Make This Earth Day Your Last!

ALEX STEFFEN AND SARAH RICH | 19 APRIL 07

Most of the time, we go far out of our way to blog from the sunny side of the street, but today we have something important to say that involves some strong words: Sunday should be the last Earth Day.

This weekend, throughout much of North America and across the globe, hundreds of thousands of people who care about the environment will get together at protests, concerts, neighborhood clean-ups and tree-plantings... and accomplish almost nothing. Earth Day, which every year has become less and less the revolutionary event it once was, seems this year to have entered a new phase of meaninglessness. Indeed, this year it appears to gone into a form of retrograde motion and begun to move actively away from the concept of comprehensive sustainability that drives all rational environmentalism. In short, Earth Day has served its time, and it must go.

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paraSITE: A Decade of Urban Intervention

Sarah Rich
April 6, 2007 1:49 AM

Main Entry: par·a·site
Pronunciation: /ˈpærəˌsaɪt/ or [par-uh-sahyt]
Definition: an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.

Michael Rakowitz's parasite has lived a long time, enduring numerous attempts by its host to vanquish it forever, transmuting in the face of opposition in order to stay nourished. This case is one worth noting.

I'm in the UAE this week attending the Symposium of the Sharjah Biennial -- three days of exploration around the relationship between culture and ecology through architecture, visual art and new technologies. Yesterday, artist/interventionist, Michael Rakowitz, discussed his 10-year old ongoing project, paraSITE, sharing a compelling narrative that bears repeating.

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Science corner: the natural carbon cycle vs. fossil fuels

Terra Pass
by Adam
We get a steady stream of questions that hinge on a basic confusion over the difference between the natural carbon cycle — the continual uptake and release of carbon dioxide by biological organisms — and the burning of fossil fuels. This post is an attempt to set the record straight. We hope that it achieves the worldwide acclaim of our post on how to turn 6 pounds of carbon into 20 pounds of CO2. I now present to you the most famous graph in climate science, the Keeling Curve: This trend line shows in precise detail how atmospheric concentrations of...

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Clean that Apple...

Inhabitat
by Jennifer
Take a poll on any city street, and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t admire Apple’s clean, innovative product design. In the past 5 years, with the success of the iPod and power PCs, Mac has come to dominate the high-end consumer electronic space, with their clean, minimalist aesthetic. With such a prestigious design-driven brand, one would think that Apple would be leading the way in the green design revolution. Sadly, this is not the case - Apple is actually lagging behind companies like Dell and HP - and because of this, Greenpeace has spearheaded a creative campaign to green Apple.

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Affordable solar - soon...

By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard | Thursday, 5 April 2007

New solar cells developed by Massey University don't need direct sunlight to operate and use a patented range of dyes that can be impregnated in roofs, window glass and eventually even clothing to produce power.

This means teenagers could one day be wearing jackets that will recharge their equivalents of cellphones, iPods and other battery- driven devices.

The breakthrough is a development of the university's Nanomaterials Research Centre and has attracted world-wide interest already - particularly from Australia and Japan.

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Vegetables Fight Global Warming

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

April 27, 2006 — It turns out there's something anyone can do right now to make a big impact on global warming, says one climate researcher: Eat more veggies.

A new study of how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere by the production of food shows that the difference between a meat-based and plant-based diet amounts to the same as driving an SUV versus a small sedan.

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Beyond Organic

Jay Walljasper

This article appeared in Ode issue: 41

The next ecological and social revolution is being plotted right now in the rainforests of South America

Our small boat bobs along the unimaginably wide Amazon River, then heads up a fast-flowing tributary the colour of tea with cream, and finally turns onto a stream leading into the heart of the rainforest. Monkeys scamper in the trees above us as the motorboat chugs more and more slowly until the stream becomes too narrow to travel. This is where José Luiz de Oliveira and his 17-year-old son Alex live on a small farmstead alive with bird calls. Piglets frolic in the cool mud below their dock while ducks march in formation.
In many ways this boat ride feels like a trip into the past. The forest is largely untouched here except for the sunny clearing around the house (although we did spot an illegal lumber operation downriver). The de Oliveiras live as people have for centuries—drawing their daily meals and livelihood from the land, the river and the livestock. It’s an enchanting place if you can get used to the mosquitoes. Yet beauty and peace do not translate into prosperity. The tiny house has no electricity, no telephone, no fans, no screens in the windows.

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San Francisco passes plastic-bag ban

From the Associated Press: City leaders approved a ban on plastic grocery bags after weeks of lobbying on both sides from environmentalists and a supermarket trade group. San Francisco would be the first U.S. city to adopt such a rule if Mayor Gavin Newsom signs the ban as expected.

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Green is good

From Fortune: No, it's not just greenwash. Business in the U.S. really has become cleaner and greener. Environmentalists actually have embraced market-based solutions. And the politics are about to get very interesting, says Fortune's Marc Gunther.

Big business and environmentalists used to be sworn enemies - and for good reason. General Electric dumped toxins into the Hudson River. Wal-Mart bulldozed its way across America. DuPont was named the nation's worst polluter. The response from the environmental movement: mandate, regulate and litigate. Those days are mostly over.

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Holistic approach works for environmental health

Holistic approach works for environmental health

By Loni Nannini

Special to the Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.01.2007

Going green is all the buzz in Hollywood, but Catlow Shipek and other volunteers are bringing a holistic approach to environmental health close to home with the Watershed Management Group (WMG).

"We take a holistic approach not just about environmental and ecological linkages within the watershed system, but social and economical linkages, which evolve into political linkages: The holistic approach involves all the stakeholders, so no one is excluded," said Shipek, who holds a master's degree in watershed management from the University of Arizona. He partnered with Jared Buono and a small group of fellow students to found the nonprofit Watershed Management Group in 2003.

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