Congratulations to the City of Waterloo on being named the world's most "intelligent city"! It's quite an outstanding achievement, announced today in New York City.
See the Record article
According to a news broadcast, one of the reasons they cited as a critical element in winning is that they ranked high in the sustainable leadership category.
Also in the news today is what large American cities are doing on climate change with the Clinton Green Cities Initiative.
Waterloo has the potential to position itself as a leader in sustainability for mid-size cities. The ability to combine Waterloo's current technological innovation with sustainability leadership has been noted recently by various individuals.
A practical example of how this is being done right new is a new initiative starting partly from students at the University of Waterloo - a ridesharing program called Zimride.com
The program is tied in directly with facebook, to allow individuals to share rides, at the same time being able to know about the person you're sharing with. You can post ride offers on the site, and even connect with facebook events to share rides.
How this site is setup, I can see it taking off incredibly. I want to be the first to predict great things for zimride. Good ideas, implemented well like this one have amazing potential - and just like facebook itself, zimride may soon find itself with similar success.
As someone in the Feds, providing services to students is very important to me. I think this will a different and useful (free) service to most students.
Speed up the process to promote this culture of ridesharing, by sending it to your friends - sharing this blog or the website or the facebook group.

p.s. Gas prices??
Recent articles are showing an increase in transit use in Canada that is being attributed to high gas prices. People are starting to do it.
Ride less, share more.

"This is a historic day for Ontario," de Jong says.
Today's final report from the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform promises a great improvement in the quality of Ontario's democracy, according to Green Party of Ontario Leader Frank de Jong.

The Mixed Member Proportional voting system recommended by the Citizen's Assembly was thoroughly researched, debated, and voted on not by politicians, but by 103 ordinary citizens from across the province. The fact that our politicians entrusted the people of Ontario with this important task shows a whole new way of thinking about the democratic process in our province.
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As I said in a previous post, I accept the decision of the Ontario Citizen's Assembly and now encourage a significant push on accepting MMP.
Educate now. October 10th, act.
Here's more info (try the audio version of the article!)
http://www.agoravox.com/article.php3?id_article=6046