Colin Beavan

Writer, activist, and blogger, No Impact Man

2009 had cooler cell phones than 2008. 2010 has cooler cell phones than 2009. 2011 will have even cooler cell phones than 2010.

That won't be progress.

If it's the same year in, year out, how can it be progress? It's not progress. It's more of the same.

What would constitute progress?

Far away from us, one billion people in the world have no access to clean drinking water. Far away from us, therefore, a child dies of diarrhea every 15 seconds.

I would give up my secondhand Blackberry and any other cell phone I've had or will have if it would mean no one died of thirst. I think most people feel that way. People have big hearts.

Ask the average person: Do you want to watch TV on your cell phone or save the world's children from dying of diarrhea? I know what they'd say. People are good.

Yet the people we are proud of for having the smartest brains work, not on water, but on bringing us still better cell phones.

What would be real progress?

When we find a way to put our brains where our hearts are. When we find a way use our big brains to facilitate the intentions of our big hearts.

When we find a way to concentrate more on bringing clean drinking water to the billion people who don't have it instead of looking for a way to bring better TV reception to our cell phones.

That would be progress.

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