Okay, this one’s a biggie. The Story of Stuff is an award-winning video packed with so much good information that classrooms across the country are now showing it to teach about consumption and sustainability. You may think you know enough about these issues by now, but trust me, you won’t regret watching this entertaining 20-minute video.

Here’s a short clip:

Be sure to watch the full video at www.storyofstuff.com. If there’s only one thing on the entire internet that I would suggest sharing with others, this would be it.

There’s also a new Story of Stuff book available today. Author/narrator Annie Leonard will be on The Colbert Report tonight (3/9/10) to discuss it!

How cool looking is this new green-roofed apartment building in Amsterdam?

More info and photos here.

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This is a really cool illustration by Justin Gabbard for The New York Times, relating to this great piece by Thomas Friedman:

The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington — while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought — is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.

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China is quietly laughing at us right now. And Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other. Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change, and, therefore, less inclined to move toward clean-tech and, therefore, more certain to remain addicted to oil.

Under the Milky Way

This series of planetary posters by Ross Berens is a great example of good design helping to make science more interesting and cool.

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Sustainability expert Alex Steffen of Worldchanging gave a two-night presentation in Seattle just before heading off to the Copenhagen climate summit. In the talks, he laid out exactly where we came from as a society and where we’re headed. According to Steffen, we’re pretty much toast unless we immediately begin rebuilding our cities. He calls out the lesser steps towards sustainability (electric cars, CFLs, etc) as insufficient distractions and instead focuses on urban living as a crucial element to maintaining a livable civilization. Denser, more walkable, and more fun!

In his talks, Steffen challenged Seattle to become North America’s first carbon-neutral city by 2030, saying nothing less is good enough. Putting things in those terms immediately raises a number of questions… What would a carbon neutral city look like? What role do designers have in making that happen? What might a campaign look like to achieve such a thing?

Listening to Steffen speak is truly enlightening. I highly recommend that you begin watching The Seattle Talks immediately. As if your future depends on it.

I’m trying to imagine a world where we don’t have things like clean air to breathe, drinkable water coming out of our faucets, parks and trails to explore, efficient sewage systems, proper trash collection and disposal, transportation options, and all of the other things that so-called “whacko greenies” work for everyday. These are all things we take for granted, yet if they were to go away we’d be screwed.

Thinking that climate legislation is any different from these is a myth. It’s a flat-out lie perpetrated by the dirtiest and most dangerous industries in the world. We can have debates about scientific probabilities for the rest of our lives, but taking positive action now is the only way that we, as a society, have the power consciously design a better and more livable way of life. This is not an environmentalist issue. This is a common sense issue. All we need to do is take a look at the possible outcomes and choose to avoid potential catastrophe. Only then can we, as a society, continue to enjoy the fact that we have good, livable conditions. We will know that it’s something we choose to have, not a given.

Now go watch this celebrity-packed PSA and then click the link afterwards.

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(Illustration by Alex Williamson)

I just picked up one of these new guidebooks for Denver Mountain Parks and must say it’s pretty fucking cool. Definitely one of the finest print pieces I’ve held in a while. It’s not a huge brochure, but it has plenty of information to get you started on your next outdoor adventure around the Denver area. The design by Jim Hargreaves of Barnhart, Denver was completed with amazing illustration work by Roger Beerworth to help give it the nostalgic look of park advertising from the early 1900s.

True to wilderness park values, the brochure is printed on FSC certified, 100% post-consumer paper. You can pick up a copy by going down to the Denver Parks and Recreation office, or you can simply download it as a PDF.

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Remnants of the Biosphere

There are some great photos by Noah Sheldon documenting the decrepit state of Biosphere 2.

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Swiss Alpes

These are some bad-ass photos by Tata Vislevskaya. This one also matches our header nicely.

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Andrew Pattison, doctoral student in the sustainable urban infrastructure program at the University of Colorado, Denver