Germany on their leading-edge Morgenstadt: City Insights [M:CI] project. The City Insights Network is comprised of a dozen key Fraunhofer applied research institutes, more than 20 high-profile industry partners (e.g., Siemens, IBM, Daimler, Bosch, SAP, Zublin), and city partners and community representatives from urban areas around the world. The network is a powerful nexus for generating and implementing innovative solutions to accelerate the transition of urban systems towards sustainability. Pilot projects will take place in a range of cities, with in-depth focus on three demonstration cities to be selected early 2014, for accelerating and managing their transition towards high sustainability and development and implementation of new breakthrough innovations and sustainable/smart city projects. 2013-2017
ETG supported the design and development of West Coast Green since its premier event in 2005. ETG supported WCG in the overall design of the conference and has developed and facilitated the Action Hub—a central part of the conference that supports green building and clean-tech entrepreneurs to convert ideas into concrete actions, businesses, and networks. Over the past three years, the Action Hubs have resulted in dozens of new businesses—ranging from launching green building suppliers to the first green Habitat-for-Humanity model home. WCG Action Hub aims to make our tracks wider, and our carbon footprint lighter. The Action Hub invites and supports creative energy conversion of thought to deed, inspiration to tangible next steps, and traction to accelerated action. At the 2008 WCG Action Hub, sustainable projects were screened by a panel of venture capitalists. www.westcoastgreen.org
ETG teamed with Local Power (www.local.org) in 2004 to support San Francisco implement its Energy Independence declaration and take action towards radically increasing its use of renewable energy in its overall electricity and energy portfolio. ETG designed and facilitated a series of renewable energy cluster meetings to support the development of local capacity to provide solar, wind, tidal, geothermal energy. Cluster meetings brought together energy industry leaders representing large electric service providers, renewable energy producers, solar installers, wind turbine developers along with municipal bond specialists and experts from the wireless industry—to join forces in developing the emerging market opportunity stemming from California’s cities movement toward Energy Independence and Community Choice Aggregation. At present, San Francisco is implementing its Community Choice Aggregation initiative to become energy independent. ETG’s involvement served to accelerate the strategic alignment, networking, collaboration, and competitiveness among energy companies in responding to these opportunities resulting in a variety of strategic alliance, attracting venture capital, and fostering innovation.
In a project for the Government of Turkey, funded by UNDP, ETG professionals worked with a team of international experts to design a vision, strategy and action plan for Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey—one of Turkey’s most important and challenging regions, bordering Syria and Iraq. The competitiveness agenda was designed as an effort to develop a framework for transforming the region’s economy. The Competitiveness Agenda charts a new sustainable economic direction for the region and develop a cohesive framework for its further elaboration and implementation. In particular, the project showed how the region can become a new, value-added economy—based on reengaging its identity as the “cradle of sustainable civilization”—thereby both renewing the Region’s cultural and economic distinctiveness and establishing the Region as a new role model for developing regions in Turkey and worldwide. The Agenda specifically charts a roadmap for the region to leverage its high concentration of renewable energy (hydro, solar, wind), organic agriculture and food procesing, organic cotton and textile production, and sustainable tourism to position the region as a center for sustainable development in the developing world. The consultant team conducted research, interviews, analysed sectors, markets, and developed a comprehensive economic vision, strategy and action plan for the region. The Competitiveness Agenda was presented and accepted by the Government of Turkey and resulted in budget allocations of over $12 billion over the next five years.
During the past seven years, in the small “spicy” state of Tabasco in Southeast Mexico, ETG has supported the development and evolution of rural clustering program to help poor rural women pull themselves out of poverty. ETG has joined forces with Dr. Armando Mejia to develop a model for economic entrepreneurship based on savings groups, entrepreneurship development and micro finance. The model first emerged in 1999 with the formation of a savings group of 10 women. By 2003, 34 groups had formed in the Costa Chica region, totaling some 800 women, each saving and earning on average $68 per year. In 2003, ETG helped to expand the women’s saving group model to two other poor rural regions in Tabasco. In 2005, the Governor of Tabasco invited ETG to expand the program to all 17 provinces in the state. In 2005, at the inaugural meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative, Governor Andrade and Dr. Hansen made a $9 million commitment expand the program and provide entrepreneurship support to 15,000 women. This commitment was implemented in 2005-2006 and was featured as one of the most successful rural development programs during President Clinton’s hour-long CNN program on Sustainable Economic Development. Today, the “Cajas” program has more than 12,500 women involved in savings circles and all together are organized into 12 cooperative organizations and are launching their own micro finance bank.
ETG staff were hired by the North American Development Bank (NADBank) to plan and facilitate a collaborative planning workshop for a major meeting of the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC), NADBank, the Commission Nacional de Agua, the International Boundary and Water Commission, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The conference brought together the executive leaders and staffs from each of these organizations. In this meeting, the key objective was to identify barriers to progress and reach consensus on an action plan for success. A secondary objective was to build a collaborative team of all groups and improve communications and trust. The three-day workshop, which involved simultaneous meetings for 50 participants of six different agencies as well as breakout groups, produced an action document that outlined consensus on goals, roles, and actions. An action plan was put together defining specific roles and responsibilities for collaboration among the different organizations in the upcoming year.
As part of the North Dakota’s New Economy Initiative—a statewide, action-oriented effort to mobilize North Dakotans around new ideas to grow the economy—ETG helped to invite North Dakota’s energy leaders (principally from the coal and oil industries) to expand their cluster to include a focus on wind energy and the environment. Leaders from North Dakota’s emerging wind became a driving force of this cluster and developed and implemented action initiatives ranging from the development of rural wind farms to new legislations promoting wind development, to proposals for expanding the state’s electricity transmission capacity.
During 2002-04, ETG helped to launch the cacao cluster and supported the development and implementation of the cacao cluster’s main initiative—the transition to organic cacao. By 2005, more than two-thirds of all cacao production in the state was certified as organic cacao.
ETG was instrumental in shifting the focus of Mendoza’s energy cluster to renewable energy and helped to formulate a number of action initiatives ranging from bio-diesel production, to rural wind power development, to solar research.
ETG designed and facilitated world’s first collaborative symposium about sustainability, clusters, and competitiveness to address global climate change and sustainable economic development in Portland Oregon in 2007. It was sponsored by The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) and State of Oregon. The symposium focused on the role that clustering—as one of the world’s most successful approaches to economic development—can play in accelerating the emergence of these important new industries and in fostering sustainable regional development. The symposium was a highly interactive, action-oriented event that fosters networking and a commitment to a clustering-sustainability agenda including specific actions to support the growth of sustainable clusters and communities. The symposium addressed issues ranging from advanced energy technologies, “green” development, bio-based products, eco-industrial parks, and early-stage approaches to sustainable regional development have emerged in response to the sustainability imperative in places ranging from Oregon, California and Vermont to Europe, Brazil, Indonesia and China.
Observers and experts across the domain of cryptocurrencies have noted two coins performing exceptionally well in a period of Bitcoin uncertainty. Bitcoin has over the past few years emerged to be the leading player of the cryptomarket. The performance of other coins and tokens are correlated closely to the performance of BTC. When Bitcoin pumps, every other coin and token reacts the same way. If Bitcoin tanks, the rest of the cryptomarket also takes a hit."Callisto (CLO) Airdrop for Ethereum Classic (ETC) Holders"
However, two coins have proved to be resilient. One of these is Litecoin, the gains of which can be accredited to two factors. The first is the supposed Litecoin cash (LCC) fork which took place on the 18th of February 2018. The second reason for Litecoin’s surge is the release of its digital wallet known as Litepay on the 26th of February, 2018. The other coin, which is showing remarkable performance in the cryptomarket irrespective of Bitcoin’s performance, is Ethereum Classic. It is currently trading at 27.10 dollars.
The reason behind the brilliant performance of Ethereum Classic (ETC) can be cited to be the Callisto (CLO) Airdrop announcement in January 2018 made by the coin’s development team which has been working on the Callisto Network Project. The ratio of the CLO airdrop is 1:1 for ETC holders, and is slated to happen after the targeted 5,500,000 block of the Ethereum Classic ledger.
The Callisto Network Project is an experimental change in the Ethereum Classic protocol which aims to establish a smart contract based on the chain-governance system. This system has a built-in transparent financial funding mechanism. The protocol will balance the interest in the network between the miners and coin holders.
Callisto (CLO) is a distinct token and its blockchain will be separate from that of Ethereum Classic. Callisto also introduces a cold staking protocol that provides nodes to coin holders as a reward for participating in the network. It is to be noted that a node is not mandatory for a cold staking protocol. Owners of CLO can lock their funds in a Callisto Treasure smart contract for 1 month or longer. Each cold staker account can submit a development proposal to the Callisto treasury smart contract or vote for or against pre-existing proposals. In this way, each cold staker account can participate in the decision-making process.
Now the question arises as to how you can claim your Callisto tokens. This should automatically immediately happen after the fork and depends on whether your Ethereum Classic coins are in an exchange or in a wallet like MyEtherWallet, ClassicEtherWallet, ClassicMask among others. In the case of the former, the exchange might not make the CLO tokens available immediately for the ETC owner. In the case of the latter, an ETC coin holder needs to configure the wallet to show Callisto Tokens and he will find it there.
Summarizing, the Callisto airdrop on block 5,500,000 is the primary factor that has been attributed to the upswing in the price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) in the markets. Many traders are rushing to buy ETC in the hopes of getting CLO tokens For free. This is a good strategy, especially if the Callisto project turns out to be a success and the value of token rises by a significant margin. If you are holding ETC coins right now, the blockchain snapshot will be taken at 5500000 blocks and you can claim CLO tokens as long as you have the private keys for your ETC wallet under your control.
As of 5th March 2018, the Ethereum has 600 blocks to go, before the snapshot for the Callisto airdrop is slated to take place. The current price was not the anticipated figure when the news was initially declared. A Bitcoin drop, an overall decline in the cryptomarket and a last-minute statement from Bittrex announcing its lack of support for the airdrop, cumulatively brought an adverse effect on the price of the Ethereum Classic coin.
When the news of the airdrop was declared, Ethereum Classic witnessed a surge in its price from around 40 dollars to 46 dollars. In February 2018; ETC reached a BTC price high – trading at about 420K Satoshis. It had not seen such a surge in price in about six months. However, this price high it did not sustain for a long time and now with Bittrex withdrawing its support, the ETC/BTC price stands at around 251k Satoshis range.
Very recently, Bittrex, which is one of the most popular exchanges, issued a statement saying that it was unable to support the ETC/CLO airdrop. The team at Bittrex blamed the development team for contacting them last-minute and not giving them enough time for a rigorous token review.
Callisto (CLO) Airdrop for Ethereum Classic (ETC) Holders Reviewed by mir khaleq ali on March 11, 2018 Rating: 5
Finally, there’s someone with knowledge and facts challenging Al Gore’s “Junk Science” hysteria over “Global Warming.” I found him in The Washington Times Weekly Review. He is Edwin P. Heideman, a college physics teacher with graduate studies at Princeton University.
There are weather variations, climactic oscillations, and spikes in temperature caused by the Earth’s natural geologic processes, but there is no proof to support the theory of “global warming” beyond one’s limited observations, imperfect weather records, and inadequate computer simulations. The facts are irrefutable.
Sea floor core drillings have provided evidence of past glacial and interglacial periods in the Earth’s (5 billion year) history. Current indications suggest that the Earth is in a warming interglacial period.
Most scientists agree that climatic changes and ice ages likely resulted from variations of incoming solar radiation due to the Earth’s eccentricity of orbit, precession, variations in axis (tilt) and the difference between true and magnetic north.
Hundreds of active volcanic eruptions annually spew tons of debris, ash, particulates and suffocating clouds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing the serious loss of life and vegetation.
Everyday, the Earth is bombarded by the Sun’s cosmic rays, ions and particles, which are known to effect communications, and local atmospheric conditions.
Centuries of geomagnetic field reversals (anomalies) have been recorded in the Earth’s crust. Scientists are now seriously investigating a fluctuation reoccurrence.
Wildfires of natural and questionable origin have added tremendous quantities of fine particles, carbon dioxide and other gases to the world’s atmosphere.
Massive quantities of methane gas are steadily added to our global air from swamps, marshes and the flatulence of enormous herds of domestic and wild animals.
Climatology is not an exact science, and it is presumptuous of some political elitists, biased conservationists and watchdog organizations to say that greenhouse gases are all man’s fault. How does one differentiate between man’s contribution to alleged global warming and the Earth’s natural phenomena?
Currently, there are several responsible, reputable and scholarly federally funded research institutions (ex: The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) scientifically investigating the concept of global warming.
A far more serious threat endangering planet Earth, humanity and all life forms are the pollutants, poisons and contaminants man adds day after day to our ground water, lakes, waterways and oceans, which is effecting the world’s drinking water, foliage and food chain.
Pesticides, cleaning fluids, detergents, phosphorous, lead, mercury and PCBs (polychlorinatedbiphenals) are just a few of the chemicals effecting groundwater globally.
A ship’s bilge, storm drains and sewers continually carry waste materials from raw sewage to petroleum products into our waterways and oceans.
All kinds of compounds, synthetic products and poisons are regularly dumped into landfill areas, washed by rain into the ground and carried to all waterways.
It is commonplace to see litter along roadsides, trash dumped on private and public land areas, around reservoirs, in national parks and on nature preserves.
Plastics (fish nets, Styrofoam and Mylar balloons) thrown into rivers and oceans never deteriorate, disintegrate or decompose and are frequently found in the stomach of sea creatures.
Necropsies on fish, octopi, beached whales and dolphins have shown increased levels of heavy metals, toxins and pollutants. Marine scientists have confirmed that many of the world’s coral reefs, which provide a habitat and protection for many varieties of sea life, are dying.
Currently, in many third world countries, substandard water breeds mosquitoes triggering pestilence, disease and death.
Local, state and national leaders, legislators and lawyers have abrogated their responsibility to protect our groundwater, rivers and oceans in fear of their political careers, lobbyist pressure, and losing contributions from big business.
Animal mutation, defects and deformities are a good indication of the destruction of the world’s water resources and serious abuses by humankind. Governments need to impose hefty fines, imprisonment or both on individuals or companies responsible for the improper disposal of toxic wastes.
Obviously, it is beneficial to improve the nation’s air quality for the health and well-being of people, wildlife and vegetation. But if the human race doesn’t stop contaminating the Earth’s water at such an accelerating rate, there will surely be, within our lifetime, an international global catastrophe that will annihilate all life, foliage and the planet.