Nov 21, 09
Feedforward. The Angle of History. Part 1: Wreckage and Countermeasures
Previous posts about this exhibition: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad 1798-2006 and Smoke and Hot Air. Feedforward. The Angel of History, a compelling exhibition that opened a few weeks ago at LABoral in Gijón, addresses the current moment in history where the wreckage of political conflict and economic inequality is piling up, while globalized forces--largely enabled by the "progress" of digital information technologies--inexorably feed us forward. The exhibition...
Aid Groups, Farmers Collaborate to Re-Green Sahel
Disastrous droughts crippled Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali in the early 1970s and more severely in the early 1980s. More than 100,000 people died. "The soil dried up. Everything dried up. All the trees died,"; said Yacouba Savadogo, a sorghum and millet farmer from the village of Gourma in Burkina Faso, at an Oxfam-hosted event in Washington, D.C. "When the soil dries up, there's no more trees and no more rain." Dry conditions and a locust outbreak hit West Africa again in 2005, and...
Can Finance Save Forests?
By Martin Wright If rainforests are so valuable, why can’t we make them pay? For years, that was a rhetorical question. Not any more. Martin Wright on our last, best hope of saving forests – and the climate. It’s a gorgeous June day, 2040, deep in the Amazon rainforest. Peering through the clouds, you can see your pension plan – the vibrant greens of the canopy, reassuringly intact. Panning left, you can just make out the line of the last logging road, long swallowed up by the...
Robert Gaskell Models Faraway Worlds
I’m at the Applied Brilliance conference this morning, a gathering of architects and designers in Bolton Landing, NY, a gorgeous corner of Adirondack State Park. I wasn’t actually scheduled to speak here – my friend Omar Wasow had to pull out of the event so he could be on Oprah’s show today. Since I’m just down the road, I’m pinch hitting. (I guess that the fact that Omar’s known for his work on social networking in the African American community and...
(Un)Inhabitable? - Art of Extreme Environments
The Maison Européenne de la Photographiein Paris is currently hosting the 10th edition of the Festival @rt Outsiders. (Un)Inhabitable? - Art of Extreme Environments explores the meaning of living in extreme environments. These environments are either those that were, until recently, uninhabited by human beings and that contemporary science and technology is turning into "inhabitable" places (Antarctica, underwater world, outer space, deserts); or they are those that the consequences of...
Harvard Business Review and Yale e360 Hype Space Solar. Why?
Harvard Business Review touts space solar in its September piece, “On the Horizon: Six Sources of Limitless Energy?” (subs. req’d) Of course, they also tout nuclear fusion as one of the six (see HBR figure above), so perhaps that tells you their time horizon is … 50 years from now (or maybe never), long after the climate is destroyed. More puzzling is Yale e360, which has a long piece on space solar, with the hype “Now, a host of technological advances,...
Science on the Risks of Climate Engineering: Optimism About a Geoengineered Easy Way Out Should Be Tempered by Examination of Currently Observed Climate Changes
As the risks of climate change and the difficulty of effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions become increasingly obvious, potential geoengineering solutions are widely discussed. For example, in a recent report, Blackstock et al. explore the feasibility, potential impact, and dangers of shortwave climate engineering, which aims to reduce the incoming solar radiation and thereby reduce climate warming. Proposed geoengineering solutions tend to be controversial among climate scientists...
Solar Power from Space: Moving Beyond Science Fiction
by Michael D. Lemonick For more than 40 years, scientists have dreamed of collecting the sun’s energy in space and beaming it back to Earth. Now, a host of technological advances, coupled with interest from the U.S. military, may be bringing that vision close to reality. Despite the enormous promise of solar power, the drawbacks of the technology remain significant. People need electricity every day, around the clock, but there’s no part of the United States that is cloud-free 365 days...
Agroforestry Found On Nearly Half The World’s Farms
For centuries, farmers have placed trees among their crops to enhance soil health, raise marketable fruits or nuts, and protect row crops from damaging winds. Yet agroforestry, as the practice is known, is generally considered a rarity among mainstream farmers. New data suggests that more farmers practice agroforestry than previously appreciated. Nearly half of the world's farmlands have at least 10 percent tree cover, more than 10 million square kilometers in total, the Nairobi-based World...
Energy and Global Warming News: World’s Poorest Women Set To Suffer Most From Climate Change; American Psychological Association Examines the Behavior Behind Climate Inaction
World’s poorest women will bear brunt of climate change President Jacob Zuma has identified climate change and its impact on women as a critical area of concern. “Natural disasters affect women directly and severely because of their social roles and the impacts of poverty. When there are floods, cyclones, or drought, women bear the brunt,” he said recently. In December this year, leaders from around the world will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a new global climate deal. If a fair...
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