TH Exclusives

Jim Clark in his gallery with one of his favorite Inuit sculptures

As a young man looking for adventure, Jim Clark took a job as an Alaskan king crab fisherman. Fifteen years later, he had found as well a deep and abiding love for the land, the art, and the culture of the Inuit. A former first mate of two Alaskan king crab fishing boats, Clark now owns Look North Gallery, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The gallery draws attention to Inuit art, and by extension, to the global warming crisis. Clark showcases both established and emerging Inuit artists in the gallery, and in 2008 Look North began representing the Polar photography of world-renowned fine arts photographer Rena Bass Forman. Treehugger recently asked Jim Clark about the gallery, the Inuit, fishing, and Red Hook's incoming Ikea.

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Wolf Trap president and CEO Terrence D. Jones

With the performing arts, a good showing is when the fall of the curtain leaves you shuffling off into the night a bit dazed, a bit dazzled, and perhaps, just a bit thoughtful. This media, like no other, has the power to make you laugh, cry, and cringe. It has the power to captivate and influence.

So tapping the performing arts to raise environmental awareness and educate audiences about climate change sounds pretty savvy to us.

A pioneer and major player in this field is the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, the only National Park for the Performing Arts in America.

Based in Vienna, Virginia -- about a 20-minute drive from Washington, D.C. -- the $28-million-organization holds more than 270 performances a year. We chatted with Wolf Trap president and CEO Terrence D. Jones.

TreeHugger: We love the concept of using the arts as a way to raise awareness of environmental issues. Can you name a few individuals who have successfully done this in the past? Why you think this works?

TH Exclusives

Named for the cultural epicenter of northern Finland, Oulu adds a shock of green to Williamsburg's bricks and asphalt. Unlike the other bars in the torrent that's hit the neighborhood, Oulu features a living facade and a thoroughly green design. I caught up with Evangeline Dennie, the woman behind Oulu's unique look, and we spoke about design, materials, and the therapeutic possibilities of architecture.

TreeHugger: What other projects have you worked on recently? How is Oulu different?

Evangeline Dennie: One of my most recent and significant projects was to design the interim memorial at Ground Zero, called the Tribute Center. I was hired by the architecture firm of record (BKSK) to be an in-house architecture design consultant. I was given the amazing opportunity to conceive the design concept and layout, which was eventually built in 2006.

TH Exclusives

Ed. note: This is the first post in the "Dumb" Questions series of posts that TreeHugger is writing to provide answers to some basic questions about the environment and all things green. We realize that many of these questions/answers will seem, well basic, to most of you, but please bear with us: we just want to make sure that everybody is on the right page! After all, what's the fun in having you read our posts if you get stuck on a basic premise?

To answer this question, it helps to first have a rudimentary knowledge of the planet's hydrologic, or water, cycle. The water cycle, in essence, describes the processes by which large quantities of water move continuously through the Earth's oceans, land and atmosphere over short and long time scales. It is primarily dominated by the oceans — which account for 96% of the planet's water and where 86% of global evaporation takes place — though it has no defined starting or ending point.

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With so many new green consumer products offered, we thought it a good time to get some refresher points from Jacquelyn Ottman, New York City-based green marketing and design expert. Jaquelyn is a 20-year veteran who's left her green footprints on the TreeHugger archives here, here, and here. Here we go.

TH: The US Congress seems to be moving toward enactment of new environmental laws, after a decade-long hiatus. An expanded USEPA budget is even being supported. How risky is it to design a new green product around a prospective US regulatory requirement?

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Dear EcoGeek,
Is it possible to recycle old CD's or DVD's?
Thanks,
Rob

The perpetual scourge of EcoGeekiness is obsolescence. We pay good money for what we see as a good product, and then five years down the line we're surrounded by useless junk!

But I can't help but answer this seemingly straightforward question with several different answers.

First, I'll actually answer the question:
Yes, you can, but it's not as simple as curbside pickup. CDs and DVDs do contain valuable materials (CDRs even sometimes contain gold) and there are techniques to harvest that material for reuse, but those same materials make them too complicated for regular recycling centers. Unfortunately, the materials aren't expensive enough that someone will pay for them. To recycle CDs you'll have to ship them to a special recycling center. Several are listed at the bottom of this post.

TH Exclusives

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After first obtaining a B.A. in Biology from Reed College and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, San Diego, Mark Powell had a short stint as an assistant professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut. After three years, he moved on to the Ocean Conservancy, a leading non-profit focused on issues of marine conservation, where he currently serves as the Vice President in charge of Fish Conservation. His day-to-day responsibilities include monitoring the organization's conservation efforts with the goal of promoting healthy fish populations and marine ecosystems and increasing public awareness of overfishing problems nationwide. Mark recently took time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us and answer a few questions about his position.

TreeHugger: How did you become interested in working for the Ocean Conservancy?

MP: I was doing salmon and river conservation work and jumped at the chance to work on ocean conservation, which was my first true love (ok, first true work love). Ocean Conservancy is the biggest, oldest ocean group, and we’re proudly all oceans all the time I’m happier than a pig in mud.

TH Exclusives

During the Jewish Passover holiday (starting Monday) it is customary for children to ask questions – a lot of them! And since here at TreeHugger we are curious how the faith/spiritual dialogue can be added to the environmental canon of knowledge, we sought out a rabbi dealing with environmental affairs. We found Rabbi Yehudah Leo Levi from Jerusalem to answer a few questions of our own. This is what the Physicist/Rabbi/Author said:

Q: How is Passover connected to the environment?
A: The connection between Passover and the environment is somewhat indirect, but extremely profound. According to the Torah (Jewish tradition), one central purpose of the creation of the human being was to complete the development the world God had created in His wisdom. The human being was put into the wonderful Garden of Eden, not, primarily, to enjoy its delicious fruits, but rather "to serve it and guard it" (Genesis 2:15). Or, in the words of the Midrash: "When God created Adam, he took him to survey all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: 'See My works, how pleasant and praiseworthy they are… be careful not to spoil and ruin My world. For, if you spoil, there is no one to repair after you" (Qoheleth Rabba 7:13).