AIGA Center for Sustainable Design web site

Sustainability has become a buzz word in the design industry. Graphic design industry magazines such as HOW and Communication Arts are publishing articles (and even entire issues) devoted to green design regularly. Designers are starting to pay attention and change the way they work.

Sustainable and eco-conscious design has been a long time in the making, but the proliferation of web sites and resources on the subject in recent years and months shows that momentum is building. One growing resource, AIGA Center for Sustainable Design, represents, to me, a benchmark in the green design movement.

Sustainability is a work in progress, so it’s impossible to have all the information to know whether a company’s activities are green enough. However, you can learn whom to trust simply by testing whether a company will genuinely respond to you.

Last Friday, I wrote a piece on The Eightfold on the opportunity for theme parks to green the customer experience. In it I mentioned Bearfire Resort, a year round outdoor ski resort to be built in Dallas, Texas in 2009. Since Texas summers are resource intense, I questioned the value of building a 650,000 square foot ski resort.

The Earth has warmed by approximately 0.75 °C since pre-industrial times. Eleven of the warmest years in the past 125 years occurred since 1990, with 2005 the warmest on record. There is overwhelming consensus that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), from burning fossil fuels. Examination of ice cores shows that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 600,000 years. Between 1960 and 2002, annual anthropogenic global missions of CO2 approximately tripled. They rose by about 33 per cent since 1987 alone. Continue reading MELTING ICE: A HOT TOPIC?

Logging has restarted in the disputed Saami reindeer forests in Inari. Finnish state has decided to continue the destruction of old-growth wilderness forests in Kessi. Photos from current logging operations can be viewed in the Finnish weblog. Read what Saami Council has to say.

Continue reading Logging restarted in the disputed forests…

Photo by KG4CHW. License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Cindy Sheehan spoke with Amy Goodman on DemocracyNow yesterday about the day her son Casey died in Iraq, campaigning to hold Bush and Congress to account for the Iraq war, becoming a leading peace activist, and divisions in the movement.

She wrote a sort-of resignation letter to the US peace movement on Monday, in which she wrote: “When I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the ‘left’ started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of ‘right or left’, but ‘right and wrong.'”

I think Cindy is right to take time now to withdraw, reflect, and perhaps retool for another crack at it some day. I always found her story about moving from grieving mother to antiwar activist profoundly challenging. Above all, it has lessons about love of enemy — the soldiers and mercenaries who’ve died invading Iraq, Iraqis and foreign fighters involved in the quagmire there. And now it reminds us to love ourselves too.

Sometimes peace groups and sustainability campaigns could do with a bit more of that peace internally, if they want to last or be a model for more people to join. So look after yourself Cindy — and thank you!

Posted by Dave (live from the International Whaling Commission in Anchorage, Alaska)

As I write from the IWC’s meeting room, the meeting has gotten bogged down in discussions about Greenland subsistence quotas and procedures about how the Scientific Committee. Riveting stuff.

Earlier, the proposal by Brazil and Argentina for a Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary was sadly defeated – it needed a 3/4 majority to pass, and managed to secure 60%. Milko, our Latin American campaigner is confident that the sanctuary will be adopted by next year’s meeting.

Curiously, Guatemala, a country that had earlier associated itself with the sanctuary, abstained – which was very unhelpful. It’s hard to know why – according to Milko, there had been great media coverage in Guatemala about how the country was now supporting the conservation of whales – but perhaps they’re leaning back towards the pro-whaling side?

Continue reading The Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary – not this time round…

UPDATE: Our hopes have been dashed as China has announced it has no plans to cap their carbon emissions but will instead seek to lower the carbon intensity [search] of its economy. This is the same lame U.S. policy. The number 1 and number 2 carbon polluters in the world are increasingly international pariah states. Continue reading Report China to Share Burden of CO2 Emission Cuts

Filed under: Etc., Green Culture, Transportation Alternatives, On Two Wheels

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is all about sending racing and sports cars of assorted vintages up the hill in an entertaining show of ferocious power. There’s really nothing green about it, so why are we talking about it here on ABG? Well, because there’s going to be a new wrinkle added to the festivities this year.

Several of the big-name racers who’ll be on hand for the Festival have agreed to tackle the Goodwood hill under their own power as they participate in a charity bicycle race. The beneficiaries of the exhibition will be the Richard Burns Foundation and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Spectators can expect to see the likes Jenson Button, Colin McRae, Allan McNish, Troy Bayliss, Damon Hill, and others take on renowned cyclists Jason Queally, Chris Hoy, Rob Hayles, and Victoria Pendleton in the contest. You can read more details after the jump.

[Source: Goodwood Festival of Speed]

PRESS RELEASE:
TOP FORMULA ONE AND RALLY STARS SWITCH FROM HORSEPOWER TO PEDAL POWER AT THE GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

Visitors to this year’s Festival of Speed – to be held in the grounds of Goodwood House from 22-24 June – can look forward to the unfamiliar sight of top motor racing stars in lycra, pedalling up the demanding 1.16 mile Goodwood hillclimb, paired up with some of the world’s best professional cyclists in a thrilling bicycle race.

This exciting inaugural pedal-powered competition will be named the Goodwood Organic Milk Race, to recall the famous Milk Race, Britain’s premier competitive cycling event in the 1970s, as well as coinciding with the introduction of Goodwood’s own organic milk. The milk is sold in corn starch-based bottles that are fully compostable in 10 weeks. It is produced on the Goodwood Estate at Home Farm, the largest self-sustainable organic farm in Europe, which has operated a strictly managed recycling system throughout its 12,000 acre Estate for many years.

Top motor sport drivers have always used cycling as an integral part of their fitness regime, often training alongside professional cyclists to measure their performance against the very best. At the Festival of Speed, a group of famous motor sport personalities will harness their competitive instincts into a challenging cycle time trial from Goodwood House to the top of the hill and back. Each driver will join forces with a top professional cyclist to set a time as a two-man team – the clock stops when the second rider crosses the line – and Festival spectators will be able to wager on the results via SMS text messaging in order to win a top-of-the-range carbon road racing bike, with all funds donated to charity.

F1 drivers Jenson Button, Anthony Davidson and Mark Webber have already pledged their involvement, along with former F1 World Champion Damon Hill, ex-World Rally Champion Colin McRae, Le Mans winner Allan McNish and motorcycle master Troy Bayliss. They will join Olympic gold medal-winning cyclists Jason Queally and Chris Hoy, plus Commonwealth gold and Olympic silver medallist Rob Hayles and the reigning triple World Champion Victoria Pendleton.

The Goodwood Organic Milk Race at the Festival of Speed takes place exactly two weeks before the Formula One circus comes to the UK for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Similarly, the cycling stars will ride at Goodwood just a fortnight before the 2007 Tour de France starts for the first time ever in London.

Festival visitors can join in the action and help raise money for charity by betting on which cycling dynamic duo will win the timed event. To enter, send a text message to 80806, stating RBF and the letter of your chosen team (e.g. A, B, C, etc.), plus the time in seconds that you think it will take them to complete the testing Goodwood course. Alternatively, you can enter by completing a competition form at one of the three competition pods located at the Festival.

All monies raised will go to the Richard Burns Foundation, which it supporting this year’s chosen Festival charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust. For further information, plus full terms and conditions, please go to www.richardburnsfoundation.com. All messages will be charged at standard rate, plus £1.50. The Richard Burns Foundation will receive each donation net of charges applied by mobile network operators.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Solar, Toyota

You won’t be able to cross the country in a solar powered Prius, but this type of aftermarket hack is exactly the kind of thing so many of our readers have been asking for. Solar Electrical Vehicles says their solar panel modifications (made from mono-crystalline photovoltaic cells) for 2004-2006 Prius models will generate 215 watts of renewable energy that charges a 3kW supplemental battery pack that “provides up to 20 miles per day of electric mode driving range and increased fuel economy.” SEV says their system qualifies for up to $2,000 worth of Federal renewable energy tax credits which will then make the whole system pay for itself in two or three years. A solar roof for your Prius will cost between $2,000 and $4,000.

Treehugger says that SEV’s president is talking about finding ways to solarize Tesla vehicles and that the company is working on a more powerful, 320-watt module. Solar roofs are also available for RAV4 EVs, and Highlander, Escape and Sprinter hybrids. Just don’t park in a garage during the day.

[Source: Solar Electrical Vehicles via Treehugger]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.