n 1938, the visionary designer R. Buckminster Fuller wrote Nine Chains to the Moon,his radical proposal for improving the quality of life for all humankind via progressive design and maximizationof the world’s finite resources. The title was a metaphor for cooperation – if all of humankind stood on each other’s shoulders we could complete nine chains to the moon. Today, the population of the planet has increased more than three times to 6.7 billion (we could now complete 29 chains to the moon), and the successful distribution of energy, food, and shelter to over 9 billion humans by 2050 requires some fantastic schemes. Like Fuller’s revelation from five decades earlier, 29 Chains to the Moon features artists who put forth radical proposals, from seasteads and tree habitats to gift-based cultures, to make the world work for everyone.
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So far, we have failed in designing a real alternative to the car. Compare the bus and the car as experiences: there is a clear winner and loser. Why does my minivan have 17 cup holders - but my bus has none? Why is my bus shelter not heated, but I can start my car remotely and let it warm up? Why is my bus uncomfortable and noisy when I can listen to Beethoven in my car? My bus is a design failure. It’s a stick painted green, and out of desperation or inspiration I’m supposed to want the experience. In Toronto, the slogan of the transit company is ‘the better way’. Well, it’s not, and everyone knows it. Until the bus experience is more attractive and effective than the car, we will always be selling a losing proposition.
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Climate Messages from the Future
from GOOD:
These incredible posters are hanging in and around the Copenhagen airport, offering a pointed (and poignant) welcome message to the international representatives arriving for COP15. They’re the work of Toby Cotton of Arc Communications, and it looks like they were commissioned by Greenpeace and TckTckTck. Let’s hope the right people see them.
Buckminster Fuller
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Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.
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Cool- RISD’s Chace Center has earned a silver LEED certification – for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Yucca Mountain- built to last 10,000 years. But is that enough?
Three hundred million school children don’t have access to clean water today, and according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 47% of the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress by the year 2030.
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The average American wastes more than 1/2 a pound of food per day. Learn how to reduce your food waste.
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ID students at the Savannah College of Art & Design are currently engaged in a hands-on project with local relevance: Helping a nearby vacation destination, Tybee Island, reduce its water consumption to preserve a local aquifer.
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne, who goes on to suggest Agricultural investment in sub-Saharan Africa as that ‘something big.’
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We’re still multiplying—global population is on track to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, up from 6.8 billion today. And the green revolution seems to have run its course: rice yields, for instance, are growing at only 1 percent a year, down from 2.3 percent in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. For the past several years, grain production has not kept up with demand; if we are to put enough food on the table in the coming decades, something big will need to change.
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Energy Secretary Steven Chu visits Googleplex
(via Next Big Future) There is a 41 minute video of Steven Chu talking about clean energy (including nuclear fusion) at Google.
The Skeleton of Water: Research is revealing a hidden structure within liquids and gases that guides the movement of everything from pollution to aeroplanes
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GOOD expounds on a good idea:
The algae industry is still five to 10 years from commercialization, but it has the potential to change our lives.
I use a Britta for drinking water. About a year ago, my girlfriend noticed a neon green film growing from the bottom of the Britta jug. “Damn algae,” I thought to myself. “It grows everywhere.” But that capacity to grow really, really quickly—and practically anywhere—could be the saving grace of humanity (or the cause of more ire)..
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