The idealized version of the American suburb has spread around the world and can be found in nearly every country. The banality of the spread has been ignored by artists, at least that’s the feeling of Martin Adolfsson who set out to document this changing global landscape. For example, it’s
Continue readingTag: book
The Canadian Progressive: Astronaut Chris Hadfield to write “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life”
by: Obert Madondo | @Obiemad: Astronaut Chris Hadfield. (Photo: Canadian Space Agency) On October 29, expect an awesome book penned by recently-retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. The book will be titled “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth”. Strange title, isn’t it? Gives the impression that the book is targeted at the astronauts
Continue readingcartoon life: Updated 100 cats eBook
I’m uploading just now, an updated version of the 100 cats eBook to the iTunes book store, with over 40 new drawings, and an animation file. Keep your furry toes crossed that all goes well. Filed under: art, book, iPad Tagged: 100 cats, cats, ebook
Continue readingsamupress: Updated 100 cats eBook
I’m uploading just now, an updated version of the 100 cats eBook to the iTunes book store, with over 40 new drawings, and an animation file. Keep your furry toes crossed that all goes well.
Continue readingsamupress: Updated 100 cats eBook
I’m uploading just now, an updated version of the 100 cats eBook to the iTunes book store, with over 40 new drawings, and an animation file. Keep your furry toes crossed that all goes well.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Save the Environment, Live in a City
The IEEE Spectrum recently interview William Meyer who is the author of the book The Environmental Advantages of Cities: Countering Commonsense Antiurbanism. The book’s central thesis is that we need to change the discourse around cities from a negative one to a more positive conversation about the efficiencies of cities
Continue readingPolygonic: New projects, new horizons
Hello, all you phenomenal followers of Polygonic, who’ve put up with both my obtuse rants and my long, long silences with absolute aplomb. Your stamina and support bends my actual mind. I wanted to just update you on new projects (and, as the title suggests, new horizons as well… well,
Continue readingPolygonic: New projects, new horizons
Hello, all you phenomenal followers of Polygonic, who’ve put up with both my obtuse rants and my long, long silences with absolute aplomb. Your stamina and support bends my actual mind. I wanted to just update you on new projects (and, as the title suggests, new horizons as well… well,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Be Optimistic by Learning About It
The book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Dr. Martin Seligman is not new, but it is to me. For others who have not heard about it before, it looks like an uplifting read. The central thesis of the book is to essentially learn what
Continue readingopenalex: Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet
Alex Steffen, the man behind the excellent inertia defying and inspiring WorldChanging blog, has just released his new book.
Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet is a short punchy introduction to some of the most important ideas that are shaping how we are thinking about, and creating, green cities.
I worked with Alex on (the now sadly defunct) WorldChanging, and I also had a chance to give some feedback on early stages of CarbonZero. After almost two years of work the book is done, and it’s a real success.
Look at what discussions of “green cities” focused on in the 1990s and compare that to today and you’ll see a huge shift. We’ve gone from talking about one-off projects (think LED traffic lights) to complex and interconnected visions of cites that are simultaneously livable, efficient, and productive (economically, socially, and environmentally).
It’s been an exciting transition, and one that (finally) is getting us closer to realizing the transformative potential of city-regions. Anyone wanting a quick but still insightful flyover of this new way of looking at urban sustainability should take a look at CarbonZero.
The full text is up over at Grist, and you can also buy the digital version here.
Cities in the age of climate consequences: ‘Carbon Zero,’ chapter 1
Forewarned
On Monday the 29th of October, 2012, a tidal surge 13.9 feet high (the highest ever recorded) washed up and over the waterfront in Lower Manhattan, pushed forward by the superstorm Sandy. That same week, the storm destroyed large swathes of coastline from the New Jersey shore to Fire Island, while driving torrential rains, heavy snows, and powerful winds inland across the eastern U.S. and Canada. By the time the storm blew out, it had killed more than 100 Americans, made thousands homeless, left millions without power, and caused at least $50 billion in damage. Sandy was, by any reckoning, one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
Maybe, though, the word “natural” belongs in quotes. Because what was surprising about Sandy wasn’t that it happened (indeed, many had predicted that rising sea levels and storms intensified by warmer oceans would make something like Sandy inevitable), but that it was seen so clearly, and so immediately, for what it was: a forewarning of what a planet in climate chaos has in store for us.
Sandy was far from the first sign that climate change is here — scientists have been warning for decades of the dangers of a heating planet, and in the last 10 years we’ve seen a flurry of unprecedented storms, droughts, floods, melting glaciers, and wildfires, as well as record-breaking heat waves following one after another. Sandy, though, knocked down walls of denial and inattention that have kept us from admitting what’s happening to our world.
What’s happening is that we’re losing the climate fight. Climate change is here, it’s worsening quickly, its effects are more dire than many thought they would be, and — if we continue with business as usual — we’re on a track to unleash an almost unimaginable catastrophe on ourselves, our children, and our descendants.
“Part of learning from [Sandy] is the recognition that climate change is a reality,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the time. “Extreme weather is a reality. It is a reality that we are vulnerable.” He added later, ”Anyone who says there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality.”
Our choice: “extremely dangerous” or “catastrophic”
To not warm the planet at all no longer remains an option. The Earth is already dangerously hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
We used to think that warming up to 2 degrees C fell within a sort of “safe zone,” where we could expect change but not crisis. But in a world we’ve warmed only by about 1 degree C above the historical baseline, we’re already seeing massive climate impacts across the planet. These unexpected impacts, along with new projections from ever-improving climate models, tell us that the climate is not nearly as forgiving as we’d like it to be. As the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research’s Kevin Anderson puts it, “1 degree is the new 2 degrees.” Two degrees, meanwhile, now appears not just dangerous, but extremely dangerous.
…
It’s not too late to avoid catastrophe
If that were the end of the story we could all just start drinking now. Hell, I’d buy the first round. But it’s not. We still have a choice. We still, just barely, have the option of choosing to limit warming to 2 degrees and then working hard to restore the climate once we’ve stabilized it. We can, yet, pause at “extremely dangerous” and pull back from the brink of chaos.
Continue readingopenalex: Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet
Alex Steffen, the man behind the excellent inertia defying and inspiring WorldChanging blog, has just released his new book. Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet is a short punchy introduction to some of the most important ideas that are shaping how we are thinking about, and creating,
Continue readingopenalex: Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet
Alex Steffen, the man behind the excellent inertia defying and inspiring WorldChanging blog, has just released his new book. Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that can Save the Planet is a short punchy introduction to some of the most important ideas that are shaping how we are thinking about, and creating,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Encouraging Early Political Engagement: I Have the Right to Be a Child
Early political engagement is a hot button topic for a number of us here at Politics ReSpun. As parents and/or political animals, we spend a lot of time contemplating methods of public engagement that would draw youth into political culture, and foster both interest and comprehension of sociopolitical events. Apathy
Continue readingcartoon life: New 22 cats books
Filed under: art, book, goods Tagged: book, Cat, cats
Continue readingcartoon life: A little book of cats
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23273/The%20little%20book/22%20cats%20little%20book.pdf is a tiny pdf of the tiny book 22 cats, which is selected images from the 100 cats series. Filed under: art, book Tagged: 100 cats, animals, cats, illustration
Continue readingcartoon life: free books
Who has an iPad 2G or newer? Who would like a free review copy of 100 cats? 5 each on Twitter, Facebook and here… samupress @ gmail dot com Filed under: art, book, digital, drawing, iPad Tagged: “Promo codes” idiot giveaway
Continue readingcartoon life: Holy cats! 100 cats is live on the iTunes bookstore!
100 cats: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/100-cats/id559121901?mt=11 What a fast turnaround! I thought I would have some time to set up a page for the book before then. Filed under: art, book, comment, digital, drawings, good stuff, iPad, painting Tagged: 100 cats, art, Cat, cats, digital, ebook, humor, humour, illustration, iPad
Continue readingcartoon life: 100 insane cats
Well, that was a bit of an insane run. My 100 cats drawing project ran out of steam at around 80 pictures, and I decided, WTH, put ‘em all up here and see what happens. It pushed me over the hump, I think, along with getting a bit more proper
Continue readingcartoon life: The Horse’s Mouth
I saw The Horses Mouth as a movie in my senior year of high school. I had read the novel, given as a gift by my cousin, a corrupting and influential gift, while I was in public school. There was much I didn’t understand then. And those are indeed, magnificent
Continue readingcartoon life: Link and page updates
I updated the pages for the books, and corrected links. An iBooks 2 version of the Cat book is up on iTunes at:http://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/cat/id499745919?mt=11. It’s a free download. An iBooks 2 version of 20 Landscapes IV is up on iTunes at: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/20-landscapes-iv/id497100073?mt=11. It’s a free download. PDF’s at Dropbox: 20 Landscapes I 20 Landscapes
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