Sustainability, energy, 'green' society
The High-Tech Permaculture Metabolic Engine Greenhouse
"It sounds like a Dutch version of Xanadu — marvelous, but mythical." -- John Thackara interview with Eva Gladek
http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/the-high-tech-permaculture-metabolic-engine-greenhouse/28238/
Renewable Energy: Salvation or Snake Oil?
The WWF's Energy Report takes "global energy needs" as a given, adds up how much renewable energy would be required to meet them — and then ignores the true costs of deploying such an infrastructure. --
John Thackara
http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/renewable-energy-salvation-or-snake-oil/24628/
John Thakara Q&A
http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/john-thackara-answers-your-questions/15778/
Design for things that matter
Lecture on the Department of Design’s introduction course for the new MA students “Wellbeing in the Age of Wicked Problems”
http://mediafactory.aalto.fi/?p=1071
Keeping Cattle: cause or cure for climate crisis?
(soil, low tech solutions to man made climate crisis)
by Allan Savory
http://vimeo.com/8239427
Kris De Decker from LOW-Tech Magazine
History of sustainability and critical accounts on contemporary 'green' hype.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
Transition Towns http://www.transitionnetwork.org/about
VOLUME MAGAZINE: AFTER ZERO issue, 2008
http://volumeproject.org/blog/2008/12/19/volume-18/
Economy and Politics, Resources and Distribution, Value and Exchange
ECO:NOMICS - FUTURE OF THE GREEN ECONOMY
Thursday, April 21st 2011 - Columbia University
Keynote by Jeffery Sachs
Panel:
Steve Cohen:Executive Director, Columbia Earth Institute
Vijay Modi: Professor Columbia Engineering School
Micheal Gerrard: Professor Columbia Law School
Ron Gonen: Co-founder Recycle Bank
Elizabeth Fastiggi: Clear Point Ventures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LVDaHRO2Gk
FORA TV: Supercomputers: The New Face of Wall Street
LUST / Catalog Tree
http://fora.tv/2011/06/25/Data_In_Sight_Making_the_Transparent_Visual#Supercomputers_The_New_Face_of_Wall_Street
Art
Tue Greenfort
Witte de With, 2006
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/3304
Iain Ball & Emily Jones
BEYOND ENTROPY
when Energy becomes Form
EXHIBITION: Archetectual Association
http://beyondentropy.aaschool.ac.uk/?page_id=1301
Philosophy
Ecology as a New Opium for the Masses
Slavoj Zizek
http://kasamaproject.org/2008/12/28/zizek-ecology-as-a-new-opium-for-the-masse/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMJdGor-sMA
Observing the Liquefaction
of Manuel de Landa (non-linear dynamics, phase transitions and bifurcations in ecology)
http://www.techgnosis.com/delandad.html
The Biology of Cities 1 and other lectures of Manuel De Landa
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/manuel-de-landa/videos/the-biology-of-cities-1/
Ecology
Essay: Plastic Planet
By KOERT VAN MENSVOORT
http://www.nextnature.net/2011/02/plastic-planet/
A Physicist Solves the City
math, physics, urbanism and the caloric needs of the city dwellers
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazine/19Urban_West-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
What defines a Meme
Our world is a place where information can behave like human genes and ideas can replicate, mutate and evolve
by James Gleick
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Defines-a-Meme.html
Peak Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
Quotes and Inspirations
Kevin Kelly from What Technology Wants
http://fora.tv/2010/11/03/Kevin_Kelly_What_Technology_Wants
//There is a lot more similarities between MacBook and a sunflower than you think.
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Energy intensity of both a computer chip and sunflower is bigger than energy intensity of the sun.
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When things become ubiquitous, it is actually a phase change.
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If you want to think about the consequence of technology you have to think about what happens when it becomes ubiquitous.
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The evolution of communication systems shapes new ways who we relate to each other politically.//
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We have extremely naive views about the economy, for example. We feel happy to simply speak about the “capitalist system” or “commodification”, when the reality of economic history (as uncovered by Fernand Braudel, for example) is much more complex and full of opportunities. There are alternatives to the corporate model, such as a region of contemporary Italy called Emilia-Romagna, dominated by small businesses competing against each other not in terms of costs and reaping economies of scale, but in terms of product design and a concentration of creative people in a region (a model known as “economies of agglomeration”). Now, this region of Italy was put together over the last thirty or so years on the basis of experimentation: it was not planned from above (though local governments did play catalytic roles) and it was not guided by theory. Yet, our obsolete economic ideas prevent us from seeing how innovative this region is, and bias us to see in Emilia-Romagna just another form of “capitalism”, or to dismiss it as a short-lived utopia. But a deeper understanding of economics has the opposite effect: it shows that past history is full of “Emilia-Romagnas”, that our economic choices were never between “capitalism” and “socialism”, but were more open than that. Manuel De Landa (An Interview)
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In his lecture “Matter Matters”, De Landa looks at how morphogenesis – the birth of form – has become a central theme in many scientific disciplines. It can be entirely spontaneous, as in the genesis of geological, meteorological or biological forms, or it can involve human beings as agents. De Landa’s talk will focus on natural morphogenesis, arguing that a deeper knowledge of its secrets can be of great help to artists and designers, opening up a new reservoir of expressive resources. Manuel De Landa
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Guardian: Apple named 'least green' tech company
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/21/apple-least-green-tech-company