Frank Lloyd Wright

‘Collapse’

Whether or not you believe everything in this controversial film (now on DVD), you simply can’t ignore it. Michael Ruppert has a long history of making accurate predictions, and now he wants us to shift our attention to peak oil and the inevitable collapse of industrial civilization. A must-see.

Science fiction author Bruce Sterling, via Alex Steffen of Worldchanging

Voltaire

George Costanza

Woody Guthrie

The folks at AIGA Toledo are putting on a two-day conference to talk about design ethics, sustainability and design education. The event is coming up on May 15-16. They call it response_ability:

How can we (should we?) create students who feel a responsibility to their world? How do we, as educators, instill the capacity for our students to become thinking, ethical designers?

I just stumbled upon this quote from author Edward Abbey, from a 1978 speech he gave to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana. It seemed like a fitting way to end this week.

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

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Teddy Roosevelt

I’ve seen a lot of people sharing this list of Top 10 Green Twitterers lately, which was posted on an American Express site of all places. So I thought I’d go ahead and throw out some of my favorite people to follow, as they relate to design and sustainability:

• The visionary @AlexSteffen, founder of @Worldchanging, is a great writer and speaker who embraces the hell out of big systemic changes and new technologies for a bright green future, as opposed to the small incremental steps which only distract us from the real solutions.

• The gang at @renourish is all about making graphic design more sustainable. Lots of good info on printing and papers.

• The @designersaccord is a coalition of designers working to create positive environmental and social impact. A great group to be a part of. They encompass all aspects of design, but mostly focus on product design.

• A couple of great magazines you should follow are @GOOD (rss) and @fastcompany, who have tons of posts on business, innovation, and sustainability.

• If there’s one green blog you should follow it would be the design-centric @treehugger (rss), whose knowledgeable writers pretty much cover it all.
  

• Another blog to keep on your radar is @inhabitat, especially if you’re into architecture and futuristic green design.

• Two of the best environmental journalists right now are @kate_sheppard of Mother Jones and @drgrist of Grist. From Washington D.C. to the State of Washington, they always know what’s going down.
  

And of course, you can follow us @modevolution. I also have a personal account @jeffoeth. Thanks for following along, and if you have any other favorites, be sure to let us know in the comments!

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