world carfree day são paulo: tunnel.

We all know just how much the truth sucks. We live in a world dominated by automobiles. We ignore the advancement of greener technologies and cleaner vehicles because our governments get huge funding from automobile manufacturers and oil companies. Even as the world’s temperature rises, we continue to build more cars, burn more oil, and do more harm.

Since 2000, World Carfree Day has worked to drive awareness of just what we’re doing with the simplest of dares: don’t get in a car for one whole day. In 2007, supporters in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the world’s most polluted cities, went to work to show people just dire the situation has become. Their graffiti-like messages weren’t created by painting on buildings, but by simply removing the grime that’s already there. A message to fight pollution created from the very effects of the pollution itself:

(Agency: Lew’Lara / TBWA)

earth hour 2008.

This article also appeared on Josh Spear

I remember having a moment during the big ol’ northeastern black out in 2003. Without electricity, people left their houses. They walked outside and talked to each other. Best of all, I looked up and saw stars. In the wash of billboards and airplanes and skyscrapers, I’d forgotten they were even there.

Sometimes seeing really is believing. Last year, WWF-Australia organized the inaugural Earth Hour. Creating buzz and turning heads around the globe, 2.3 million residents of Sydney simply turned off their lights for one hour. The result is immediate and gives a stunning visual of just how much energy is being used to power our cities. In that one event alone, Australia saw a 10% reduction in use of its power grid. In CO2 terms, that’s the equivalent of taking 50,000 cars off the road for an hour.

Now Earth Hour is back for 2008. This global lights out phenomenon wants individuals and the businesses they work for to turn off the lights for one hour. In a world so dependent on electricity and energy-consumption, we need to collectively remind ourselves of what we’re doing and how we need to change. On March 29, 2008 at 8pm (in each time zone) you have the chance to become part of Earth Hour’s environmental movement. Melbourne, Toronto, Chicago, Copenhagen, Brisbane, Tel Aviv and Manila are just some of the global cities that are taking part. Even if you’re not in those cities, you can sign up at the Earth Hour website and have some fun in the dark no matter where you are.

bottles and cups and global warming. oh my.

In the wake of our collective environmental awakening, I’ve noticed a trend among designers to make everything old new again. New and re-usable; creating old familiar faves out of materials that you don’t have to feel eco-shame for using. These new goods will hopefully remind you of the old skool days when you could throw away coffee cups with wanton abandon and not think about your grandchildren or the sea level.

My favourite is “I Am Not A Paper Cup…” from DCI Product:

It’s a porcelain cup with a silicon lid. Re-usable, dishwasher safe, and pretty much guilt free. Until we find out that the creation of porcelain gives sea horses cancer or something. But until then, it’s good to go. If water is more your thing, the Italian glass-designers Seletti have you covered with these plastic-bottle inspired glass water bottles. Something about them makes me want to smash them… I’m not sure what. Maybe to give our old chemical-ridden buddy plastic a fighting chance again.

nick foley: …and a partridge in a LED pear tree.

Wednesday. The universally-loathed bastard child of the week. And time for another edition of obsessed with… Wednesdays.

My obsession this week delves futher into my love for the collision of the organic and the modern. Equally cool is when the organic is re-created by the modern, like in this simply awesome Pear Light by American industrial designer Nick Foley.

The steel tree is hollow hand-forged steel (I don’t even want to think about how long that took) and bears three individual LED pear lights. Connected with rare earth magnets that enhance the realism of the tree, the pears can literally be “picked” and taken anywhere. They stay lit for about an hour on their own and can be recharged just by being magnetically reattached to the tree. Ah-may-zing. If any generous benefactors (or if you’re just stupid rich) are reading this and would like to buy me my very own Pear Light, please email me. I’ll totally put out.

Via enviro-friendly design site Inhabitat

tappening: i’d tap that.

It’s definitely one of the biggest branding successes of the last 25 years that we’ve been led to believe we should spend $15 billion a year on something that, for most of us, shoots out of a faucet in the kitchen for free.

Did you know that Evian is launching bagged oxygen in 2008? It’s better than regular oxygen because it comes in a sky-coloured bag telling you it’s from the Alps and it has extra purity molecules. Sounds moronic doesn’t it? I’ve got news for you…

Enter the green crusaders at Tappening. Their site is jammed with alarming facts about the damage done to the environment and the economy by the bottled water industry. (For example – 40% of bottled water is just tap water put in a bottle). Not only that, but they’ve also got these totally hip reusable water bottles. You can spread the word while still looking as cool… and since looking cool is mostly what the bottled water industry is about, what better way to undermine how ludicrous it is than right at the source.

breathing earth.

Thankfully it is now Friday. That means that before skulking off at 3:00 pm to drown the sorrows that were created by Monday through Thursday, it is now time for Random Website Friday. This week’s random site is Breathing Earth.

Created by David Bleja, the site breaks down – by each country on the planet – the number of tonnes of C02 released into the atmosphere each minute as well as the current birth and death tolls from the moment you log in. Interesting – yes. Morbid – perhaps. However, it has enabled me to tell you that in the time it took me to write this post 1123 people were born and 530 died around the world. I just hope none of them were in my building, because sirens freak me out a bit.