Ecological insecticide allows you to extinguish-nature in a nature-friendly way.
It nicely illustrates the “I love nature, but not in my backyard” attitude, so popular nowadays. Peculiar paradoxical product of the week.
Related: Five Strategies of Biomimicmarketing, The biodiversity of green brands is increasing, Natural Condoms.
The fabrication of forests with artificial trees is one of the best strategies to stop climate change, according to scientists of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
The British researchers conclude that the climate is changing so quickly, without geo-engineering we will be impossible to stop it. The use of artificial trees is number one on their list of recommendations.
The technology behind the artificial trees, which should filter CO2 from the air, is currently being developed. The present-day prototypes are able to retrieve a thousand times more CO2 from the air than a regular tree.
The ‘trees’ are about the size of a sea container (!) – should be an interesting addition to the landscape, here is a picture of an actual prototype. Researchers believe they will be able to mass-produce them soon and expect they will be part of our landscape within ten to twenty years.
Via BBC, NY Times. Related: Windmill trees, Cellphone Treemasts, Fight climate change, hack the planet, Let the Dutch bury the carbon, Humans to blame for global warming, Doggerland – Mapping a lost world, If the implications of global warming were fair, Global Warming Ready Campaign.
Meet A.T.R.E.E.M. (acronym for Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine), a device that compares daily activities, energy and products to the growth of a tree.
“From an ecological perspective, CO2 is a byproduct of the living, either directly or indirectly. From the economic perspective, CO2 may become the world’s largest commodity market. What do we consider the price of our own byproducts?
This project aims to criticise the carbon trading system as well as raise awareness of how good we are at destroying the planet.”
On elevated unused traintracks the city of New York created a park. Nice work, makes me think of the unnatural nature of parks I visit sometimes. Typically, the park is designed by a Dutch guy, I guess they know where to look for when they want next nature.
Going to the zoo is a favorite summer past-time. Visitors to the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna will see lots of animals in recreated ‘natural’ habitats. Except this summer, along with the animals, there’s an odd addition. Junk.
The zoo is hosting the work of two German artists who are questioning whether the environments created at zoos are actually natural representations of the real world. In this case, one untouched by man. Artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf created a new ‘natural’ context in which to view the animals in an exhibition called Trouble in Paradise.
In one enclosure, the German duo have half-submerged a car in a watering hole used by the resident rhinos. In another enclosure, penguins frolic in the shadow of an oil pump, and in yet another, alligators must share their modest bayou with a bathtub and a monster truck tire.
The artists hope the exhibition forces the viewer to reconsider their idyllic vision of what a natural animal habitat looks like and realize the impact man has had on the environment.
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Is it a cynical gesture to glue a ‘Stop Continental Drift’ bumper sticker on your gasoline addicted car? Absolutely. Yet indirectly it also criticizes the romantic environmentalist longing to perceive nature as static: something that must not change – although environmentalist typically perceive themselves as progressives, such a static concept of nature is undoubtedly a conservative longing.
Perhaps the bumper sticker learns us that, rather than merely trying to stop all changes that are taking place, we should spend more time on developing a more flexible attitude towards the changes in our environment. After all, continents drift, climates alter and change happens.
Via Stardove. Related post: Doggerland – Mapping a lost world, Country looking for new land, If the implications of Global Warming were fair, Diesels global warming ready campaign, Humans to blame for global warming.
“In the environment this company will survive for another 500 years.” From the advertising campaign of WWF Brasil.
While out in the wilderness, I was in need for a condom. This is what I found. It doesn’t look very comfortable, but having an organic lifestyle has it’s price I guess? Peculiar object of the week.
Related post: Natural Condoms, Organic Coca-cola.
Daring talk by agriculture expert Louise Fresco, who has the guts to break the organic trance of the fashionably-natural-farmers-market people at TED.
During her talk she is holding up two loaves, one in each hand: Wonder Bread, and artisian whole meal bread. Fresco says that we feel whole meal bread is more real, more honest, more authentic.
“Why do we feel that whole meal bread has these attributes? Because we connect it to a mythical agricultural past, of Tuscan farms. We have mythical image of how life was in rural areas in the past. The reality is quite different. These poor farmers had hard lives.”
“200 years ago we had industrial revolution. It brought us power, mechanization, fertilizer, drove up yields. Horrible things like picking beans by hand is automated. All this is a great improvement. We’ve enveloped world in dense chain of supermarkets with global trade, we can eat food from around the world. ”
“You may prefer the artisanal bread, but don’t despise the white bread. Bread and food have become plentiful and affordable to all. It has changed the world.”
“As food became plentiful it also meant we were able to decrease the number of people working in agriculture. Only 1% of people are farmers. It frees us up to do other things and not worry about food. Never before have so few people been responsible for feeding the rest of the world. And we are oblivious.”
Via BoingBoing. Related post: Organic Coke.
Stop continental drift
Survival of the bankrupt companies
Pollution trading – savior or scam?
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