Crew Commentary Author
WATCH: Air Ink
tsedevino • 10.19.2016
Air Ink is a collaboration between Tiger Beer, MIT-spinoff Graviky Labs and Marcel Sydney.
It is an innovative range of pens, markers and spray cans made from air pollution.
Increase In ‘Sunny Day’ Flooding
tsedevino • 10.17.2016
“Global warming and rising seas are increasing the amount of tidal flooding on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Flood levels are different from city to city, but the trends are similar.”
Swedish apartment encourages cycle-friendly lifestyle
tsedevino • 09.27.2016
As cities seek to become greener and healthier places to live, cycling is increasingly being catered for. In Malmö, Sweden, this now extends beyond infrastructure like bike lanes and cycle paths, with a specially designed apartment block and hotel being built for people who wish to lead a car-free lifestyle. Designed by architects Hauschild+Siegel, Cykelhuset Ohboy will comprise 55 apartments, ranging in size from one to four bedrooms, and a “bike hotel” on street-level with 31 mezzanine apartments, all spread across seven floors. Like Foster + Partners’ 250 City Road in London, UK, it will feature space for bike storage, large elevators to accommodate bikes and a bike workshop, as well as focusing on greenery and sustainability.
Game demonstrates impact of climate change on Antarctic
tsedevino • 09.25.2016
Scientists and games developers have joined forces to help communicate the impact of climate change on the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice held in the Antarctic Ice Sheet has the potential to cause significant changes in sea level in the future, which will affect many people around the world. As a result, it is important that people have an awareness of the impact of a changing climate on the world’s ice sheets, but this complex system is difficult to understand and predict. Now the scientists and games developers have produced a free-to-use interactive game, “Ice Flows”, to help demonstrate how the Antarctic Ice Sheet responds to climate change in an accessible way to children and game players of all ages.
Iceland Carbon Capture Project
tsedevino • 09.23.2016
A pilot project that sought to demonstrate that carbon dioxide emissions could be locked up by turning them into rock appears to be a success. Tests at the CarbFix project in Iceland indicate that most of the CO2 injected into basalt turned into carbonate minerals in less than two years, far shorter a time than the hundreds or thousands of years that scientists had once thought such a process would take.
Extent of America’s Landfill Problem
tsedevino • 09.21.2016
America, land of the … landfills? That’s what we’ve turned into since 1937, when the first sanitary landfill opened in Fresno, California. Today, there are nearly 2,000 active landfills across the country and hundreds more are at capacity, a stark reminder of just how massive our waste problem has become. This visualization from SaveOnEnergy shows how quickly landfills have boomed across the country, particularly in the past 30 years. One thing we have to remember when looking at this is that trash, and landfills, are a human invention. Waste does not exist in nature, in any form. Everything that is produced in a healthy ecosystem is consumed or decomposed by another organism, or the sun. That is because, in a natural system, everything has value to something.
5 plants for removing indoor air pollution
tsedevino • 09.19.2016
New research finds that certain houseplants are best for removing specific harmful compounds. It’s not new news that houseplants are beautiful little workhorses when it comes to human health. Among their many benefits is one decidedly impressive one – they remove toxins from the air. And this isn’t just woowoo mumbo-jumbo. NASA, given their interest in improving air-quality in sealed environments, has researched this extensively and concluded: “Both plant leaves and roots are utilized in removing trace levels of toxic vapors from inside tightly sealed buildings. Low levels of chemicals such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde can be removed from indoor environments by plant leaves alone.”
Five ways cities are acting on climate
tsedevino • 09.17.2016
Cities aren’t waiting for the rest of the world to make huge strides in confronting the climate crisis. In December 2015, almost the entire world (195 nations to be exact) agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and do their part to solve climate change as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. After years of negotiation and discussion, the world is closer than ever to finally shifting away from dirty fossil fuels and working together to reverse the dangerous upward trend in warming global temperatures.
California Freeways Will Soon Generate Electricity
tsedevino • 09.15.2016
“Energy conservation is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about freeways jammed with idling vehicles. But in California, which has some of the most congested freeways in the country, that’s about to change. The California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved a pilot program in which piezoelectric crystals will be installed on several freeways. No, these aren’t some kind of new-agey crystals with mystical powers. Piezoelectric crystals, about the size of watch batteries, give off an electrical discharge when they’re mechanically stressed, such as when a vehicle drives over them.
Appliance puts nanofarm in your kitchen
tsedevino • 09.13.2016
Replantable aims to be a hands-off modular indoor growing device for fresh homegrown produce, year-round. The future of fresh homegrown food may be an indoor one, at least in the cold season and for those without garden space, and although I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to gardening, it’s fairly obvious to me that there are plenty of situations where growing food indoors makes sense, even if it entails buying yet another plugged-in appliance.
The Authors
David Houle
David Houle is a futurist, strategist and speaker. Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment. He worked at NBC, CBS, and was part of the senior executive team that created and launched MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and CNN Headline News.
Houle has won a number of awards. He won two Emmys, the prestigious George Foster Peabody award, and the Heartland award for “Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream”. He was also nominated for an Academy Award. He is the Futurist in Residence at the Ringling College of Art+ Design.
He has delivered some 700 speeches on six continents and thirteen countries. He is often called “the CEOs’ Futurist” having spoken to or advised 3,500+ CEOs and business owners in the past eight years.
Houle coined the phrase the Shift Age and has written extensively about the future and the future of energy. This is his seventh book.
His primary web site is www.davidhoule.com
Tim Rumage
Tim Rumage is a planetary ethicist and naturalist. Taking an interdisciplinary and systems thinking approach to education, he has been teaching at the intersection of Science, Ecology, Art, Design and Architecture for more than 30 years.
Tim is the Coordinator/Developer of Environmental Studies at Ringling College of Art and Design where he teaches courses on environmental science, sustainability, creating ecological cities, applied environmental design, food, water, biodiversity and environmental ethics. He is also a Coordinator for Sustainability in Design Education for CUMULUS and a frequent lecturer at other colleges and for community organizations.
As a trained field biologist, Tim has done research on Marine Mammals, Pelagic Birds, Bats, Habitat Restoration and Land Planning. He has been involved in a variety of interdisciplinary projects in the US and Africa involving habitat restoration and protection, green infrastructure, local food production and sustainability. Tim’s current work focuses on the economic value of nature and nature’s services.
His primary web site is http://planetaryethicist.com/
