via One Good Move.

Interesting interview on CNN about The Gubbins Experiment wherein Adam Greenfield decided to not use automobiles at all for a year.

What sorts of things do you think cities and towns (in the U.S. in particular) should be doing to entice people out of their cars?

AG: There are several key ways:

1. Make alternatives more appealing: Make the roads safer for bicyclists and pedestrians with more separated bike lanes, bike racks, wider sidewalks, and so on. Improve public transport. Divert some infrastructure dollars from highways to rebuilding the passenger train network.

2. Make the public realm much more appealing to people: More places to gather, such as plazas and parks; more public art, greenery, and graffiti abatement; more public events to draw people out into the streets. Then people won’t need to drive to distant places to enjoy good company and pleasant places.

3. Elect more dignified public leaders: Encourage all political leaders to walk, bicycle, and take public transit. Get leaders to tell the public the truth about peak oil and that we must start transitioning to a simple, smaller-scaled way of life.

via One Good Move.

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.

+++ +++ +++

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…

Some pretty amazing and haunting imagery from the Midway Atoll of albratross chicks by Chris Jordan.

Artist statement:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~cj, October 2009

via GOOD.

So last year saw the release of FLOW about water rights and the developing world, and this year we’ll see the release of Tapped, which it seems will deal more with bottled water and it’s industry and issues.

Also Good this issue is all about water. Some great resources and tips here.

Beautiful and disturbing photography of the evidence of our pollution from around the world here.

The following idea reminds me of Mr. Fusion, from the the movie Back to the Future part II; it is an entry concept for the Automotive X Prize, which is not only carbon neutral in it’s use of trash as fuel, but claims to be carbon negative. This is achieved in a process by which the fuel, gasified to create ’syngas,’ yields Biochar, a substance which can be used as a fertilizer for agricultural purposes. (The connection to the 1989 film is that Doc’s time machine DeLorean was run by a Mr. Fusion nuclear energy unit. At the beginning of the movie, Doc poured beer and then tossed the beer can into the devise, which then powered the car’s travels through time and the skies.)

It’s a nice idea in theory, but it is not without it’s flaws. Many printed paper products contain carcinogenic materials, which would not exactly make for a safe fertilizer.

More about the team’s proposal at Worldchanging.

(and John Podesta, but watching his part is not so necessary, nowhere near as focused, and i dare say, less interesting.)

A Green World is a Safer One from National Building Museum on Vimeo.

Now, this is a recording of a museum lecture, which means (for those of you who have never been to one) there’s about 10 minutes of introduction and thank you’s to supporting organizations, et cetera, ad nauseum. Just skip ahead. Also, it is a longish talk (Ed’s part is about 35 minutes long).