Thanks Mark.

I just came across this site the other week on Motionographer, Nissan’s Journey To Zero. I’m usually not a huge fan of the whole ‘emersive web experience’ type of thing, or most uses of flash, or even websites with music for that matter. But I have to say, the content intention and design of this Journey to Zero site are great.

It includes talks from Richard Saul Wurman who is the Founder and Chairman of TED, and who in 1976 coined the phrase ‘Information Architect’ (this guy is fast becoming another one of our favorite people), and involves contributions from Universal Everything, Markus Eriksson/Subdisc, SU11, IAAH, Wade Davis, and PSFK. Works include videos, motion graphics, a typeface, essays and a call to action for people to download and create video response to the content created by IAAH…

Overall I think it’s really nice to see so many smart and talented people coming together to brand and discuss how we can move toward zero emissions. I know a lot of this sort of corporate giant funded projects can sometimes seem hallow, but it’s still important to have the discussion. Even if you want credit for funding it. Better spend your money on that than on simply fighting legislation or more silly cars.

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And Nissan has spent money to roll out the first production electric car just this year. Another good step. I was fortunate enough to be asked to help animate some of these informational videos for the Nissan Leaf, Nissans new fully electric car. It’s pretty smart for them to go straight ahead into developing an electric car, if an obvious one. It still takes some corporate courage to make the big changes happen. But surely, we all can see that cars that don’t run on gas are the future, so it’s smart to get a production gas free car on the market and the sooner the better. Gives you a leg up on the competition. I still think it’s very unfortunate that no one  had the guts to work harder and push this technology sooner.

Nissan, with these changes has definitely moved from somewhere in the background into the forefront of how to solve some of the issues we have with emissions and transportation. And hopefully this will move other auto-manufacturers to have to do them one better or keep up with some actual acts of environmental responsibility…

Informative piece on Fair Trade Labeling from Katarzyna Kijek in Warsaw.

The Canary Project is an organization working to increase the public’s awareness of our global ecological predicament. They do this by “[producing] visual media, events, and artwork that builds public understanding of human-induced climate change and energize commitment to solutions.”

The list of related projects on their website is very impressive, and inspiring.

Beautiful work, to be sure. please do check it out.

Last month in Bristol, UK, a group of artists projected text onto the city’s buildings in an effort to increase awareness of just how disastrous the melting ice caps can potentially be. The Watermarks project is a Arts Council England backed endeavor to get the topic into public debate. They openly acknowledge that the flood heights are estimates, and that there is currently no scientific consensus on just how bad it will be; they have chosen to use the current UK estimates at what water levels would be in 100 years if the referenced ice sheets melted.

More from their site:

This project contends that the future of our cities and landscapes and our responses to rising sea levels are not just left to scientists, politicians, engineers and the built environment professions but emerge from as wide a base as possible with participation and involvement from all sections of the wider community. Ultimately the mitigation and adaptation measures will be social and cultural as much as scientific and technical.

As i often contend, our biggest problems aren’t really problems of the environment or the economy, but rather are problems of our point of view, and our [lack of] awareness. Hopefully this project has succeeded in changing both for the people of Bristol, if only a little.

The Atlantic Monthly, a fine magazine of general news content and cultural digest, recently begun a new campaign, called: Think. Again.

The campaign hopes to enliven a questioning of so many things we take for granted, and to look at things in a slightly different way. This is done by way of live interviews with people in the street and posts on the project’s blog, but primarily through what amounts to viral marketing. In the end, you could say it’s just an ad for the magazine, if a somewhat unusual one. On the other hand, there is supposedly a documentary to follow, to be based on the outcome of the interviews and public response to the campaign, which has potential to be very thought provoking.

Check out the website and their blog for some questions, and some rather nice photographs (i’d say).