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Monday, March 05, 2007

Good News for a Change

By Courtland Walker


fast 50My one-line review of Fast Company's March issue and its annual Fast 50 list: "It's exciting."

It's green, it's sustainable, and it has BOP written all over it, both literally and sequentially (from the Letter from the Editor, to Andrew Zolli's Business 3.0, to numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, an interview with C.K., 24, 25, 31, 38, 41, an interview with Omidyar, and 44).Did I say it was exciting?

It's palpable. Zolli writes a thought provoking introduction, heralding the "Eco-Innovation Revolution" and the Fast 50 that follow, "50 Profit-driven solutions for what ails the planet," reminds you just how much of this revolution is already underway - from Goliath GE (#37) to up and coming Terracom (#24).

I spent last night watching, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" with my girlfriend, and was left wanting to beat the piss out of a an auto-industry exec before working my way to an oil-industry exec (You start a bogus grassroots campaign to discourage zero emissions while 1 in 4 children in L.A. has lung lesions ...I'm sorry you deserve a re-adjustment....maybe it'll help you sleep).

I advocate said violence in jest of course, but in a world where Dick Cheney visibly laughs during the State of the Union, at the President's call for a 20% reduction in American gasoline usage in the next ten years, you'll spare me being a bit juvenile in my excitement for the Fast 50.

I want to be excited, and there's reason to be (even for the auto-industry (#2)). Look it's not all roses, but editor Mark Vamos, in a Gordon Gekko turn for the 21st century, says it well, "I don't mean to get all smiley-faced about this. Our challenges remain daunting . . .. Still, this year's Fast 50 gives hope even to a cynic like me. If our fate hinges on mankind's noble impulses, we are all doomed. With greed, on the other hand, good things are possible."

They're profit driven, they're green, they're sustainable, they have BOP written all over them, and, come on, they're exciting.
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