Now the future is a kind of attenuating peninsula; as we move out on it, one side drops off to catastrophe; the other side, nowhere near as steep, moves down into various kinds of utopian futures. In other words, we have come to a moment of utopia or catastrophe; there is no middle ground, mediocrity will no longer succeed. So utopia is no longer a nice idea, but a survival necessity. "Remarks on Utopia in the Age of Climate Change," from Kim Stanley Robinson.
Previously.
posted by gerryblog
on Dec 22, 2011 -
15 comments
A Planetary Crisis Is A Terrible Thing to Waste There are striking similarities between the current economic and ecological crises — both involve indulgent over-consumption and a failure to consider the impacts on future generations. But it’s not too late to look to new economic and environmental models and to dramatically change course. opines Der Spiegel environmental journalist,
Christian Schwägerl
posted by infini
on Oct 27, 2011 -
17 comments
Treshr makes it easy to give things away, or, the other way around, find free stuff. Everyone has stuff they don’t need anymore. Maybe your child outgrew their old clothes, or you moved to a new place and have old furniture to get rid of. Whatever it is you’re looking for, someone somewhere is trying to throw it away. Treshr is basically a search engine for
Freecycle, a nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. [
via]
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Oct 20, 2011 -
28 comments
Climate Wizard enables you to access leading climate change information and visualize the impacts anywhere on Earth. This web-based program allows you to choose a state or country and both assess how climate has changed over time and project what future changes are predicted to occur in a given area.
posted by netbros
on Sep 23, 2011 -
7 comments
"
24 Hours of Reality will focus the world’s attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis. To remove the doubt. Reveal the deniers. And catalyze urgency around an issue that affects every one of us.” — Al Gore on the worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. The Climate Reality Project will live stream starting at 7pm CT on September 14.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Sep 13, 2011 -
47 comments
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that a rubbish dump being created would, in the space of a century, become a protected area. Yet that is exactly what happened to what has come to be known as
Glass Beach, just outside Fort Bragg in California."
[more inside]
posted by codacorolla
on Sep 1, 2011 -
20 comments
(Sunday night arthropod terror filter): YouTube user
memutic has uploaded several dozen high-quality backyard video recordings of exotic insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and millipedes native to Central America, Southeast Asia, and the US.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Jun 26, 2011 -
20 comments
Five years ago this week, the BBC started broadcasting one of the most extraordinary documentaries ever to grace television:
Planet Earth. The culmination of
five years of field work, it employed
the most cutting-edge of techniques in order to capture life in all its forms, from
sweeping spaceborne vistas to shockingly intimate close-ups -- including
many sights rarely glimpsed by human eyes.
Visually spectacular, it showcased footage shot in
204 locations in 62 countries, thoroughly documenting every biome from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to
the lifegiving waters of the Okavango Delta, a rich narrative tapestry backed by
a stirring orchestral score from the BBC Concert Orchestra. Unfortunately, the series underwent
some editorial changes for rebroadcast overseas. But now fans outside the UK can rejoice -- all eleven chapters of this epic story are available on YouTube in their original form: uncut, in glorious 1080p HD, and with the original narration by renowned naturalist
Sir David Attenborough. Click inside for the full listing (and kiss the rest of your week goodbye).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 7, 2011 -
69 comments
Waterlife — No matter where we live, the Great Lakes affect us all. And as species of fish disappear and rates of birth defects and cancer rise, it seems one thing is clear: the Great Lakes are changing and something's not quite right with the water. An interactive documentary film from the
National Film Board of Canada.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Feb 26, 2011 -
20 comments
SEED Magazine:
Wealth of Nations:
"Shared natural resources underpin the global economy, but our current economic system does not acknowledge their worth. Can a major new effort to assess the costs of biodiversity loss force a paradigm shift in what we value?" [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 30, 2010 -
10 comments
Every day, our world gets a little bit smaller and a lot more complex. So much so that even minor decisions can have major consequences. Not just for trees or frogs or polar bears, but for human lives, and livelihoods. At its core, sustainability is about people.
The Living Principles for Design aim to guide purposeful action. It is a place to co-create, share and showcase best practices, tools, stories and ideas for enabling sustainable action across all design disciplines.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Sep 20, 2010 -
9 comments
Urban gardening and agriculture are becoming increasingly important as our world becomes more urbanized.
Urban Gardening Help is for those environmentally conscious urban dwellers who want to use
hydroponics and other tools to create a green corner devoted to nature in their own home.
Urban Gardens looks for innovative and eco-friendly designs, trends, and ideas for the stylish urban home. See, for example,
tiny herb gardens, where succulent cuttings come in small packages.
Urban Garden Casual works with the constraints of limited-space, light, and micro-climates created from the shadows of neighboring buildings by using unconventional ideas like the
garden pouch.
posted by netbros
on Jul 10, 2010 -
9 comments
Rising up from deep within the aquifer, cool clear water flows from hundreds of springs that dot the Florida landscape.
Florida springs are natural wonders that are threatened constantly.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Dec 24, 2009 -
14 comments
SLJaredDiamondOp-Ed: As part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies. I’ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog
on Dec 11, 2009 -
52 comments
NASA recently released a series of photographs documenting the
loss of the Aral Sea over the past ten years. The Aral Sea could be the poster child for human damage to the ecosystem. In a mere four decades, it has gone from a surface area of 68000 km^2 to less that a quarter of that, with a 10x drop in water volume. As its
Wikipedia article points out, this is the equivalent of completely draining two of the five Great Lakes.
[more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll
on May 21, 2009 -
14 comments
The globe’s networked ecologies of food, water, energy, and waste have established new infrastructures and forms of urbanism. While these ecologies exist at the service of our contemporary lifestyles, they have typically remained hidden from view and from the public conscience.
Infranet Lab is studying the shifting / changing conditions.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Apr 20, 2009 -
2 comments
Meta-efficiency is the analysis of efficiency at a more comprehensive level.
Metaefficient Review assesses products considering not only their energy efficiency but also the embodied energy, toxicity, affordability, and usability.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Feb 28, 2009 -
4 comments
Tales of the Beanworld ("A most peculiar comic book experience") recently resumed publication after a long hiatus. It's a strange and abstract mix of Native American mythology and culture, with a strong ecological focus, into an wonderfully charming cosmology. While it certainly invites, uh,
overthinking, it's also entertaining on a purely casual level.
A sample
short Beanworld story is on the Dark Horse Comics Myspace page.
If you have questions about it, the
BeanWeb just may have answers, along with illustrations from the comics. There is now a
Beanworld Wiki to supplement it, and creator Larry Marder keeps a
blog where he talks about things bean.
Okay, now that it's properly introduced... the
real point of this post is to link to
this awesome Beanworld Flash cartoon, animated by Fashionbuddha and with music by They Might Be Giants!
posted by JHarris
on Dec 20, 2008 -
17 comments
Hunting the Hidden Dimension. You may be familiar with fractals, but in this PBS Nova episode, divided online into 5 parts, fractals go beyond the impossible zoom of the
Mandelbrot set. Scientists are using fractals to describe complex natural occurrences, like
lava,
capillaries, and
rain forests. In part 5, scientists measure one tree in the rain forests, and the distribution of small and large branches mirror the distribution of small and large trees. Fractals, it seems,
are nature.
posted by plexi
on Nov 2, 2008 -
43 comments
The Eco Zoo - some amazing Japanese 3D Flash. If you take a close look at the animals there... you might be able to get some tips to live in a more environmentally friendly way!
posted by Artw
on Sep 13, 2008 -
13 comments
