“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
—Quote of the Day: President Barack Obama on Climate Change : TreeHugger (via treehugger)
Technology doesn’t always have to be complicated, sometimes the simplest materials and concepts are the best. The Eliodomestico works like an upside-down coffee percolator to desalinate salt water. The ceramic oven has three main pieces. The top black container is where the salt water is poured. As the sun heats the salt water and creates steam, the pressure that builds pushes the steam through a pipe in the middle section. The steam condenses against the lid of the basin at the bottom and then drips into the basin, where it is collected.
The oven can make about five liters of fresh water a day.
The manifesto from Unstash, a new collaborative consumption site (in beta; sign up for an invite here).
From their About page:
Unstash is a peer-to-peer platform for collaborative consumption. In other words, we exist to facilitate and enhance the sharing experience. Every social circle has a huge overlap in consumer goods that don’t all need to be purchased, owned, and maintained by every individual. 62% of people state that they are interested in sharing consumer goods; they just haven’t had effective tools to do so, until now.
We believe in access over ownership. With a laser focused vision on making sharing easy, fun, and social, we believe sharing can be the new shopping – while helping you save money, deepen relationships, and create a more sustainable future together.
thingsthatlooklikeotherthings:
- A re-usable shopping bag that zips into a grenade shape — to fight the War on Plastic, of course:
It’s safe to say it’s better to make one immortal plastic carrier bag shaped like a grenade and use it for a long time, vs making 290* immortal plastic carrier bags and mush them into the ground after one trip to town to pick up a sandwich. This is the logic behind Green-aid, and the subtle way it delivers this message; wrapped as it is in a skin of ammunition-shaped fabric, it’s kind of breath-taking. It’s the same as buying one Italian sportscar in your lifetime vs 42 ten year old hatchbacks, kind of.
*wants*
Waste is often defined as an personal shortcoming, a vice of individuals or of a class of people, which means that solutions are individual as well. Some even say that there has been waste since there has been humans, and it is natural/a necessary evil. In this case, solutions are always already mitigation.
Others, like Vance Packard, see contemporary waste as a planned aspect of industrial capitalism, placing solutions in economic and regulatory realms. How a problem is defined directly affects which solutions are deemed possible, viable, and feasible. These are the stakes of defining wicked problems.
This semester, as part of my Environmental Communication class at NYU, my students and I wrote a pamphlet called “Best Practices of Defining Wicked Problems.” We hope it is of great use to those in discard studies, either as a framework for applied policy work, or as a reflexive tool that is “good to think with” for academics in critical studies.
Would you be able to live in a house that’s only 120 square feet?
These people have made it work. And their Tiny House Movement challenges the way we think about modern living.
I want to live in one!
Very Hitchcock-esque.Photo of me in Boston airport tonight by @amandapalmer. Very true. Also ironic.
This time with a photo attached…
![unconsumption:
It isn’t often that the worlds of recycling and techno music come together.
But thanks to Heavenly Recordings, the European Recycling Platform and Radio 1 DJ Benji B, they have.
Make Noise is a top techno club night and it’s being held around the [U.K.] as part of the Electronic Recycling Tour.
And what’s more, it’s free to enter. Instead of cash, you just need to hand over a knackered electronic item. It can be anything from an old phone to a broken radio to a dead battery.
…
The next Make Noise is in … Glasgow on November 22nd, ending with a huge night in London on the 27th. For all the details, click here.
(via Do The Green Thing: Make noise for e-waste recycling)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdqko0BAgy1qzv12bo1_500.jpg)
It isn’t often that the worlds of recycling and techno music come together.
But thanks to Heavenly Recordings, the European Recycling Platform and Radio 1 DJ Benji B, they have.
Make Noise is a top techno club night and it’s being held around the [U.K.] as part of the Electronic Recycling Tour.
And what’s more, it’s free to enter. Instead of cash, you just need to hand over a knackered electronic item. It can be anything from an old phone to a broken radio to a dead battery.
…
The next Make Noise is in … Glasgow on November 22nd, ending with a huge night in London on the 27th. For all the details, click here.
Derweze, also known as the door to hell, is a 70 meter wide hole in the middle of the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan. The hole was formed in 1971 when a team of soviet geologists had their drilling rig collapse when they hit a cavern filled with natural gas. In an attempt to avoid poisonous discharge, they decided to burn it off, thinking that the gas would be depleted in only a few days. Derweze is still burning today
Romney literally stays silent when asked about climate change. This is really awkward…
Why does he smile like that when it gets awkward? It makes my skin crawl.
Using hundreds of nature shots rather than one, Sydney, Australia-based digital artist Catherine Nelson literally “paints” fantastic, tiny ecosystems that don’t exist in reality but in the imagination.
(via Artist Stitches Hundreds of Nature Photos To Create Lush, Fantastic Worlds : TreeHugger)
Seth Meyers on the Steroid Era of storms.
From last night’s Late Night filmed during Sandy, with no audience members.
