next week and will attend the big conference on human rights I wrote about below. I’ll moderate a panel discussion with him and I’m really excited.
Solar Valley
Mr. Ming is the founder and CEO of Himin Solar Energy Group, the world largest producer of solar heaters. He employs 7 000 people in China and his company is growing with an unbelievable 100%+ annually. Ming used to work for the oil industry but realized it was a dead end and decided his mission was to bring solar energy to the world. His mission is not to get rich but to really change the world. I met Ming the first time about a year ago in China when I visited his big project “Solar Valley”. The Solar Valley is a hub for solar energy technology and where the company HQ is located (see the photo). The company HQ looks like something taken out of a Sci-Fi movie, but it’s actually built and operating - totally amazing. The company is now constructing a Solar City where as many as 10 000 people will live initially, leading a high quality life totally powered by the sun. The world needs more people like Ming and if you can you should get to Stockholm and attend his keynote speech (www.mrdagarna.nu).
At Microeconomic Theory today we worked on general equilibrium models and our professor went through a simple 2-product model of production choices. He (Li) used “Apples and Pears” as the two goods. Li mentioned that in American textbooks the convention is to use “Guns and butter” as the two example goods and that in Swedish textbooks it used to be “Bread and Whiskey”. But apparently student groups complained about this normative treatment of Alcohol and it was changed to Apples and Pears. I just thought it was funny and it says something interesting/comic about the self-identity of Swedish students.
An American guy in our class then suggested that we use “Guns and Whiskey”
Hahaha! The billboard’s McDonald’s ad reads “Summer Supreme - We prolong the summer!” and someone has added their own subheading: “Especially on the North Pole”.
Meat production accounts for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the United Nations and as an individual there are few ways as effective in reducing our personal carbon footprint as looking over what we eat. Why not test a meat free day every week? I’m not a vegetarian but I’m trying to decrease the meat intake, especially beef which emits the most.
Today I found this sign outside my local supermarket. The sign reads “We don’t sell fish and shellfish listed on WWF:s red list”. In Sweden this list has become more and more popular lately and contains information about most popular seafood’s regarding the health of their respective global stocks. Species on the Red list is in serious danger, the Orange list should be avoided and the Green list is ok. Read more here.
Companies generally hide behind their consumers in avoiding these matters; “If our consumers demand it we can’t do anything, we are just serving a demand”. Obviously this is a pathetic excuse for not doing the right thing and companies failing to show some acceptable level of leadership will (I believe and hope) see their popularity and brand reputation plummet in the coming decades. A company is owned by a group of individuals and they shouldn’t lose all their moral responsibilities just because they form an economic entity.
We managed to navigate the whole 60 000$+ charity project over 16 000km and through heaps of countries and reached Mongolia on Aug. 25th 2009. I’m now back in Uppsala and busy moving in to a new apartment (a really nice one, look out for housewarming party invitations) and will take on courses in Microeconomic Theory and Analytical Methods starting Monday.
Below are two TED videos I watched today and which both contains insights that I believe are useful.
Who, Where, Why?
I'm a 28 years old swede political economist and entrepreneur trying to make things more sustainable. Here I write about things I do and think.
