Climate Change Gets Sexy!!!!

A lament for our fellow brethren

"The Bushmeat Commercial Market"

Environmental Social Justice Issue Revisited: the Illicit Bushmeat Trade

There is corrupt business afoot in the world when animals are poached, their carcasses distributed across a secondary-market for food and other commodities. The destructive affair has led to the deterioration of animal species, notably the gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo populations in Africa. Bushmeat hunters will slaughter 200 billion dollars worth of animals this year, including 8,000 endangered apes. According to the Bushmeat Project, an environmental and humanitarian group that initiates alternative wage-earning opportunities for equatorial Africans, “[p]eople pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world. If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the remaining wild apes in Africa will be gone within the next fifteen to fifty years” (bushmeat.net). Partnerships between animal conservation groups across the world have increased awareness and specific concern for the people seeking economic recourse in a destructive trade that not only affects the biosphere of west and central Africa, but an indigenous way of life. A significant mantra of environmental organizations is to turn “poachers into protectors,” in an attempt to divert financial interest in hunting and logging to conservation and tourism. Evoking empathy from the public and encouraging resistance toward purchasing bushmeat, progress has been made; take away the incentives and commercial hunting of endangered species will hopefully wane.

What's wrong with a normal hobby...like cycling or fly fishing?

"Why the Hell would you create such a thing?"

This is so bizarre...of course the man who created a motorized Lazy-B chair that included the perks of a "stereo sound system, nitrous oxide booster, parachute, headlights, a steering wheel, and a sticker that reads: 'Hell yeah, it's fast,' would get arrested for driving his unorthodox vehicle into a parked car while intoxicated. The chair can reach speeds up to 20-mph; is it sustainable you might ask? If so, I foresee a future where everyone will scoot around in comfort on a fashionable chair, powered by vegetable oil, a shoddy version of a vehicle that you can hurl off a cliff and land safely on the ground with the assistance from your parachute. The ingenious piece of mechanical engineering will be auctioned off on Ebay. Check your bank accounts because this item is definitely a must-have!!

Taxidermied Chupacabra Attracts the Attention of a Wacky Creationist

Chupacabra? Creationist Museum Displays Mystery Beast

Really? An authentic "Chupacabra," an enigmatic creature that resides in Mexico and known for killing small livestock, has typically been called a fictional animal; a kindred spirit to the Lochness monster and Big Foot, Chupacabra carcasses have traditionally been revealed through DNA tests to be a native, hairless Mexican dog called Xoloitzcuintli or a mangy coyote. This recently acquired Chupacabra's DNA tests are yet to be revealed. Most importantly, John Adolfi, manager of the "Lost World Museum" in Phoenix, New York who purchased the taxidermied carcass, "wanted to exhibit the beast as an example of the fallibility of science. His Lost World Museum (named after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel in which dinosaurs still exist) features items and artifacts that he believes proves that scientists don't have all the answers. A creationist, Adolfi believes that the Earth was created 6,000 to 10,000 years ago by God. He believes that by displaying the chupacabra, he will cast doubt on the credibility of mainstream scientists: If scientists scoff at the chupacabra's existence, could they be wrong about evolution and the age of the Earth?" My response: yeah, believing that the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old negates any type of credibility to his outrageous theory.

"Smug Alert!" Be careful you don't get too patronizing, i.e., when it comes to being environmentally conscious, humility is key!

The creators of the satirically critical and surreal show "South Park," Matt Stone and Trey Parker, point out the hypocrisy of smug Hybrid car owners in the Season Ten episode "Smug Alert." When Kyle's dad purchases a Hybrid Prius, his patronizing attitude alienates his family from the rest of the down-to-earth, commonplace people of their hometown South Park. Being green can take a nasty toll on one's social life if you become too congratulatory about your eco-friendly behavior and subsequently criticize others for not following your exemplary, metropolitan behavior. Crude and ultimately offensive, "South Park" calls attention to everyone's bullshit, even the people who are actually taking positive steps towards sustainability and reducing carbon emissions. Keep it real, guys.

Cultural Diversity in the Gadgets we Choose

6 Gadgets Japan Loves (and the U.S. rejected)

Japan loves sleek, shiny elongated skinny phones. The Japanese also enjoy bidets (there is an "energy saver" option button on the luxurious toilet), massaging chairs in their living rooms, seated showers, and really small laptop computers. To be succinct, cute gadgets that Americans felt were too superfluous or avant-garde.

Panda Pumpkin

What's better than a cute panda? How about a panda carved into a pumpkin purchased from a local farm! "Illuminating" the issue of devastating apathy towards endangered species and the benefits of buying produce without paying for superfluous financial and environmental expenses.

World-first Sustainable Racing Car Runs On Chocolate, To Take On Formula 3

href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005123048.htm#"

ScienceDaily (2009-10-08) -- Can the idea of "green motorsport" actually work? Yes, according a U.K. researcher who led the research team which designed and built the world-first fully sustainable Formula 3 racing car, which runs on biofuel made from chocolate and animal fats.

"But it's not just an environmentally friendly car, it is also fast. The car has a top speed of 135 mph, can achieve 0-60 in 2.5 seconds and is turbo charged to give it more torque."

This car is outstripping the competition! With a steering wheel made from carrot pulp, a recycled-resin and carbon fiber and woven flax body, this vehicle is fast and ferociously sustainable. The idea behind the project, spearheaded by Dr. Kirwan at the University of Warwick, was to advocate "being sustainable and green..." and it "can be incredibly sexy, fun and fast." Let's root on this green machine at the Formula 3 Championship on October 17th.

Billowing Polar Bears

Oh, the ephemeral fragility of animals...still, I'm a little befuddled. What social message are they trying to get across? Seems a bit convoluted, i.e., they are encouraging you to ride the subway, to fight global warming, and consequently save the polar bears. Hence, when the subway propels itself speedily under the pavement and creates the great whoosh of air that stirs the polar bears into life, the average pedestrian is supposed to comprehend this rather obtuse message. Well, if you live in the 21st-century and tend to avoid hiding under rocks, polar bears are the ubiquitous poster children of global warming. Interesting archetype.

Red Earth Environmental Art Group

The Red Earth collaborative art group, based in the UK, is an apt representative of the new avant-garde blossoming in the art world. A group of artists who are following ecological tenets and inciting responses from people in a global context are bringing light to important environmental issues such as the dwindling Suffolk coastline. The 2008 art project "Long Shore Drift is a response to the immediate and historical issue of land loss through geological transition and sea flooding, and the potential for the ecological restoration of an endangered habitat." Besides addressing Anglo-Saxon environmental concerns, the group's artistic influences span across the world; the 2001 art project "Breath" took place in the derelict Canterbury castle and was directly inspired by Japanese philosophy and aesthetics. Including performance and installation, "Breath" was intended to encapsulate the essence of life and the vulnerability of nature as a whole; we take our first inhale of breath when we are born and heave a last exhale before we die, synonymous with every living organism that thrives on earth, we are mortal. Installation in the project included:

A series of retreating and superimposed layers:

The floor is raked gravel, a zen map of all matter reduced to its most simple, symbolic form. Two large pools of water break the patterning, reflecting light and video. The contact of water with water resonates through the digital sound system.

At the centre of the castle space a cylinder, its base dark burnt oak. Steam seeps from within the cylinder. Its upper half - a ringed wall of thickly luminous wax.

Blank screens and a bamboo wall cut across the space; the space behind, the last space, is a dark.

Red ladder against the wall leads from water up to the still figure of a performer. Dead. Inert. Waiting to be born ­ waiting for their first breath.

Human/Body/Fluid
Red ladder. Screens of linen and wax. Yellow columns of beeswax lit from within with vitreous honey pools reflecting the structures below. Muted organic light, living fragile skins activated by video projection.

Nature/Vegetation/Animal
An assemblage of tall, bamboo poles, white and spectral; a forest, a cage, a wild place.

Earth/Mineral/Mountain
A mound of chalk: the earth moving, the course of minerals through the veins of the earth: earth as dust in which a performer will be enveloped.

The project "Java," that spanned the years between 1997 through 1999, included the collaboration of Javanese performance artists, an intellectual documentary journey into the culture of ritual and environmental union.

Post-Human Earth: How the Planet will recover from us

This is a truly fascinating read! Positive nihilism reaches a new perfected level in this article! It discusses the reverberations of our actions that have stimulated a new geological epoch to emerge, urging a mass extinction to the forefront of history. Scientists have correlated the current global warming scenario to life in the"Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum," 55 million years ago when temperatures worldwide rose approximately 9 degrees Celsius. The present-day crisis at hand is the melting of the ice caps, which will lead to the subsequent thawing of the Arctic carbon-rich peat that would release trillions tons of carbon into the atmosphere; methane from the ocean sediments would also disperse across the planet, creating a noxious environment that would surely be a devastating kick to the genitals of all organisms. Literally, reproductive success would plummet dramatically; the first species to go would be the endangered ones (goodbye panda and polar bears). We have already inhibited the migration patterns of many animals (constructed roads, geographical altercations, etc.) so the common trend of organisms following their respective climate across the globe (reflect back upon our migratory process throughout the world and subsequent adaptations) would be seriously hindered. The earth could virtually become sterile; still, life would persevere in the wake of tenacious evolution. Some critters would inevitably survive (cockroaches and rats) and millions of years later, a diverse blend of organisms could possibly emerge. We just will not be around to see it. Question of the day: what are we really trying to preserve or conserve with our ecological concerns and savvy preventative measures of deterring a mass extinction? For the continuation of our species? My forecast for the future: warm and sunny with a 0% chance of present-day humans succeeding in preventing the devastating, ineluctable outcome. Well, shit.

Ecuador Greens Up!

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/17-09/st_galapagos#

"Every year, more than 140,000 tourists descend on the isolated archipelago to ogle its cactus-studded scenery and bizarre wildlife. And amid the blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises sits a handful of towns whose population has tripled to nearly 30,000 in the past two decades. To support all those people, 10 million gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline are shipped to the Galápagos annually, a fifth of which is used just to generate electricity."

Charles Darwin would be turning in his grave.

New Artwork: Drawing and the Incorporation of Animals

Well, it's not too much to look at right now, but the drawing is definitely a "work-in-progress" that I hope will culminate successfully. Why does this pertain to sustainability, environmental concern, and other related topics? The significant meaning lies within the context; the old goat my hand is resting upon is a recurring theme in my artwork; my modus operandi usually focuses on self-portraiture and a fictional setting that oftentimes includes representative animals that stand in for allegorical messages. The background of these figures will be adjunct to a corrosive metal shed, a building that actually exists on my leisure farm (I will try to find pictures of this monstrosity). It was there before my family arrived and it is a quintessential monument to the filthy habits and crass ways of rural Kentucky natives (yes, I am being deliberately offensive); it was filled with miscellaneous objects that had been stuffed inside this hideous structure; cars, laundry machines, and other large items too large to consider worth making a genuine effort to dispose were casually pushed down a ravine.