I just took a week-long trip to Korea and when I got home I was greeted by a New York Times article which did a great job of writing up a really cool stream restoration project right in the middle of Seoul. Seoul is an amazing city — my hosts cited its population at about 20 million people — and its getting greener every day. Its also the most “wired” country in the world. The GPS devices in each car can be switched over to watch live TV! Pretty cool (but dangerous!).
Here is the article:
One thing the article does not communicate is how much of a big deal climate change has become in Korea. Every day I read the English editions of the Korean Times and the Korean Herald, I found impressive stories about clean energy technologies being developed in Korea along side extensive world-wide reporting on legislative advances on climate change, including extensive political coverage of the passage of the Waxman Markey bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The conversations I had with people I met that week, reflected a keen interest in the potential economic advantage that Korea might achieve if it produces technology and products which usher in a clean-energy future. The world-wide response to global climate change is not seen as a burden, but as an opportunity for Korean companies to gain global market share. Don’t ignore Korea: its the place where research and development cycles are measured in months, not years!
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