Here’s the way it’s going to be one morning in the future:

While you’re lacing up your Google running shoes, or in the vernacular of this future, your ‘Googs,’ you get an alert on your mobile that there’s a major drought looming in Tibet, which is on track to record its lowest snowfall ever.

You program your Googs where to send the 1,000 foot-pounds of energy you’re going to generate during your 6K run.  Around the world, millions of others who belong to the Himalayan Foundation like you do get the same alert, and trigger the same program on their Googs– and additionally via the movement generated by wearers of the 12 other shoe brands, two brands of workout machines, a theater seating company named Squirmigy, four flooring companies, and a wheelchair manufacturer–all of which the Himalayan Foundation has networked on the Donorgy platform.

For the next hour, the energy generated by the movement of the users of all these brands will be auctioned by the Himalayan Foundation and sold as futures on global commodity networks.  At the end of the hour, the contracts will be delivered and all bets get paid off.  With the money raised in a little over one hour,  the Himalayan Foundation will be able to fund a fleet of  gigantic solar powered cargo-cleaning blimps (known as Humptys) to pick up a billion metric tonnes of water from a flood in the Phillipines and clean and haul it to the farmers and communities of Tibet, who can now keep Buddha smiling for another season.

Okay, we’re not there yet, but we will be someday.

MEANWHILE…here’s what we got.  We run for causes.  The mechanism by which funds get transferred to various causes is to the aforementioned scenario what a Stanley Steamer is to a Lexus.  We’ve got a ways to go, but we work with what we’ve got.

Kevin Wall

TOMORROW, SUNDAY, APRIL 18…Kevin Wall and his band of Live Earthlings will stage a Run for Water that will channel money to a number of organizations who dig wells and provide clean water for poor communities in Africa.  It is the ‘opening act’ for the big concert Wall and Live Earth are producing to open the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg in June.  Proceeds from that concert will also flow to social networks supporting economic development in Africa.

The cynic in me says this is sponsored by Dow Chemical.  Those Bophal people.  The thing is, it takes big money to solve big problems.  The waste and misallocation of the planet’s resources is a big problem, and Kevin Wall has a special genius for getting large organizations to direct big money at big problems.  movement.  Yea absolutely, the guy can  be a pain in the ass to work with.  Between him and Al Gore, there was pretty much no oxygen in the room on the Live Earth concerts (the plants were happy, though : )  That said, Kevin has a great heart, he is a master business improviser who causes a lot of unforeseen positive outcomes in the projects he does, and he deserves the support of anyone–from Tony Dow to Dow Finsterwald to Dow Jones to Dow Chemical to Daniel Dao–who wants to work on better ways of treating the planet.

And I will guarantee that when roller skates and skateboards start generating energy futures, Kevin Wall will be the first in line for that deal.

Until then…what are we going to do tomorrow?!…

If you run, or can walk 6K, and are in one of the many locations around the world where this run is happening, it will definitely be a good thing for you to do tomorrow morning.   Program those Googs and throw some foot-pounds at the problem, why don’t ya!