New Ways, Old Materials

Here is yet another way to envision recycling: everyday objects transformed into shelter instead of wasting energy to reformat these materials into new products. . .How about using plant material as wallpaper? . . . Rem Koolhaas has designed the most ecologically sustainable city to date located in the United Arab Emirates that should prove to be a fascinatig experiment of humans' ability to create zero-carbon cities.

Inkjet Solar Power & Mannahatta

A company in Massachusetts has successfully constructed a machine which uses inkjet printer technology to create fast, inexpensive solar cells on flexible plastic. The possibilities are endless...so were the possibilities of Manhattan prior to our concretization of the island - Dr. Eric Sanderson has created maps of what Mannahatta, the Lenape Indians name for NYC four hundred years ago, used to look like with its bounty of diverse ecological environments.

How We Throw It Away

An article about where New Yorkers can recycle their unwanted or obsolete electronics. It's a relief to see that organizations exist to help us dispose of toxic products every one of us own and will eventually throw away. The biggest issue is changing our behavior. It is deeply ingrained in our throw away culture to simply toss our unwanted possessions in the garbage. It seems that consumerism has effectively preached to the masses a god-given right to a simple, thoughtless, and quick way to unload all that we don't want and to speedily replace it with something new.

$104 a barrel

There is a great opinion piece in the New York Times about our sobering oil situation, Bush's insidious disregard thinly veiled as harmless ignorance, and Exxon Mobile's $40 billion profit in 2007 and the new subsidies our government wants to give to big oil companies. Enough to make one want to riot, barf, scream, move to another country, and so on, etc. My thanks to journalists who are able to articulate and present these facts coherently without resorting to the above mentioned reactions.