Jan 8, 09
Year in Review 2008: Best in Essays
As we look forward to the new year, we've also reflected on the old, and rediscovered some of the great events, innovations, interviews and debates that 2008 had to offer. For the next week, we will be sharing our picks...
Delivering Messages Through Art: The Canary Project
There are times when a problem is so big we might not even recognize its importance at first. Maybe we are too distracted, too busy, or for whatever reason just not receiving the message. But perhaps if delivered differently, messages about a problem can break through whatever barriers are keeping them from getting to us. The Canary Project is a new organization whose very mission is to deliver messages about climate change differently. Using artistic mediums of all kinds, the creators of The Canary Project collaborate to present information about climate change in more visual ways. The nonprofit organization is using professional photography, performance art, fashion and graphic design to...
Graphic Series: Earthly Ideas, Week 13
Editor's note: This post is part of a series featuring Worldchanging ally Andy Lubershane's original graphics. While many of the issues covered in the comics have been discussed on Worldchanging in the past, we hope that you'll be able to use this new medium in a different way … whether it's in your classroom, on your office wall, or to help explain ideas to friends and family. This week we have a mini-series of two cartoons, featuring High Wind Power. One of the larger problems with grounded wind turbines is inconsistency -- sometimes the wind just doesn't blow. But the higher into the atmosphere you go the steadier the wind...
USDA Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets
As people around the world await the inauguration of U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama on January 20, it seems that every week brings news and controversy that heightens expectations for 2009 to be a turning point in the American response to climate change. We recently learned of yet another encouraging development on Capitol Hill, this time in the United States' federal approach to ecosystem services. On December 18, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer announced that there will be a new office in the USDA: the Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets. According to an official release, this office, along with a federal government-wide Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board, will...
Climate Will Change Everything
From the discovery of intelligent life somewhere else to a web-based revolution in education, certain future milestones seem to hold the power to change everything that happens afterward. The online intellectual forum The Edge recently posted ideas about what those keystone events might be, in our own lifetimes and beyond. More than 150 thought leaders, including philosophers, writers, archaeologists and scientists, answered the 2009 Edge Question of the Year: "What Will Change Everything?" And, more specifically, "What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" Two particularly good answers addressed climate change. As we know, climate change is already impacting the atmosphere, the oceans and...
It's Flue Season
Economic stimulus through energy efficiency. Here's your economic stimulus idea for today: condensing flue gas waste heat recovery. With a name like that, it has to be good. And it...
Local Currencies Grow During Economic Recession
Photo courtesy Jason Houston Five local banks have printed more than 2 million Berkshare notes since 2006. The 10 Berkshare note features Robyn Van En, a local pioneer of...
Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky Discuss the State of the World in 2009
Over at The WELL, Worldchanging Ally #1 Bruce Sterling is delivering his annual assessment of the world, and by all counts, 2009 is rife with material. Our own Jon Lebkowsky...
Streetsblog Awards Best Transportation Stories of 2008
To build a more sustainable, resilient community we need to remodel our cities. One key area in need of attention: our streets. Our publicly owned streets are meant to help...
An Artist Whose Masterpiece Is a Neighborhood Transformed
Inner city communities face obstacles that often feel insurmountable: crime, poverty, pollution, crumbling infrastructure, social alienation and other tragedies that crush the spirit of people living there. Despair becomes...
Sanjay Gupta for U.S. Surgeon General?
The Washington Post is reporting that President-elect Barack Obama has asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta (who we recently interviewed) to serve as surgeon general: The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting...
Tehran Looks to the Skies for Cheap Power from the Sun
Iran is introducing the latest solar technologies to cut its oil consumption and bring cheaper electricity to its civilians by Alok Jha A concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Spain...
Passive Survivability Revisited: The Hurriquake Nail
According to the research-based predictions of urban affairs and planning expert Arthur C. Nelson about half the buildings that Americans will use in 2030 will have been built after 2000...
Cap-and-Trade Shuts Down U.S. Coal Plants
Jubilant environmentalists trade high fives, carbon permits We tend to see a lot of handwringing over the fact that Europe has a carbon cap in place, yet they’re still adding...
Inventing a New Kind of Family for a New Era
by Jay Walljasper During the holidays, people gather together with their families (parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, close friends) for food and kinship. These gatherings, especially in the...
Make New Friends, Keep Track of the Old
Connecting with other Worldchanging readers is as easy as checking your Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or WiserEarth account. Make new friends or keep track of the old by friending Worldchanging...
Mapping: Infrastructure and Flow
I love airline route maps. I’ve fallen asleep staring at the tangle of possible journeys so often that I sometimes confuse the capillaries I see with my eyes closed with...
Lazy Dystopias
Recently, I've been buried in a bumper crop of lazy dystopias. Now, I'm not against dystopian fiction as a means of social critique. Not at all. I think showing how...
The Street as Platform
I realize now that I've been delinquent in recommending Dan Hill's truly excellent speculative essay The Street as Platform, which explores a cross-section of all the ways that urban environments...
Headlines from Worldchanging Seattle (12/29/08)
The recent snowfall here in Seattle, and its impact on all of the city's neighborhoods, has helped us see many of the things we take for granted in new ways...
In the Bubble
I'm a huge fan of John Thackara and his writing. As I wrote of his book, In the Bubble, That book changed my brain. From the very first few pages...
Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better
Professor pioneers DIY adjustable glasses that do not need an optician By Esther Addley It was a chance conversation on March 23 1985 ("in the afternoon, as I recall") that...
The LUCAS Imager: Portable, Affordable Blood Tests for the Other 90 Percent
In the Global South, blood tests -- which require a lab, expensive evaluative equipment and/or the presence of a skilled technician -- are out of reach for the majority...
Resource: Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism
Throughout history, some architects have earned reputations as egoists who want to impose their ideals on culture through their massive structures. Industry masters are often viewed as untouchable, as...
Opinion: Department of Green Labor
by Michael Renner In announcing that he intends Hilda Solis to be his Secretary of Labor, President-elect Barack Obama made good on his campaign pledge of change: Not only will...
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