Tag Archives: jem bendell

Jem Bendell: Making Heads or Tails of Bitcoin

January 21, 2014Full Showcurrency, jem bendell, matthew slater, new yorkerAlex Wise

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If you’ve heard about Bitcoin on the evening news or seen a headline about it, you might have been left with the impression that it’s some sort of online scam or the next Dutch tulip bubble. But Bitcoin and other cryptographic currencies are very real.

Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio is Jem Bendell, a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, the world’s first public university to accept Bitcoin for tuition payments. He explains how Bitcoin works and why he thinks it might help us move beyond the inadequacies and inequities of central bank-controlled currencies toward a sharing economy. Bitcoin has its critics to be sure, but, as New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki has so aptly put it, “the value of currency is, ultimately, what someone will give you for it…” Listen now as host Alex Wise and Jem Bendell discuss how Bitcoin is valued and the promise crytpographic currency holds for the sustainability movement.

Sustainability Adventurers

March 26, 2013Full ShowClimate Change, jem bendellAlex Wise

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Can a spirit of adventure lead us toward more sustainable living? This week on Sea Change Radio, we try to answer that question. First, host Alex Wise speaks with Jem Bendell, a sustainability professor who has organized the upcoming Adventures in Sustainability Conference taking place in London May 28th. Next, we hear from Kate Rawles, an environmental travel writer who rode her bike from Texas to Alaska to raise awareness about climate change. Then, Alex talks to Ed Gillespie, a sustainability communications consultant who circumnavigated the globe without flying.

Evolving Partnerships & Compostable Diapers

May 10, 2011Full Showcompost, diapers, environmental sustainability, jem bendell, karen nelsen, landfillsAlex Wise

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This week on Sea Change Radio we feature two different ways that strategic partnerships can help organizations make better progress toward environmental sustainability. First, host Alex Wise talks with Jem Bendell about some strange bedfellows. More and more, nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations are getting together with multinational corporations in cross-sectoral partnerships. Ostensibly, these partnerships increase the nonprofit sector’s capacity for good, and they certainly represent an increasing trend as other revenue streams dry up. But what are the implications, compromises and repercussions involved when nonprofit entities partner with these unlikely allies? Is this trend the hope for benevolent organizations or a Faustian bargain?

Next we learn about Earth-Baby, a Bay Area-based company that’s trying to cut into the number three contributor to our country’s landfills – disposable diapers. In order to accomplish their mission, this small for-profit company has partnered with a local composting company and an international compostable diaper producer to help Bay Area families with infants and toddlers leave their kids with a cleaner world.