Breaking in Cambodia

http://www.tinytoonescambodia.com

Using breakdancing to get kids to take classes, to do something fun and healthy. The founder himself has an inspiring personal story.

Behavior, Energy and Climate Change

I made this graphic after attending the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change (BECC) conference in Sacramento. I think the five criteria (fun, interactive, personal, easy, local) apply to more than just energy efficiency and should be adopted by any organization working on climate change. If we want our communities to take effective action about climate change, the actions have to be suggested effectively as well.

Carbon Neutral Architects

http://www.gras-arquitectos.com/

GRAS won a contest to create a city development in Riojas, Spain relying heavily on clean tech to power its city. They say carbon neutral, but I imagine they mean close to carbon neutral, unless they're somehow offsetting the footprint of their production materials.

Rendering from GRAS website.
Click on image for the full story.

Call for Climate Change Documentaries

The World Bank Social Development Department is sponsoring a contest for mini-documentaries about the social impacts of climate change. Dust off your cameras and make something happen. I don't even know how I stumbled across this, but I bet that there are plenty of awesome ideas out there that are worth 2-5 minutes.

The deadline for submission is Oct 24, 2008. Do it!

Keep bailing!

Privatized Profits and Socialized Losses
Great analysis by Michael Greenberger on NPR
It's a little long, but it's a good explanation.

And for the visually inclined, a great stick-figure powerpoint

Freeriding

I was talking with strangers about climbing up buildings with toilet plungers tonight, and coincidentally stumbled on this variety of the same idea from designer Robert Nightingale:


...and they say hopping trains is risky...


Posted on Yanko Design

LIGHT GRAFFITI

I think I'm in love.
Click on the pictures to see the sites.

And these guys turned them in to movies:


So my roommate and I made these:we're still learning

Doing Something: Climate Change

http://www.gridalternatives.org/ Solar Installation for low-income homes

Designing for a future

My primary interest for the last two years has been looking for designers and design focused on climate change. Not just sustainability, or green-ness but actually designing stuff to mitigate CO2Eq's both in production and consumer use. Unfortunately interests and priorities aren't always aligned perfectly, so I'm still searching to hash out this "scene." I know they're out there, and they aren't just making green roofs or gentle cleaning products. So I'm going to try to devote this entry (along with updates) to gathering who's out there and putting them all together here.
I think my symbol animal just may be a squirrel...

Inhabitat is a blog/site devoted to just these things, although their push is sustainability. Their articles rock, so that's close enough for me.

Highlights:
An article on <--- really hot ethanol car, the Mazda Furai. Who needs a tumbler when these already exist? Holy bagasse Batman!

Info on Park(ing) Day, on September 19th, where you take over public car spaces and turn them into a mini park for the day. Who doesn't like to have fun while causing well-intentioned trouble? I know I do. Plus people who participate actually get to DO SOMETHING with their beliefs and opinions, hallelujah. I'm super excited for this. I'm definitely into cars, but Boston could do without half of them, and the other half should not emit CO2

This is a must-read site.

Community Art Links

Silence the Violence using positive action to address violence in communities

Artists for Humanity -------> Employs and trains youth in paid visual arts internships at their extensive studio facility

Van Jones out of Oakland, CA pushing green opportunity for all

Youth Uprising organizes free community events to provide access to activities and new skills

Art in Action youth camp to promote creative arts and youth leadership

How do these organizations use art and community to make positive changes to their neighborhoods?

Who gets it?

Mercedes launched this site:



Which looks surprisingly like the amazing work done by the photographer, Alexandre Duret-Lutz, entitled "Wee Planets":




The similarity between the two styles is striking. So this lead me to try to understand the creative commons alternative copyright license that Alexandre chose for his artwork. This alternative copyright allows others to reproduce or make derivatives of your artwork, even for commercial purposes. From what I can understand, the "share alike" option selected by Alexandre for his images entails that "You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work." Somehow I don't see Mercedes, and the company they hired for the site, Syzygy AG, being too happy about other people using their work in the same way they used Alexandre's.

So, the question I posit today: If an artist falls into the market and no one hears is name, does anyone know he landed? Or does the market just steal his paycheck and run away?

Alternatively, there's Michael Jackson's take on the situation: "Good artists borrow. Great artists steal." I'd argue that Alexandre did it better the first time.

Art on the streets

Booooooom.com -- Making pictures with light

Overspray Magazine is killer (see layout --->) . they also have a blog...

Jordan Todd, urban photographer on flickr

Neuarmy print design and illustration. yes.


Adbusters declares that street art is dead. Was that article title ripped from Nas, or Nietzsche? Dead as in thriving? Influential? Successful? Does being mainstream mean hollow, or does it mean that you've changed the direction of the flow? Does the "mainstream" like street art because it looks pretty, or also because of how it makes them feel, think, respond? Perhaps street art has become more popular because it resonates with what we the people feel, but don't say. Sure it's possible to sell out, especially if you're using your art to push that brand of luxury materialism that sells self-worth with handbags. But getting money for your art that has roots in street culture? Rock on to you sir. Will street art be the original thing as it becomes more adopted by mainstream culture? No. What stays orginal anyway? Does that mean it dies? Street art only dies when the artists decide to stop engaging public space with visual commentary. So that's up to the artists.

Designers

http://www.gregorisaavedra.com/

http://www.lorenzopetrantoni.com/

http://www.motibarzilay.com/

"Eco-Iconic" Products

I met Bill Blakemore of ABC news yesterday when he came to speak at my night course on climate change. He spoke about the psychological mentalities that humans go through in dealing with climate change. Another wonderful, engaging, effective speaker who spent over an hour talking about well, nothing much really. How about some reflection on where you think this is all going? You research and write and talk about climate change all of the time. Since you came all the way to my 7:30 pm night class, how about a little of your perspective?

I spoke to Mr. Blakemore briefly about the perspective of the journalist during moments of social change. At least that's what I was intending to talk about, but we started into a discussion on how journalists don't have a perspective, they just write/talk about what happens. Otherwise we enter into propaganda. Hmmm, well, great, but tell me the last news story published that wasn't stewing in the judgments and the assumptions of the journalist. Even the decision to put Clinton or Obama on the front page of the Times after a debate is a result of a judgment call. I think it would be great to read a major news publication at face value and have someone critically assess all of the players in the event and perhaps even explain each side's investment in the issue. You guys are the ones that go collect information from all over the world, and I depend on your research to form my understanding and positions. As one of my colleagues joked ,"I feel like I'm in communist Russia reading between the lines of every newspaper article." So what are my options? The Times? Ok, but written for 6th graders. The Economist? Featuring titles like "China: A Lot to be Angry About?" or articles that begin "For America, India is an annoying ally." What kind of journalism is that? That's story telling. The Boston Globe? As though Boston were its own globe. The free Metro paper everyone reads on the subway? Are you kidding? Please. Fox News? Er, I don't pay for cable, phew. I'll admit, that often leaves my news some combination of the BBC online and John Stewart.

My new favorite is RealNews.com a news site with no ads or corporate sponsors. Seems pretty legit and I actually get to find out what's happening & get some actual background on the topics they cover. You know, like how Bolivia is undergoing a massive confrontation about natural resource allocation that may end in complete chaos and the overthrow of their first populist president? I want to know when that kind of stuff is brewing! If you have any other suggestions for sources of actual, intelligent journalism, PLEASE let me know.

Today's best

Great monochrome commercial for Audi

Wish I could go to this "Illustration Rally" in Bilbao...

John Stewart on U.S. torture: Daily Show clip

Currently reading: Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken -- I'm at a chapter that details a fantastic cascade of thought and action from Emerson to Thoreau to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Beautifully crafted and written.

Rock, Paper, Scissors for the Bail Out

About a month ago, I started talking with some friends and family about the sub-prime mortgage scramble, and the inevitable business deal that would have to take place between the Fed and the financial sector. That somebody, in some meeting, would need a hefty incentive to volunteer to insert his finger in the hole in the dike that Bear Stearns drilled. Economist Dean Baker does an excellent job of explaining how the whole scenario runs:

The Welfare King of the 21st Century
By Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

" ...While the subsidy involved in the below market lending is easy to see, the commitment to support the investment banks is probably the bigger subsidy to the Wall Street crew. The basic story here is that the investment banks made commitments, mostly in the form of credit default swaps, that they lack the resources to honor. These credit default swaps are essentially a form of insurance. The investment banks promise to make payments to bondholders in the event that there is a default on the bonds they hold.

The banks were prepared to deal with an occasion default, but they don't have the resources to deal with the sort of large-scale collapse that we are now witnessing as a result of the bursting of the housing bubble. Mr. Bernanke has effectively told the banks' creditors not to worry, because the Fed will make good on these credit default swaps, even if Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, or Goldman Sachs can't.

This is a very nice deal for the investment banks, because they got the fees for selling the credit default swaps, not the Fed. And they were very big fees, making the banks and the bank's executives extremely wealthy. In effect, the investment banks sold insurance that they actually were not in a position to provide. Instead the Fed is providing the insurance, but the investment banks get to keep the money they got from selling the insurance: nice work, if you can get it..."

Taxi to the Dark Side: Response

America who are you?
Are you who you want to be?
A once proud Nation
for Honor,
for Liberty.
Does that Nation stand behind
the good Person you want to be?

America who are we?
Does our land reflect
Our
Faith
Our
Hope
of what we want our children to see?

America who are you?
Who do you want to be?
Search your Heart
your
Dreams
You are the child of Freedom,
born with a promise to Humanity.

Step into the Light child.
Show the world your face.
You are not gone
your life is still strong.
Step Forward
Step Forward
to be the Nation
who You Were Born to Be.