May 2011
7 posts
Why fast fashion is slow death for the planet
With high-street chains churning out fresh designs every few weeks, we now buy more cheap clothes than ever before. But as Lucy Siegle reveals in her hard-hitting new book To Die For, it’s a trend that will cost us far more than we imagine
Lucy Siegle Guardian
World population: 6,917,807,451 →
http://populationmatters.org/
“A large part of humanity operates under the N.I.M.L. principal.
Not in my...”
– @troyka
Let's face it: none of our environmental fixes...
All of us in the green movement are lost before the planet’s real nightmare: not too little fossil fuel – but too much
Monbiot
Guardian 2 May 2011
February 2011
8 posts
Mukurtu (MOOK-oo-too) →
1. A free and open source community archive platform that provides international standards-based content management tools adaptable to the local cultural protocols and intellectual property systems of indigenous communities, libraries, archives, and museums.
2. A flexible and robust archival platform that creates an interface between source communities and collecting institutions facilitating the...
Trudy Thompson's innovation: sustainable-living...
The founder of Bricks and Bread reveals why she’s building for tomorrow’s world
link
Lucy Siegle
The Observer
Bricks and bread →
The new economics foundation →
the oil drum →
lowtech magazine →
UN sets out blueprint for greening the world's...
here’s how that figure breaks down:
• $362bn (£223bn) for energy, to develop renewable forms of power and help to increase energy efficiency.
• $194bn on transport, including the development of cleaner and greener forms of transport, the provision of more public transport infrastructure and ways to better design cities.
• $134bn on buildings - to be spent equipping buildings better for...
Climate change no problem, says futurist Ray...
Futurist Ray Kurzweil says “we have plenty of time” to replace fossil fuels with renewables. Most of Kurzweil’s prognostications are derived from his law of accelerating returns
December 2010
1 post
LEARNING MACHINES. ART EDUCATION AND ALTERNATIVE... →
November 2010
8 posts
foster long term thinking with...
The purpose of Long Bets is to improve long–term thinking. Long Bets is a public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake. The Long Now Foundation furnishes the continuity to see even the longest bets through to public resolution. This website provides a forum for discussion about what may be learned from the bets and their...
Kickstarter - Fixers Collective →
The Fixers’ Collective is a social experiment in improvisational fixing and mending. Our goals are:
1/ To increase material literacy in our community by fostering an ethic of creative caring toward the objects in our lives.
2/ To displace cultural patterns that alienate us from our things, by collectively learning the skills and patience necessary to care for them.
3/ To promote a counter-ethos...
e-flux journal →
Michael C. Ruppert interview
Controversial investigative journalist, Michael C. Ruppert, talks to HUCK about the infinite growth paradigm and a new documentary, Collapse, outlining his apocalyptic theories.
Interview Shelley Jones Posted 12:48 GMT on October 18, 2010
The Cow Charity of Ebrington
KEYT’S CHARITY WILLIAM KEYT Esq. A.D.1632. left by will the milk of ten good and sufficient milch kine to the poor of Ebrington from May 10th to Nov 1st annually for ever
long term thinking by an ancestor on my nan’s side, Joan Pedley nee Keyte.
Milk from 10 cows is still given to the poor to the present day.
link
when an animal enters into things: KickStarting:... →
whenananimalentersintothings:
I’ve been interested in Citizen Science projects such as the International Hydraphone Network Stream(which I love to listen too) and data sharing projects such as open wetware for a while and so now as part of my global challenge project at Highwire. I’ve been digging deeper into citizen led…
October 2010
4 posts
India set to be first country to publish 'natural...
Work on agreeing common measures, such as the value of ecosystems and their “services” for humans – from relaxation to clean air and fertile soils – will be co-ordinated by the World Bank, which hopes it can sign up 10-12 nations and publish the results by 2015 at the latest.
The report was commissioned by the G8+5 major nations in 2007 in the hope of repeating the success of Lord...
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity...
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study is a major international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to draw together expertise from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions moving forward.
September 2010
2 posts
WatchSugata Mitra: The child-driven education
TedGlobal 2010, posted Sep 2010
August 2010
13 posts
Team 2: Endless →
Team 3: Liquidity Ltd →
Team 1: Catapult Venture Managers →
Greens living in ivory towers now want to farm...
George Monbiot
No one is immune to it; in some respects it is the foundation of our lives. Magical thinking is a universal affliction. We see what we want to see, deny what we don’t. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, we burrow back into the darkness of our cherished beliefs. We will do almost anything – cheat, lie, stand for high office, go to war – to shut out challenges to the way we see...
London property prices forcing commuters to live... →
Helen Pidd The Guardian, Monday 16 August 2010
James Baker's conquest of space – by ladder
Initially, Baker was hoping to climb to the moon. But it turns out that would have taken him several thousand years. But after seven days, fuelled by freeze-dried strawberries and neapolitan ice cream, he’s climbed higher than Everest and currently has his head in the clouds. Baker’s real dream is that, if he succeeds, Nasa will recognise his achievement and designate him a real...
“Microbes are always going to be one step ahead of us. Their generation time is...”
– Dorothy Crawford -Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh and author Deadly Companions.
Deadly Companions: Animal Microbes Pose Threats of...
Professor Crawford highlighted a consignment of giant Gambian rats, which were flown from Ghana into the U.S. as exotic pets. The rats carried monkeypox virus, which transferred to prairie dogs that were sold in the same pet shop. The prairie dogs then passed the disease to their human buyers. The chain of infection was only terminated after the microbe had infected 71 people. In another instance,...
July 2010
7 posts
Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
Mission
The Future of Humanity Institute’s mission is to bring careful thinking to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. The Institute’s work focuses on how future technology might affect fundamental parameters of the human condition, the risks and opportunities involved, and the epistemic, moral, and prioritization issues that confront actors who pursue long-range...
“I can’t see why there’s all this fuss about the human race perhaps...”
– Philip Larkin
Global disaster
Is humanity prepared for the worst? Designer viruses, potent new weapons, hurtling asteroids… all have the potential to obliterate humanity. So how do scientists plan for such catastrophes? Observer, 25/7/10
Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, says that advances in fields such as weapons technology, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology...
haque design + research: Open Data: how do we want... →
Notes prepared for Data City: Doom or Boom - are pervasive digital devices and open data changing the way we interact with the city?
Cities are heterogeneous, that’s why we like them. People always find ways to distinguish themselves from each other - this is the cause of both conflict and…
Towards a Paradigm Shift in Economics? A response...
Where will the revival of economic theory come from ? From the margins or from the center? In responding to James K. Galbraith’s essay, Cyril Hédoin maintains that the center of economics already possesses innovative approaches that enable understanding of phenomena such as the financial crisis.
WatchEllen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia
TED talk
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
by Jaron Lanier (January, 2010) Alfred A. Knopf, 209 pages, $24.95
Amazon
review
Lanier is a big thinker, and he asks his reader to follow the train of his thought, which varies pretty widely at times, though his main points include at turns arguing against the singularity (the eventuality that computers will be “smarter” than humans one day, most famously championed by Ray...