May 2012
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A Climate Reality Billboard
Recently, the Big Oil funded Heartland Institute put up — and just as quickly pulled down after a firestorm of criticism — a truly bizarre billboard in Chicago attempting to equate climate science with radicals and murderers. Since the billboard was suddenly and unexpectedly empty, we thought we would take the opportunity to remind Heartland who is really on the fringe here.
So in advance of...
April 2012
2 posts
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SimCity 5
With over 20 years of experience and millions of players, the SimCity series has captured imaginations by putting players in control of developing cities. Recently announced, SimCity 5 (coming 2013) will add among other things the need to face sustainability challenges like climate change, limited natural resources, and urban walkability.
The future of cities
This is a great piece on cities as leaders in sustainability:
More than half of the world’s population of seven billion currently lives in cities and by 2050, this is expected to increase to 70%, or around 6.4 billion…
In 2003, one of the hottest summers on record killed around 35,000 people in Europe. Some climate scientists predict that by the 2040s, more than half of the...
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Ecovative mushroom packaging
There are very few materials in the world I can’t stand the sight of as much as polystyrene (aka Styrofoam). Sure, it keeps our new electronics safe, our food warm, and our drugs cool… but the petroleum based material is an ecological disaster.
Luckily there are new products like the ones from Ecovative Design that use renewable materials like mushrooms and other agricultural...
March 2012
8 posts
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The landfill
“The Landfill” is a short film by Jessica Edwards and Gary Hustwit (of Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized fame) showing the beauty and potential of the stuff we throw away.
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Coal will say anything
This week, the Sierra Club introduced its first major national video campaign to promote its Beyond Coal initiative. The spots (first two below) feature “Mr. Coal,” a fictional character that represents the coal industry and its lies suggesting that the fossil fuel is cheap, safe and clean when in reality it is quite dangerous and has huge costs to our environment and our health.
...
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Rise above plastics
Recent studies estimate that fish off the West Coast ingest over 12,000 tons of plastic a year. Find out how you can help turn the tide on plastic pollution at www.surfrider.org/rap.
Nasty stuff. For more on plastic’s impact on our health, check out the entertaining documentary film “Bag It.”
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Shwood whiskey barrel sunglasses
Handcrafted in Portland, Oregon, these Shwood sunglasses are made from 100-year-old whiskey barrels. Very cool, but they don’t run cheap at $225 a pair.
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Move humanity forward
Last week I presented some ideas to a group of MBA students at CU. It was about sustainable marketing and our work at the FearLess Cottage. It was a really smart group that probably should have been presenting to me instead of the other way around. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I look forward to sharing these ideas more in the future. These are the slides I used.
- Jeff Oeth
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The High Line: final section designs
Last month while in NYC, I had the pleasure of walking down the High Line, an old rail line that has been converted into a park hovering above the west side of Manhattan. It was one of my favorite places in the world. Not only because it was well designed and provided cool views of the city. But because it represents the kind of transformation we need in cities. With rapid population growth,...
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February 2012
8 posts
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Fraktur Dominoes
Fraktur is a very cool idea by Sandi Grigoryan to repurpose extra materials from furniture production into a modern game of dominoes.
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Skillshare + COMMON Pitch NYC: Startup Bootcamp →
skillshare:
Skillshare is excited to announce that we’re a proud partner of COMMON Pitch NYC! We’re teaming up to host COMMON’s Mentor Day at the School of Visual Arts. On February 14th, COMMON is hosting a full day startup bootcamp at SVA. The day will include a series interactive lectures on the science of startups - everything from communications to legal complexities to things some...
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There's no such thing as "clean coal"
Boston.com’s The Big Picture has a shocking set of photos showing the coal industry in all its so-called “clean” glory:
Mining for coal is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. While deadliest in China, where thousands of miners die annually, the profession is still hazardous in the West and other regions as well. Our mining and use of coal accounts for a variety...
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Open Source Ecology
The ultimate in agricultural nerding. Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers and engineers that has been creating an open source, low-cost, high performance technological platform that allows for the easy, DIY fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a sustainable civilization with modern comforts.
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Beyond the personal automobile
Dan Sturges writes in MIT’s Technology Review about how new advances in technology are allowing people to ditch their cars in favor of a more efficient, more connected system:
I think any transition would have to start with the roughly 70 million commuters in the United States. The recipe for making car ownership less necessary for them requires three main ingredients. First, we need...
January 2012
8 posts
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WatchBikes Make Life Better
A nice promotional video for People for Bikes.
Check out the behind-the-scenes footage here.
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Art director interview
A student at the Art Institute of Colorado recently reached out to the FearLess Cottage looking to interview an art director for a school project. Here are my answers to his questions:
What do you like most about being a art director? It’s kind of a tricky question because I don’t really think of myself as an art director. I just think of myself as someone who helps make creative ideas come...
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Watchcommon-cycles:
Sisters Nicole and Rose Lavelle ride their fresh Alabamboo bikes from Alabama to San Francisco and make a stop in Boulder, Colorado. Video by Evan Swinehart and Matt Corliss.
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WatchIn one of my favorite talks from the last few years, TreeHugger.com founder Graham Hill identifies the three most effective ways to slash your carbon footprint. Together they make for a great New Year’s resolution for anybody who cares about living in a safe and peaceful world. As an added bonus, they’ll improve your health and save you time and money!
I highly recommend watching...
December 2011
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November 2011
8 posts
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WatchPivot: Jonathan Hoefler
This is a must watch for any design nerd. Type specialist Jonathan Hoefler of the type foundry Hoefler & Frere-Jones covers not only the complexities of designing beautiful typefaces, but more importantly the complexities of making those typefaces appear beautiful on a variety of platforms (newsprint, web, mobile devices, etc.)
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WatchThis is a nice video by Econ4 on the destructive direction our economy has taken, and how it can be transformed.
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“We just think it would be unfortunate if low-lying areas were flooded, while...”
– Matthew Yglesias on being a Climate Hawk
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Job Killers vs. People Killers
A couple of recent posts in the always great Climate Progress underscore a huge detachment from reality in today’s political conversation regarding environmental regulation.
First, a debunking of regulations as “job killers”:
One report from the University of Massachusetts estimates that more than 250,000 jobs will be created through installation of new equipment at...
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EAMES: The Architect and The Painter
It’s about time somebody made a film about Charles and Ray Eames.
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October 2011
2 posts
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September 2011
6 posts
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WatchNice motion design to promote openness in government. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, this is something we should all be demanding.
www.opengovpartnership.org
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August 2011
3 posts
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FearLess show with Al Gore
Today one of my heroes sat down to chat with one of my other heroes. We streamed the whole thing live. I was one of the few people in the room, feeding them Twitter questions.
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Dan Mountford
I’m really digging the double exposure photographic work of the UK’s Dan Mountford. It’s like when you’re dreaming about one thing then suddenly another… and he caught the moment right in between.