Ken Robinson is one of the funniest speakers I have ever heard, while also delivering, between his one-liners, an important message about how our education system is designed to educate people out of their creativity. One would think it hard to get at standing ovation for a speech on that topic, but he did. Robinson begins with a startling statistic: test results for creative genius show that 97% of kindergarten kids are creative, down to around 10% by high school. ...
The
Creative Places + Spaces conference was billed as "one of the world's leading forums on creativity," and it has certainly lived up to that. The theme was the Collaborative City, and the outcome is hoped to be "guiding principles on what cities and communities need to do to foster creativity through collaboration."
Richard Florida, author of, most recently,
Who's your City, had a tough act to follow, speaking after the truly mindblowing Sir Ken Robinson. But he rose to the occasion, asking where creativity comes from.
Florida thinks great things are going to come out of the current "Great Reset." ...
Schoolchildren in the Maldives form a giant '350' in the lead up to October 24th. Credit: 350.org
What are
you doing today for the
International Day of Climate Action, this Saturday, October, 24, 2009? Plan an awareness-raising, pollution-reducing event? Organize a climate-discussion with a meal made from locally grown food? Did you host a teach-in at the town library and wear an
organic cotton 350 t-shirt? Prove it! TreeHugger writers will be sending in their photos from around the globe, and we want to see yours for our first Writers/
Readers slideshow in celebration of the
International Day of Climate Action. Click through for details and see the potential for your photo in today's
Readers' Home Improvement Photos . ...
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman makes a home more energy efficient. Image credit:
U.S. Department of Energy Digital Photo Archive.
You might think next week's major holiday is Halloween, but 'round the Sierra Club offices we're a bit nerdier. You see, we're excited about Friday, October 30th:
National Weatherization Day.
On National Weatherization Day, created by the U.S. Department of Energy, cities will be hosting events to highlight services and organizations that help people to make their homes more energy efficient. Across the country, federal recovery funds are helping people weatherize their homes for winter, creating jobs, and reducing energy waste.
It all relates to Halloween on a number of levels, really. Think about how many energy "vampires" there are in your home or office (devices that still suck energy even when not on), or think about how much less scary your energy bills can be if you weatherize your home. Did you know that the average family can save $350 a year on their utility bills after a retrofit? So it makes sense to us to tie the two holidays together....
If you've been to, or lived in, New York City you are likely familiar with the city's ubiquitous bodegas. They are generally characterized by an ample selection of pork rinds, blaring salsa music and round-the-clock hours. The bodega has never been a bastion for greenness, but a pop-up shop called Boho Bodega wants to change that.
Running in conjunction with the CMJ Music Festival from October 20-25th, the Boho Bodega has had and will have free
events and parties to promote and showcase the shop's organic and
fair trade vendors like Organic India Tea and Green Forest paper products. All of the proceeds of goods sold will go to the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC), who runs the
city's farmers markets among other things. According to a press release by MakeMakes, the firm that conceived the project, the point of the shop isn't to turn a profit, but to "instill a new reality by placing green foods, beverages and products in the universal everyday format of the urban corner store, deconstructing the common misconception that green is only available to the white collar hippie."...
Image credit: Photo of mountaintop removal coal mining at Kayford Mine, West Virginia. © 2006 B. Mark Schmerling, courtesy Sierra Club Library
A new award-winning film
premiering on Planet Green on November 14 will change the way you think about coal. It will make you sick -- it might also make you cry -- to see
entire mountaintops blown apart to reach the coal inside. This practice has destroyed folks' lives and sparked a civil war among residents of Appalachia -- all so we can turn our lights on at night....
MSLK, a New York based graphic design firm, uses art to raise awareness on the consumption of plastics. Their most recent project,
Watershed, has been touring New York City during Climate Week and set the scene for benefit performances by Moby, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and a speech by Kofi Annan during the world premiere of "The Age of Stupid". Guess what the 1500 plastic water bottles used to construct this eco-installation represent?
(see video and more images below)...
Image via:
greenambassadors on Flickr.com
Kids these days, what'll they think of next. Instead of loafing around and getting in trouble, several teens in Los Angeles are running their own non-profits and spending the weekends teaching people how to save the planet. This weekend, you too can get invovled and show them a little green love by supporting the
Green Youth Movement (GYM) and attending their Waterless Carwash, not that's not a joke, in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles....
Image via: Earth Under Fire
Opening in November and running through March 2010, the American Association for the Advancement of Science will feature an entire exhibit on the climate crisis as it affects people and places around the globe. The exhibit, titled, "Climate Change in Our World," will be the only exhibit on climate and energy in
Washington, DC during the
Senate's debate on climate change, prior to Copenhagen. ...
"Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" photo by VMiraMontes via Flickr
Alas, it does rain in Southern California. Today's wet weather is a welcome relief and a fitting welcome for
World Rainforest Week. Lots of green events happening across the Southland, from designers presenting sustainable clothing shows for
LA Fashion Week (actually, it's a month) to architectural lectures, workshops, and symposiums. Too much to list, in fact, so here are some highlights:
...
Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele are a Seattle-based documentary team specialising in multimedia stories about people, nature and climate change. They are also the just announced recipients of $10,000 from the eco outdoor clothing company Nau, who through their Grant 4 Change campaign, which ran from 7 July to 31 August, exposed the work of over 280 very worthy nominees to a broader audience.
Ten finalists (five selected by the public, and five by Nau staff) were chosen, and
Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele have emerged as the winning grantees. As Nau put it in their media release, "Working together for over a decade, Benjamin and Sara have told stories through photography, field audio recordings and words. From semi-nomadic reindeer herdsmen in the Arctic to wildfire fighters of the American West, the two have documented the lives of people on a regional level, understanding that in order to mobilize a global effort we must first generate local will."...
Image by author - Fragile Future by Drift
One of the most magical experiences during the
London Design Festival last month was 'In Praise of Shadows', the fantastic low energy lighting exhibition on show at the
Victoria & Albert museum. From start to finish this show was an illuminating adventure, which slowly revealed hidden treasures in the mysterious depths of this wonderful museum. The British curator Jane Withers, she of the
1% Water exhibition, made the unusual choice of showing her selection of works by 21 European designers in a darkened gallery. To look around the exhibition, and indeed to find the exhibits, we needed the assistance of a
hand powered dynamo torch. ...
Image via: Rahul_Dutta on Flickr.com
Now that the summer surfing season has come to a close, (is there ever really an end to surfing season?), it's time to give your board a little TLC, upgrade any thrashed gear and prepare for the big waves of the winter season. Just in time,
ReRip is hosting their third annual "Future of Surfing"
Surfboard Swap this weekend in Solana Beach where you can toss your broken boards and check out new green gear. Heck, maybe if you're lucky some fellow surfer will just trade boards with you....
Every year the Merchandise Mart people put on
Explore Design, an amazing show in Toronto to promote careers in design to high school students, with booths from design schools from across North America, great speakers and thousands of kids taking it all in. TreeHugger has been there from the start, organizing
Design for the Greater Good, . "A series of seminars focusing on design with consciousness and on sustainable design." I have rounded up some usual TreeHugger subjects as speakers:
...
Human Glacier musical performance by Paul D. Miller. Photo by Sergio Carratalá
A solar powered DJ booth (see photo below), tree seedlings from Hiroshima, a
Human Glacier performance and Yoko Ono - all of this is happening under the High Line in New York this month.
The Drop and exhibition 2012+ is about art, the city and the environment. Its title is inspired by the Mayan calendar, indicating an upcoming shift from one phase of life to something new about to take shape. Here is how the curators, Alexandra Chang and Mie Iwatsuki, explain their concept:...
SRD Change is the annual exhibition of new graduate design and ideas that address our those issues which will impact our future. Like issues of sustainability, environmental change and responsibility, social equity and community. The Society for Responsible Design (SRD), probably the planet's oldest eco-design not-for-profit organisation, believe that such ideas challenge conventional expectations and raise the design bar to new levels.
Change 09 showcases the directions that graduates from top universities see the world taking, should they secure jobs in various design professions. On view will be a high rise building that grows it own food; an award winning
water transport and filter system; a thermoacoustic water chiller that promotes reusable water bottles; a flexible, roll-up solar charger that tracks the sun; an integrated housing and permaculture garden project. And so much more, as the teaser photos here (and below) suggest. Included is also
Link Scooter share design, we profiled month ago. ...
Image credit: LEIF/Enclave Rising
Enclave Rising is a real estate development company dedicated to building "zero carbon, zero impact, ultra luxury, 5-star sustainable hotels and homes." Joining luxury and environmentally friendly designs is not always easy, but by placing principles of environmental and social consciousness first, the company is building a new paradigm for high-end development.
The mission does not end with real estate. Enclave Rising will host the
Leaders of the Ethosphere Institute Forum (LEIF), of which
TreeHugger is a sponsor, to bring together members of the sustainable business community to analyze challenges and propose solutions to common problems across industries....
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 11. 6.09
Frei Designs to show Spring 2010 collection at Chicago Fashion Week. Credit 
Image via: 
