--- description: Five years of invisible bloodshed in Syria, California's dire water future, upgrading democracy, clean economic growth and more. title: These Are Today's Best Ideas image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Innovation](/tag/innovation/) ## Innovation Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 18 by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 18, 2015 4:01 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 18, 2015 4:01 PM CUT **1\.** [**What does the world’s indifference to Syria’s horror tell us about ourselves?**](https://medium.com/@AJEnglish/you-probably-won-t-read-this-piece-about-syria-c2fc05646f38 "undefined") By Barry Malone at Al Jazeera English on Medium **2\.** [**California has about one year of water left.**](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html# "undefined") By Jay Famiglietti in the Los Angeles Times **3\.** [**Traditional democratic institutions are failing. It’s time for an upgrade.**](http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/16/rebooting-democracy-participatory-reform-capitalism/ "undefined") By John Boik, Lorenzo Fioramonti, and Gary Milante in Foreign Policy **4\.** [**For the first time in four decades, the global economy grew last year, but carbon emissions didn’t. That’s huge.**](http://www.vox.com/2015/3/16/8224915/economic-growth-carbon-emissions "undefined") By Brad Plumer in Vox **5\.** [**Can we build an Internet that includes the hearing impaired?**](http://time.com/3742994/deaf-hearing-impaired-web-internet-access/ "undefined") By Steve Friess in Time  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3748887/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-18/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3748887/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-18/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 18","datePublished":"2015-03-18T16:01:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:00.811Z","description":"Five years of invisible bloodshed in Syria, California's dire water future, upgrading democracy, clean economic growth and more.","url":"https://time.com/3748887/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-18/","keywords":["Innovation","California","Jobs","Economy","carbon","Internet","Syria","war","Water","growth","democracy","emissions"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3748887/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-18/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 18"}}]}] ```