Traffic Can Be Good, Public Transit Can Be Bad: David Owen’s Unconventional Urban Wisdom (Video) : TreeHugger

tags: transport

Thai Vineyard Showcases Natural Materials and Passive Cooling | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

tags: building sustainability

Google Invests in $5 Billion, 350-Mile Wind Power ‘Backbone’ : TreeHugger

tags: energy sustainability

Contour Energy Systems Designing Batteries That Last 10x Longer | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

tags: battery technology

Five Foundational Smart Grid Standards Pinpointed : TreeHugger

tags: smart grid

UConn Tests Demonstrate Great Potential of Hemp Biodiesel : TreeHugger

tags: biofuel

Underground Skyscraper is a Self-Sufficient Desert City | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

tags: resilient city sustainability

The Renault DeZir Unveiled At Paris Motor Show | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

tags: car ev concept

Drifting Of The Future

tags: transport

Save Energy In Glass Container

tags: sustainability

Electric Car For Land, Sea And Air

tags: mobility transport ev

Forbes: By 2018, ‘one-fifth of urban food will be grown on rooftops and in former parking lots’ | Grist

tags: resilient cities

Sony Open Planet Ideas: Into Concepting – Core77

tags: innovation

Whipsaw-designed Pano Device (computerless computer) is smaller, greener, and award-winning – Core77

"Whipsaw-designed Pano Device (computerless computer) is smaller, greener, and award-winning Posted by hipstomp | 7 Oct 2010 | Comments (5) 0panodevice.jpg The Pano Device is like a computer with nothing inside it. You plug your monitor, keyboard and mouse into the back, but it contains no CPU, no memory, and no software; all of that stuff resides on a Pano Manager server, which hosts the OS and virtualizes it to the Pano Device. So what’s inside the thing? Damned if I know, I think if you dropped it and it shattered there’d be little leprechaun bodies all over your floor. But the bottom line is this two-inch tall device is projected to cut business computing costs by 70%; "compared to a PC it consumes 3% of the energy, uses 4% of the material to make it, and is one hundred times smaller." Designed by ID consultancy Whipsaw, the Pano Device has won a 2010 Green Good Design Award, which is conferred by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. (Sadly, the Good Design website was not working properly at press time so no direct link is available.)"

tags: sustainability

Learn a thing or two at Autodesk’s free online Sustainability Workshop – Core77

"Learn a thing or two at Autodesk’s free online Sustainability Workshop\nPosted by hipstomp | 8 Oct 2010 | Comments (0)\n\n0adswf.jpg\n\nAutodesk’s Sustainability Workshop is a free online site with short videos to educate viewers on the environmental impacts of design. Right now they’ve got a section up for Intro to Whole Systems design, which encourages viewers to think through the entire lifecycle of a product, and the self-explanatory Intro to Lightweighting and Material Reduction.\n\n While the project was built specifically for mechanical engineering undergraduate students, the team thinks it would also be interesting to industrial design students (who may not get this technical with their sustainability approaches), mechanical engineering and industrial design teachers (who are looking for a quick resources to supplement their already super full curriculum), other young students, and adult engineers and designers who are retooling and learning new tricks.\n\nSays sustainable design strategist Jeremy Faludi, "[The videos] could be used for a design class, or a mechanical engineering class, or even a management class that wants to educate managers about the more technical aspects of sustainability. The combined Whole Systems & Life-Cycle thinking process could potentially be a very powerful tool for designers and business executives to innovate their products and services."\n\nCheck it out here."

tags: sustainability learn

Patrick Hyland’s Copper Phone Uses Heat for Power – Core77

"Patrick Hyland is working on creating a "charger-free cell phone future." This means that, in addition to lowering electricity consumption, we won’t have to mess with annoying chargers anymore and can stop throwing them away (because we won’t have them in the first place).\n\nAccording to Hyland, discarded chargers produce 51,000 tons of waste annually. To address this problem, he’s proposed a cell phone that charges with heat. A conductive copper skin transmits heat to a thermogenerator inside, producing electricity when the phone is placed on a radiator or inside a pocket. The skin is engraved with small heatsinks, mimicking a sun-baked, dry earth pattern. "

tags: sustainability energy efficiency

MIT Crowdsources the Next Climate Agreement | Fast Company

Last year’s Copenhagen climate conference failed to produce any sort of useful legislation. Maybe the wisdom of the crowd can do a better job. That’s the idea behind MIT Climate CoLab’s Collective Intelligence Climate Contest, a project that asks participants to submit proposals that answer one deceptively difficult question: What international climate agreements should the world community make?

tags: MIT Climate change innovation crowdsources

Method: 4 Things Video Games Teach Us About Motivating People | Co.Design

tags: innovation motivation

Oasis-Sprouting Solar Umbrellas for Los Angeles | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

There’s safety in numbers for cyclists | Grist

tags: bicycle

How NYC’s streets are being reclaimed from the automobile [VIDEO] | Grist

Winners of Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor and Green District Competition

Trends In Sustainability Reporting

Aston Martin Cygnet: Confirmed for Production

Douglas Coupland On The Future: 45 Predictions And They Ain’t Pretty : TreeHugger

Helmet compulsion leads to less cycling, say economists | Bicycle business | News by BikeBiz

Makani Airborne Wind Turbine Prototype Test-Flight (Video) : TreeHugger

tags: airborne wind test sustainability

Opbrid Shows Overhead Fast-Charging System for Electric Buses : TreeHugger

Makani Airborne Wind Turbine Prototype Test-Flight

Makani Power, who we featured on TreeHugger Radio last, is working on a pretty innovative way to harness wind power. Their technology doesn’t look anything like what you’d expect when you hear the words "wind turbine"; it’s rather more like a cross between a kite and a model airplane (for now, it’s eventually going to get bigger), and if can be made to scale up and work reliably, it could change the world.

tags: wind energy sustainability

Existing International Law Supports States Suing One Another Over Climate Change Damages

international court of justice photo International Court of Justice, photo: Karen Rustad/Creative Commons. The issue of international legal liability for damages caused by climate change has come up a number of times recently, especially as scientists have become more adept at attributing natural disasters to global warming. Now, a new briefing by the Foundation for International Environmental Law & Development shows how there are existing laws and principles available for states to sue one another for damage caused by climate change, and how this could pressure nations into stronger international action.

tags: law sustainability climate change

ITERP-PromotingSustainableTransportationThroughSiteDesign.pdf (application/pdf Object)

This report recommends site design practices that can be applied through the land development process to promote the use of more sustainable modes of passenger transportation, such as walking, cycling and transit. Its primary purpose is to assist policy-makers and professionals involved in the preparation, review and approval of non-residential development proposals to identify and incorporate features that make sites more accessible to travel modes other than the single-occupant vehicle (SOV). The report also identifies a range of supporting policies and actions that agencies can implement to create an atmosphere conducive to promoting sustainable transportation through site design.

tags: pdf promoting sustainable transportation urban mobility

SustainabilityandTransportation.pdf (application/pdf Object)

tags: sustainable transport vito

7 Must Read Life Lessons from Abraham Lincoln – by Dumb Little Man

7 Must-Read Life Lessons from Abraham Lincoln:
Prepare for Success

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”

Before you can succeed, you must prepare. When Lincoln was an unknown attorney in the backwoods of Illinois he was preparing for success, when Lincoln became an Illinois State Senator, he was preparing for success, and even when he lost the election for the U.S. senate twice, he was preparing for success. What are you doing in preparation for success? Lincoln said, “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”

Hustle

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

You can’t stroll to a goal, you must hustle; you must move quickly in order to gain the momentum necessary to break free from the gravitational pull of the commonplace. The best things in life come to those who hustle. Are you hustling?

Remember That Greatness is Possible

“That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”

If someone else can succeed in the business that you’re in, that is proof that you can succeed as well. If someone else can become rich in the state that you’re in, that is proof that you become rich as well. You have all that the greatest of men have had: a mind, and a will. Don’t make excuses, if someone else can do it, so can you… And who knows? You may be able to do it faster and better; never underestimate you abilities.

Become Worthy of a Good Reputation

“Reputation is like fine china, once broken it’s very hard to repair.”

Work to be, the way you want to be perceived. Don’t try to look good, be good. A good name is more valuable than fine gold and “choice” rubies.

Practice becoming honorable.

You can be just as honest, have just as much integrity, walk in just as much humility, and possess just as much discipline as the greatest men who have ever lived.

Make the Years Count

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Lincoln

tags: productivity

sugru | Hack Things Better

A cool product for hacking other products. Haven’t tried it out but looks interesting

tags: hack, design, hacking

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Webby Nominees & Winners

“LEAN MEAN FIGHTING MACHINE”

tags: webby, nominees, winners, design

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.