10 Big, Really Hard Things We Can Do to Save the Planet

So I personally am really annoyed with the 'little' things that are supposedly going to save the world. I'm pretty sure just boiling one cup of water everytime you make a cup of tea isn't going to save the world. And the language that goes with this movement is rather ridiculous - one of the sayings that really bugs me is 'do your bit', which is borrowed from the propaganda for war time sacrifices. This movement cannot be about little sacrifices and small annoyances for the 'good' of the environment, it will never work. So I really liked this list from Worldchanging. Its about some hard stuff we are going to have to do. I'll start on Empowering Women, and something that isn't on there, material sustainability, and you take stabilizing the bottom billion, let me know how that goes.

Book Report

I read a book! It felt nice to just sit and read something on sustainability. So here's the book I read... Mid-course Correction by Ray C. Anderson. Good book - more like a giant case study - but simply written and all about the success of greening his company Interface (they make carpet). One pearl of wisdom I wanted to remember is to always ask "And then What?", when it comes to the byproducts of any design and its end of life.

Bioplastic Info

And I was going to make a website about bioplastics. Thank goodness I didn't. It already exists - now all they have to do is make it a bit more user friendly... and dare I say... more beautiful...

PLA Info

Here is some info on PLA - I <3 bioplastics! Looks like a good overarching article!

Materials

I found a new Blog!!! Material Stories. Oh how I love materials. They also have a new online newsletter available as a pdf. Check it out here!

Woo hoo! Thanks Core77!

You suck

Found "Dear Designer, You Suck" today via Swiss Miss today - "Dear Designer, You Suck"... I would like to counter with 'sometimes' . Sometimes your own direction is the best, but nicely phrased opinions are always welcome. What I've found in my professional experience is that it usually isn't the designers that screw up a design- but the business people involved - they want more , or less or something that makes it terrible. Death to buyers and other terrible people who don't understand. (The photo is of our studio)

Awesome

I saw the work of Nick Cave on The New York Times' website yesterday. It says he's a sculptor - but it doesn't quite seem as if it is sculpture to me - but who wants to be a textile/fashion artist I guess. Anyhow, he has an exhibit on at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His work is not just about the aesthetics of the piece but also how it works for a dance performance, and they all have sound implications... as the series is called 'soundsuits'. Anyhow, I'm doing a poor job of attempting to explain it... Check out his work here.