“WATER: OUR THIRSTY WORLD” Photographic Exhibition
Annenberg Space for Photography – Los Angeles, CA
3/27 to 6/13/10

People accurately surmised that many of the modern-day conflicts would take place over oil.  However, few really speculate on the likelihood of future world wars being fought over fresh water.  A limited resource that Californians generally take for granted as the drought periods lengthen in the stolid face of global warming.  “WATER: OUR THIRSTY WORLD” is an exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography, organized in partnership with National Geographic Magazine. →

Water: Our Thirsty World
The Annenberg Space for Photography – Century City, CA
3/27/10 to 6/13/10

The Annenberg Foundation is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography, tentatively entitled “WATER: OUR THIRSTY WORLD” in partnership with National Geographic Magazine. The exhibit, opening to the public on March 27, 2010, will coincide with the release of National Geographic’s April 2010 issue on the precarious state of the world’s fresh water. →

Hugo Chavez speaks on climate change

Just before the New Year, the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark where an estimated 15,000 participants and over 192 countries attended. The summit’s “supreme body,” known as 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15), gathered government officials and environmental ministers to discuss climate change, its effects around the globe and develop plans to reduce greenhouse emissions. 

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Fungi Fest 2010 in Echo Park
Machine Projects – Los Angeles, CA
1/16 – 1/23/10

With eight to twelve inches of rain in Southern California’s  forecast, now is the time to brush up on your mushroom identification skills.  Mushroom hunting is one of my favorite hobbies.  Gourmet mushrooms are pricey and finding a bag full of Chanterelles is liking finding delicious gold nuggets.  Just make sure you have a competent mycologist properly identify them for you.  There is a  real art to finding mushrooms.  They blend in with the leaves on the ground.  They can be right in front of you, but you won’t see them.  →

Photo courtesy of t3rmin4t0r, licensed under Creative Commons

Kenna Zemedkun’s father lost a brother to water-borne illness as a child in his native Ethiopia, the memory of which invokes the 3,900 children who die everyday from water diseases as a result of inadequate sanitation (WHO 2004). Growing industrialization and populations tap into what resources and infrastructure the planet has with frightening speed. As many as 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water. The deadliness of unsafe water is what Americans briefly experienced during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, demonstrating that the water crisis is not just a third-world problem. →

Ice Sculpture in Kongens Nytory Square (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Lasting Impression of 2009
As we anticipate 2010 with all its unsettling uncertainties and the tenuous promises of fortune, I’d like to reflect on the past year during the eve of the New Year.  I chose this ice polar bear sculpture as the memorable image of 2009.  A bit of irony, to say the least, that the lasting image is a transitory piece of art that melted in front of the recent Copenhagen Conference.  Mark Coreth, a master sculptor of animals in motion →

A new online movement, named ‘A Journey to Zero’, launched last week to facilitate and enable conversations around the path to zero emissions. Centered around the website www.journey-to-zero.com, leading visionaries in the environmental, architectural, design and art fields are kick-starting the conversation. Each collaboration brings a unique perspective on the journey to zero, making for a diverse way to start the conversation about a cleaner future.  →

The Bloggomist: Design in the Blood
Design Opinion

Born of violence and bloodshed in the Congo and at the cost of human rights, tantalum, like other mined minerals such as cassiterite, are the blood diamonds of the technological age. If you’ve never heard of tantalum don’t be alarmed just yet. It, like many other “magical” materials, are refined into the clandestine cocktail of components that allow our hi-tech devices to do what they do. However, you may want to reconsider what “hi-tech” really means. →

Birdfeeders creating a new species of birds in the U.K.? Whoa, hold up. Nowadays, putting up a bird-feeder in your backyard to treat the little ones is apparently no longer an innocent act of love but comes with unexpected repercussions that none of us were ready for. The European blackcap bird’s natural instinct has historically been to migrate to Spain to spend their winters to feed on fruits and berries but the rise of bird-feeders in the UK has changed →

The Norwegian renewable power company Statkraft has built a prototype osmotic power plant on the Oslo fiord. It aims to produce enough electricity to light and heat a small town within five years by osmosis, the process that allows plants to absorb water. Currently, it may only produce enough power to heat an electric kettle, but Norway’s Statkraft says that its new, first-of-its-kind osmotic power plant could be producing as much energy as a small wind farm by 2015, and continue to grow.

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