Efforts to reduce air pollution in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games yielded immediate benefits for cardiovascular health, researchers report. [The Atlantic]

The American consulate in Shanghai begins issuing its own air quality readings, reporting that particulates are significantly worse than government statistics indicate. [The Standard]

Chesapeake Energy’s stock price falls after Standard & Poor’s downgrades its credit rating in response to the company’s quest for a $4 billion loan rescue. The natural gas company is suffering from revelations about its business practices and its chief executive’s financial dealings. [Time]

After a yearslong battle, Colorado’s largest water utility and two counties reach an accord intended to balance the Denver area’s demand for water with the needs of mountain communities. [KUNC]

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at the New York Times

Technorati Tags air pollution, china, New York Times, radar

Early that autumn morning, I knew it was going to be a great day: I dropped my toast, and it landed honey-side up! Then in the morning newspaper, I saw an announcement for a public auction of “dozens of used aluminum storm doors.” I could hardly wait to hitch up my trailer.

Technorati Tags cold winter winds, garden greenhouse, public auction, storm doors, tempered glass

It might seem a little risky to lend out a bunch of power tools to those who probably don’t know how to use them. After all, tools can be dangerous, people can be idiots, and we live in an exceptionally litigious society. For some strange but very understandable reason, those concerns alone have been more than enough to effectively end many community tool libraries before they even start.

As the sharing economy continues to blossom, however, more communities are overcoming that inherent fear and establishing lending libraries to embrace the beautiful benefits of sharing with neighbors. Through Google groups, starter kits, and incubator workshops, new tool libraries now have the ability to overcome their inherent concerns by learning from the experiences of many who have come before them.

Though it seems like a relatively unique idea, around 40 community tool libraries already exist throughout the United States, from Philadelphia to Seattle and south to Oakland and New Orleans. Each has its own unique flavor but most operate roughly the same way by accepting tool donations from the community and then lending those tools out for free—or nearly free—to anyone capable of presenting an ID and signing a waiver. Through that basic setup, some tool libraries have been happily participating in the sharing economy for over 20 years.

While most tool libraries are more than willing to share whatever they’ve learned, a handful of libraries have recently led the charge towards making it increasingly easy for even the most cautious and underfunded communities to take up the challenge. Strangely enough, these libraries happen to be some of the youngest.

Michael Froehlich, for example, felt compelled to establish a National Tool Library Google Group a couple years ago, just after founding The West Philly Tool Library. By creating a space for common questions and answers, he hoped to not only provide greater access to lessons learned but also to manage the barrage of inquiries he was receiving.

“Almost immediately after opening our tool library, we were getting 3 to 5 requests per month for advice from others who also wanted to start tool libraries,” says Froehlich. “So many people had helped us get started, we certainly weren’t going to ignore their requests. But we wanted to figure out an easier, more efficient way for people interested in getting started to tap into the wealth of information from tool libraries across the country.”

In like fashion, the founders of The West Seattle Tool Library, myself included, also felt compelled to share everything we were learning in the planning and management of our own tool library. Since the first day we starting planning the project, our hope was to develop The West Seattle Tool Library into an easily replicable model for any individuals and organizations interested in starting their own version.

“The biggest reward for me is being a part of the amazing community of tool libraries, as well as all the makers, fixers, artisans, and neighbor s who use them,” says Gene Homicki, one of The West Seattle Tool Library’s founders, “I wanted to encourage that community’s growth by making sure that everyone who is interested in tool libraries has access to all the resources they needed.”

With that in mind, The West Seattle Tool Library set about creating a tool library starter kit. Our hope was that this kit would effectively comfort the worrisome souls who were either intimidated by the numerous details of the planning process or quite appropriately concerned about safety, liability, and security. The result of those efforts recently became its very own project, Share Starter, which has now hosted a handful of tool library incubator sessions as well as developed a free starter kit.

While inquiries on starting a tool library come from far and wide, The West Seattle Tool Library and Share Starter also constantly receive a large number of requests from our own region. By hosting local Incubators, we’ve actually been able to address those inquiries and efficiently share our knowledge in small, personal sessions with anyone in driving distance.

“The incubators really inspired us to get started on our own tool library,” says Susan Gregory of the newly-forming Northeast Seattle Tool Library, “We got good nuts and bolts information on how they organized their tool library, we were offered excellent support as we got up and running, and we were inspired by the success West Settle has had so far. Having a successful model to emulate has helped us to procure a space to use, has given us an example to reference when people are unsure of what we’re attempting to do, and hopefully will help us attain funding for our project.”

Partly as a result of the incubators, there are currently six other tool library projects underway just in Seattle alone and a handful more starting up throughout our region. The starter kit—including liability and membership forms, tool use policies, sample work plans, budgets, letters of support, and fiscal sponsor agreements—will hopefully allow all of these organizations to overcome the burdens and worries of moving their concepts on to the next stage.

Considering all the obvious benefits that tool libraries offer, from encouraging neighborhood development to serving as a great foundation for the sharing economy, it’s rather a shame that there isn’t one in every neighborhood. Through the efforts of a growing tool library community, though, that situation seems to be changing rapidly. With all the resources now out there to tap into, and all the established tool libraries calming the fears, it’s quite possible that everyone will soon have a tool library just down the street. If that doesn’t automatically happen where you live, perhaps all these resources will at least give you the confidence to start building one of your own…and then share what you learn.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Energy Bulletin

Technorati Tags community tool, google groups, lending libraries, power tools, tool library

When London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, their aim was to make it the greenest, cleanest and most sustainable games ever held. Now with just barely two months left, the host city is scrambling to make good on its promise.

As with most sporting events, the ‘greenness’ can only be evaluated after the games conclude. However, if the April progress report is anything to go by, the London Olympic planning committee is set to meet the sustainability goals for the Games.

In spite of the positive reports, there have been some fears of greenwash. One of the biggest sponsors of the Olympics is Dow Chemicals. The Guardian reports that the company is “enjoying one of the elite £63m sponsorship deals with the IOC. The firm has also agreed to provide a £7m decorative wrap for the Olympic stadium.” Dow Chemicals is responsible for the famous 1984 Bhopal gas disaster in India and the company’s involvement in the games could spell a “crisis of legitimacy” according to former London mayor, Ken Livingstone.  Added to this, BP is a “sustainability partner.” The London Game organizing committee sealed a partnership with BP well before the Deepwater Horizon debacle, but BP is not a company with the cleanest environmental track record, so this choice is dubious.

In spite of all this, Business Green reports that some of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which is responsible for building the Olympic Park has contributed the most in terms of sustainability. The ODA has been responsible for reducing the carbon footprint of construction through many innovation and simple methods. They have made the main stadium lightweight by reusing gas piping and re-designing the aquatic center’s temporary stands to reduce its use of steel.

There has been widespread reuse of materials throughout the construction period, including the park’s own cooling, heat and power plant. There has also been extensive use of renewable energy within the park. The land the park was built on was previously heavily contaminated and now it houses large quantities of greenery. After the games, this land will become one of the biggest parks in Europe with 50 km of cycling paths and 30 km of hiking trails. They also plan to keep the 45 hectares of natural habitat within the area and boost biodiversity by erecting 525 bird boxes and 150 bat boxes.

Here’s a quick run down of the green fact file:

• The Velodrome is almost 100 percent naturally ventilated and makes optimal use of natural light, thus reducing the need for electric lighting. Rainwater collected from the roof will be used for flushing toilets and irrigation.
• Estimates suggest the post-Olympics park will create 58 percent fewer carbon emissions than comparable sites. The original goal was 50 percent.
• Water consumption will be cut by 60 percent — better than the 40 percent reduction goal — and approximately 98 percent of the waste created at the site can reportedly be reused or recycled.
• The Aquatics center will be reused after the games for local events, schools, colleges, and as a practice center for elite athletes in the UK.
• The foundations for venues and roads have used recycled materials and many of the venues and bridges will have green habitat spaces incorporated into walls and roofs.
• Over 100 hectares of new parklands for people and wildlife have over 4,000 trees and over 300,000 wetland plants.

In terms of infrastructure and post-Game planning, the London Olympics might just be the cleanest Games ever. But like always, we’ll have to wait and see about what goes on during the Games itself.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Triple Pundit

Technorati Tags 2012 olympics, host city, London, olympic games, olympics

Garden planters aren’t just containers for planting flowers and plants. They’re decorative too and can be used to deck up a boring space. Planters also don’t have to be purchased from stores and can be made by oneself. While most are as large as or larger than flower pots, some are classified into the micro category. These are tiny little holders used to contain succulent plants. They can be used to decorate walls, tables or exteriors and make for perfect gifting items.

Micro planters can be made out of virtually any material though cork is the preferred choice. You can use those that come with wine or champagne bottles. Cork planters make for a fun DIY project and don’t really require you to purchase additional base materials. You’ll need a carving tool or a small knife to carve out the cork/s, a small succulent plant or a cutting, some potting mix and accessories like beads if you want to dress up your micro planter.

Carve out the cork using the knife or carving tool. Make sure that you don’t carve too close to the edges else the cork may break. Take a bit of potting mix and put it into the carved cork. Place your plant and fill the cork with more soil. You can leave the planter as it is or add a few beads and sequins to dress it up. To ensure that your succulents thrive, spritz a few drop of water when needed but make sure you don’t overwater them.

While we’ve heard of cork being used in flooring, packaging and shoes, this micro planter idea is the most interesting. You don’t need to buy the materials but can collect the corks from friends and family if you run out. Make several of them and gift them to colleagues or friends.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Eco Friend

Technorati Tags champagne bottles, cork, flower pots, garden planters, planting flowers

Jeff Clearwater and Ferananda Ibarra* led a presentation on (Charles Eisenstein et al’s) Sacred Economics and Sharing Economies the other day while I was in Eugene OR (thanks to fellow communitarian and alternative economies enthusiast Tree Bressen twisting their arms to add Eugene to their current West Coast speaking tour). One of the ideas they presented that I found particularly inspiring was this:

Much of what we believe, and much of what we are trying to change, is rooted in the terminology, the language we use to discuss it. If we want to change our own ideas, beliefs and worldviews, we need to stop using that terminology, because it leaves us anchored in the paradigm we are trying to escape.

This idea is consistent with George Lakoff’s idea of “reframing” conversations, because as long as you are talking with someone who has a different frame or worldview about a subject, you will never achieve an understanding or appreciation of the other person’s perspectives and beliefs, or what underlies them. So for example, liberal and conservative views on abortion and gay marriage are framed either in terms of women’s and minority rights, or in terms of protecting traditional morality. The two sides cannot meaningfully converse because they have totally different worldviews that come from irreconcilable beliefs about how the world really is and what drives human behaviour.

So what Jeff and Ferananda are saying is that, similarly, when we try to discuss radically new approaches to a topic (such as economics), we can easily get trapped in the old-paradigm language about that topic that drags us back to accepted (and often dysfunctional) intractable ways of thinking about that topic. That prevents us from explaining the new ideas clearly and compellingly to others, and can also trap us in our own thinking, preventing us from really boldly imagining and seeing the full potential for such new ideas.

If you want to change your thinking, they say, you must first change the old-paradigm words and expressions you use. In the case of economics, these are words like: customer, supplier, production, marketing, sales, financing, revenues, income, expenses, assets, property, debts, capital, and, most important perhaps, money. Many of these terms are non-essential and even nonsensical in many of the alternative economies being discussed these days, and there is a need for some new terms for concepts in these new economies that don’t currently exist in our language.

I’ve written a lot about such economies over the years (type “natural economy” or “gift economy” into the search bar in the upper right of this blog if you want to read more). Lately I’ve stopped, not because I think the industrial growth economy is worth saving, but because I think it’s naively idealistic to believe we can transition to a new economy before the current one collapses, or to believe that an economy can be ‘designed’ and ‘implemented’ in our complex modern world any more than a new political system can. Such systems evolve in uncontrollable ways, and generally become dysfunctional as they become larger and more entrenched, until they collapse, when new systems evolve to take their place.

Notwithstanding my skepticism, I think Jeff and Ferananda are on to something. One of the failings of my own book Finding the Sweet Spot was that it tried to explain the concept of Natural Enterprise (and how to create one) using the language of traditional competitive marketing-driven growth-dependent business. Natural Enterprise can’t properly be described in terms like “competitive positioning” or “marketing strategy” or “venture capital” or “return on investment” because these terms are meaningless to cooperative enterprises that have no need to compete, or market, or raise funds. But try explaining this to anyone in business, or business school, or government (or their banking and accounting friends)! Or try writing a book of only a few chapters that explains why this is so!

The best way to convey the nature, value and potential of a Natural Economy (or a Sharing or Sacred or Gift or Generosity Economy or whatever name you choose for it) is to build a small-scale model of one that works, or tell a story that explains how it works, without reference to the language or concepts of the existing industrial growth economy. That’s why Jeff (who has spent his life organizing Intentional Communities) has teamed up with Ferananda (who has studied and written about alternative economics and currencies), in the hope that Intentional Communities will volunteer to be ‘laboratories’ for a new economy, models that others can observe and hopefully follow (and where failures of these models, when they occur, will be non-traumatic, fast and educational).

I remain skeptical that such models will ever evolve to be able to replace our existing economy at any significant scale, but I’m on the record on this blog as a believer in models and stories as powerful instruments of change (and a believer that Intentional Communities are already learning the skills we will all need when our industrial economy collapses), so I certainly wish them well, and will support their new economic experiments in any way I can. If you’d like to help support Jeff and Ferananda you can contact them at Co-Creating Community Wealth. Or if you’re in the Eugene area you can support that community’s local new economy initiative, under the leadership of my friends Tom Atlee and John Abbe, at Let’s Talk: Our New Economy.

What kind of non-old-paradigm language could we use to describe such a Natural Economy, and the Natural (Post-Industrial) Culture such an economy would be a part of? And what kind of stories could we tell to depict such an economy (a pre-industrial, indigenous or non-human existing “economy”, or an envisioned one growing up in parallel to, or as the successor to, the industrial growth economy)?

What is an “economy” anyway? The old-paradigm definition (defined in that economy’s own terms) is “the state of a country or region in terms of the production, trade and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money” (that’s the Oxford definition). Using such a definition, it’s a tautology to say that our economic “health” is best served by maximizing production, trade and consumption. Money, the measure of that “health”, is everything.

I’ve taken to cynically defining economics as “the rationalization of the absurdity of unemployment”. Jeff’s alternative definition is that politics is the process of understanding and appreciating each other to make decisions in our collective best interest, and economics is the process of taking care of each other and the planet to optimize our collective well-being.

If we were to use that language, if we were to measure our collective well-being (including the well-being of non-humans and our planet as a whole), what kind of language would we use, and what concepts would emerge that need new words or new appreciation? How would we ‘design’ a system whose purpose is to improve our understanding and appreciation of each other and to make decisions in our collective best interest? It certainly wouldn’t involve voting, lobbying, corporate campaign funding or ‘representatives’ thousands of miles away whose only responsibility is to get re-elected by doing more self-promotion and seeming less offensive to a majority of people than the one Tweedledee alternative who can afford to be on the ballot.

And how would we ‘design’ a system whose purpose is to optimize our capacity to care for each other and our collective well-being? It certainly wouldn’t look anything like the system we have today, or any of the alternative systems that nations have tried to implement (well-intentioned or not).

There have been many books written about such systems, and I will not attempt to list them all (Herman Daly, Charles Eisenstein, Richard Douthwaite, Peter Brown come to mind. My own Natural Economy vision is illustrated by the graphic at the top of this post, which I won’t attempt to rehash or embellish here. Suffice it to say that such systems would require us to live every aspect of our lives very differently from the way we do today. I think it is doubtful that we will ever get enough people to think about and talk about their economic (and political) lives in a way that, “natural” though it may be, is so foreign to most people’s experience as to be unimaginable and untenable.

But there may be an opportunity, and perhaps even a responsibility, for those of us with the capacity to do so, to constantly challenge ourselves not to use language that gives credibility to dysfunctional established economic and political systems, either in our conversations with friends and foes, or in our personal writing and thinking about these topics. And instead, to develop ‘scripts’ of new terms and expressions that, as challenging and even bewildering as they may be to many who will listen to or read our words, will be consistent with a more natural, empathetic, healthy and radically critical worldview of how the world really works, and will enable us to truly imagine, and creep our way towards, a realization of systems that embody such a worldview.

Imagine a world, for example, where:

• There is no need for ‘money’ or currency of any kind, because people trust that the gifts they receive from others, without charge, will balance their gifts, without charge, to others. Not a barter system, a system of generosity and trust. No accounting necessary. No need to ‘value’ anyone’s time. No transaction fees.
• There is no such thing as ‘property’. The land and the resources that come from it are sacred and don’t ‘belong’ to anyone. Instead people ‘belong’ to the land and to their community.
• There is no such thing as a ‘job’, or ‘work’ or ‘employment’. People continually self-organize to determine and co-create and give what is needed.
• There is no such thing as a ‘stock market’ or a ‘bond market’ or a ‘debt’. People give what is needed. They don’t expect or need ‘profit’ or ‘growth’.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it? How would we describe what we ‘do’ (which for many of us is the first thing we relate to others in today’s society when we introduce ourselves — we equate it with who we are) when there are no ‘jobs’? We would have to say instead who we associate with, what we love and care about, what we ‘play’ at — a very different way of relating to strangers. What if we were to think of that world and that economy as natural, and our current one as an aberration, and start to introduce ourselves to others that way now, and invite them to do the same — “Hello, I’m Dave and I really care about X.” And if they insisted on telling you their “job”, what if we just politely acknowledged and then ignored that and asked them what they were passionate about?

And if someone were to complain about the “unemployment rate”, what if we politely explained that that data is really meaningless because in a healthy society there would be no such thing as jobs or employment or unemployment, and that if we could only all agree to develop it it is entirely possible to have an economy where everyone does what they love and what they’re good at, and most of the day is free for play, and then ask them, when that society comes to pass, what will they play at?

And if someone with a roof over their head and good health were to tell us that they dreamed more than anything else of winning or inheriting some money so at last they would feel secure and happy and good about themselves, what if we told them a deliciously credible story of a world where no one had any money and no one owned anything, yet everyone felt secure and happy and good about themselves?

What if we stripped the poisoned words of our ruinous, mindless, acquisitive and unsustainable economy, and our corrupt, irresponsible and dysfunctional political systems, from our vocabularies — refused to use them, and “translated” them when we heard or read about them, and in our discussions of economics and politics steered the discussion persistently and gently to how we might better understand and appreciate each other so we could make decisions together in our collective best interest, and take care of each other and the planet to optimize our collective well-being?

And when we get raised eyebrows and looks of incredulity in response, what if we just smiled and explained that that, after all, is what a healthy political and economic system does for its citizens?

It will take some writing and rehearsing of new scripts and stories free of the adulterated language of old paradigm thinking, and some practice telling them. But Jeff and Ferananda have persuaded me it’s worth it — it’s the work of liberation.

And for those who lack the patience and speaking ability to do this, an alternative is to write stories and plays and songs in this new “language” about a society in which such an economic and political system is a reality. Word Plays. Theatre of the Possible. Or perhaps, in today’s terrible, impossible world, Guerrilla Theatre.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Energy Bulletin

Technorati Tags communitarian, conservative views on abortion, conversations, human behaviour, traditional morality, views on abortion

Gold rushes in developing countries mean riches for a few and crumbs, death and ecocide for the poor and the environment.

But never mind all that, there’s money to be made. Gold in Peru is booming. According to Australia’s 9MSN, Gold is now Peru’s number one export, with countries like Switzerland, Canada and the US as major buyers.

The article also briefly mentions the conflicts and environmental damage caused by Peru’s goldmines without going into any detail.

Here are some details:

Gold mining is destroying the Peruvian Amazon rainforest through deforestation, digging, and mercury, oil and hydrocarbon contamination, which is hazardous to the unique and rich ecology of the forest, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Many small-scale (often illegal) mines expose workers to high levels of mercury, which can damage the brain, kidneys and digestive system, as well as result in developmental delays.

So gold mining poisons people and destroys the environment, while a few get rich of the backbreaking labor of the poor.

From Al Jazeera:

The illegal gold miners of Peru are destroying thousands of hectares of the Amazon jungle. Environmentalists call the damage ‘catastrophic’, but the miners are doing it because they have no other choice.?They are part of what is known as ‘artisanal mining’ – small-scale mining, which globally engages at least 15 million people across 50 countries.

See the video

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Green Fudge

Technorati Tags gold rush, killer gold, Mining, Peru

This week I had a great opportunity to speak with Matt Gardner, Co-Founder and Director of SustainServ, a global sustainability consultancy with offices in Zurich and Boston. We talked about the current state of corporate sustainability. What does it really mean for companies — particularly the small and medium-sized ones? How has it evolved? What is going to happen to companies who are not paying attention? What is happening with supply chains? And what does the future look like? All fun and interesting questions.

There is little debate that the world of corporate sustainability is a fast moving landscape. This is a particular challenge for small and medium-sized companies (the lion-share of SustainServ’s client base) who are often left in a quandary of if/how/and when to keep up with it all. So ten years ago, Matt and his two Co-Founders, Bernd Kasemir and Stephan Lienin (all PhD Chemists) saw a real opportunity to help these companies weed through all of the confusion create a new sector of companies (often suppliers to the larger ones) to be better corporate citizens

We hear the world sustainability a lot. And when many of us think of it, we think of the three intersecting circles –economic, social, and environmental. A perfect balance. And a noble goal. But realistic? Possibly, yes. Common? Nope.

But the good news is that companies are getting better at this balancing act and will, as Matt discusses, continue to show improvement as they develop a greater commitment to transparency. And regardless of how much internal regard a company might have for “environmental”, if they are tracking their impacts at the outset, they are going to be in better if not good shape. Especially when (not if) the customer asks you what you are doing about your greenhouse gas emissions or better yet what they specifically were for the year. You better have a good answer because those days are gone when you can wing it.

Still, it’s difficult for some companies to keep up with it all. They must be motivated to do so. Certainly there are companies that are leading the charge and setting examples for others but the majority of companies out there are in the middle of the pack needing serious guidance so as not to lose too much ground. Matt points out four factors that tend to nudge companies in the sustainability direction. They include:

1) Market opportunities

2) Business Factors (process, infrastructure efficiency)

3) People factors (CEO simply wants to run company in a sustainable manner)

4) Regulation (Probably the biggest motivator)

Matt reports from the trenches that companies are increasingly committed to understanding it all. They are getting it. This commitment and understanding of course is key to maintaining a sustainability program long after its initial implementation. And we must not forget the other key motivator — business survival — the ultimate form of sustainability! These small and medium-sized companies are often suppliers to the big guys and these big guys are providing increasingly detailed checklists (like Wal-Mart and Nike) and mandating that their suppliers follow these guidelines or they will look elsewhere.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Green Biz

Technorati Tags corporate sustainability, global sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions, medium sized companies

While there are already several indoor gyms that offer the added incentive of converting your sweat and pain in the gym into energy that can charge up your small gadgets and gizmos, this one in England is the first outdoor gym to offer the same. The gym produces energy from all those workout sessions and the treadmills and while it might not be very significant at the moment, it can at the very least charge up your phone or iPod for sure.

This really is a nice little bit of extra motivation that one might need to hit the gym really hard and you can even have those one-on-ones with your buddy to see who charges up the iPod faster! All of us like definitive and measurable incentives that we can see and the outdoor gym offers exactly that and the fresh air obviously also does you plenty of good. Maybe in future we will have treadmills at every street corner and in offices that will allow you to charge up gadgets with a 20 minute jog… Sounds good to us.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Eco Friend

Technorati Tags energy source, fresh air, outdoor gym, treadmills, workout sessions

Unsuspecting visitors to Cheng Long, a small fishing village in southwest Taiwan, might feel the need to blink and rub their eyes. Is there really a giant bowl and chopsticks sinking into the wetlands? What are those brightly colored things growing all over that abandoned house?

They’re not apparitions, but art installations — made of recycled and natural materials and focusing on environmental themes related to food.

‘What’s For Dinner?’
Curator Jane Ingram Allen selected six proposals from more than 180 submitted by artists from 60 countries for the 2012 Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project, titled “What’s for Dinner.”

“Since seafood production is the main livelihood of the community, we wanted to emphasize environmental issues related to seafood for this 3rd year of the art project in Cheng Long,” Allen said in her curator’s statement.

Transition From Rice Fields To Wetlands
Indian artist Prashant Jogdand’s “The Food Bowl,” made from recycled found bamboo and rope, reflects the area’s transition from rice fields to wetlands, a source of fish and other aquatic animals to eat. “If we don’t take care of the environment, this place might become incapable of producing any kind of food,” Allen wrote in the exhibition brochure.

The piece “Food Chain” by Markuz Wernli and Madoka Yashitomi, artists from Switzerland and Japan, invited the community “to create a large mosaic mural using many recycled clam shells,” as clams are among the most important food products of the Cheng Long area. The mural “illustrates the cycle of seafood, from its origins in the sea to being eaten by humans, and then the empty shells left as waste to go back into the earth.”

France/U.S.-based artist Isabelle Garbani’s “Invasive Species” uses old plastic shopping bags — made into crocheted “leaves” with the help of local children and other volunteers — to represent the dangerous spread both of non-native plants and animals and of plastic trash.

Seafood Production
Other artworks reflect how seafood is produced, traditional family meals, and natural life cycles. The exhibition, which opened last weekend and will stay on view in the village through next year, was installed over the past month by the artists and local volunteers, who braved rain and unseasonably high temperatures to bring it to fruition. Wrote Allen:

“We hope that the artworks and the energy created by the artists will enrich the lives of the people and encourage them to conserve the environment as they continue producing the seafood we love to eat.”

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Tree Hugger

Technorati Tags art installations, clam shells, environmental themes, exhibition brochure, seafood production