Two interesting pieces up tonight from people who should be in bed.

Makower’s got a long and pleasingly wonky post up on Environmental Strategies for Industrial Development, a new report from Alliance to Save Energy that discusses ways industry and government can work together to lower the cost of regulatory compliance. It’s partly by simplifying regs and party through benchmarking " common air, water, and waste management functions" and sharing ways to improve them, thereby cutting waste and reducing the need for regs. Hott!

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Meanwhile, Cascio hopes peak oil will be like the Y2K bug — nope, not the way you’re thinking. He says Y2K was a real problem that, thanks to shrill and apocalyptic warnings, got solved before it wreaked destruction. So here’s to shrill and apocalyptic warnings!

Oh, and one more, from yesterday: An interview with Cory Doctorow (co-proprietor of BoingBoing and advocate for the Electronic Frontier Foundation), also on WC, about "copyfight" and the international struggle for reasonable intellectual property laws. Too many people think of copyright law as a niche concern — something that only concerns filesharing teenagers — but it is in fact enormously important. If we want poor countries to develop in a more humane and green way than we did, it’s vital they be able to share what Doctorow calls "knowledge goods" — science, practical techniques, information. Lots of good stuff in here.

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Update [2005-8-1 23:21:33 by Dave Roberts]: Here’s a layman’s intro to copyfight.