Robert Polidori - he does not have a personal website, but I have listed some that will provide some visuals. He has several books that are very interesting. Edwynn Houk Gallery - Nicholas Metivier Gallery - Steidl books - the links provided displays work that examines the Chernobyl dead zones.
Alexandra Gardner
ReplyDeleteCraft it Yourself: pg 90
With this increase in the "go green" movement, many turn inward towards themselves in an effort to better the environment. Many realize now that it is more than just buying products that claim to be green but actually transforming your life and you possessions into environmentally friendly outlets. This process is the ever so popular do-it-yourself. Also know as DIY, the process allows one to become crafty and innovative in the efforts to become green. One has to think of ways to re use materials in just as an effective manner as their original purpose. One of the examples stated that really took me buy surprise was the breath mint speakers. Never before would I think to use breath mint containers as something technological. A product originally intended as a packaging device is re-invented by this DIY mind set. In the past I have seen many save the little tin containers as storing devices for other things: cards, money change, paper clips etcetera , but never before did i think to use the tin as a means reverberate the vibration from the headphones. The objects we generally take for granted or denounce as waste once their through with their intended purpose, can now be transformed into a new , unique and genuine work of art created by the beholder. This breaks down the barriers of mass production and waste, allowing people to fully feel apart of their belongings, seeming them as genuine and one of a kind piece of art benefitting the world.
Lindsay Avino
ReplyDeleteWorld Changing
11/16/10
Social Entrepreneurship p.352
I thought that this chapter was one of the most interesting that I have read this far. David Bornstein, a journalist from New York, quit his job to try to answer the question, "is it possible for one person to make a significant difference in the world?" In 1992, he went to Bangladesh and found out about The Grameen Bank. The Grameen Bank, started an initiative that gives out smalls loans of around 60 dollars to a million women villagers in Bangladesh. With these loans, "a woman might purchase a cow, or two goats, or a rickshaw, or bamboo to make furniture." At the end of the year, she would be able to earn money for her family, build a business, eat 3 meals a day, and send her children to school. This initiative was founded by Professor Mohammed Yunus, who wanted to find ways to alleviate poverty in his village. The reason that this bank worked when others did not, was because this bank grew organically from the bottom up, and was constantly corrected and made more effective. Although this bank took thousands of members and donors and millions of competent borrowers to make this a success, if it were not for Yunus and his idea, this would not have been possible. I think that if more people stopped thinking that one person cannot make a difference, that we would have more success stories like this one.
11/16/10
ReplyDeleteJackie San Fillipo
ADP III- Rotz
World Changing
The Chernobyl Disaster is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. With the number of power plants that have been built in the years since then, it is not unfair to say another accident could occur. Chernobyl was a freak incident that had to do with a power surge, but despite this catastrophe, we still are wasteful with our power. On page 164 of World Changing, “Using Energy Efficiently” talks about how the best way to a cleaner future of energy is to simply use less energy to get things done. Our homes leak heat, our appliances waste energy, and we are careless and lazy about leaving lights and electronics on in rooms we aren’t in. Small steps like switching our light bulbs to compact fluorescents could slash our energy use by 3 percent in a year. But more than that it’s about starting a trend. If we could cut 3 percent each year, by 2100 we could be using less energy than we do now, even if we had a planet of 10 billion people. The top five things you can do to conserve energy are 1: get a home energy audit, 2: use dimmers, automatic timers, and/or motion detection sensors, 3: Lower air conditioning costs, 4: Install proper insulation, and 5: Modernize your windows.
Katie Klimkowski
ReplyDelete11/15/10
The Neobiological industry is an interesting and, currently, booming industry. There is quite the variety of ways to utilize biology to improve the environment. Bio-utilization is the use of part of organisms as raw materials, such as wood for a house or horseshoe crab blood for a cancer drug. Bio-utilization is an interesting concept because it directly benefits society with little human intervention. Bio-assistance is the domestication and use of organisms such as herding sheep for wool or growing viruses for building a battery. There is currently quite a bit of research going on that regards improvements technology and biology can bring to society. There have been vast improvements recently in technical nutrients. Technical nutrients are actually systems in which the item goes for birth to birth and not birth to death. Recycling is currently the major system we have in place. However, recycling only prolongs the lifespan of a product. However an example of technical nutrients is displayed currently in Kalundborg, Denmark. There is a coal burning plants that generates electricity and supplies waste to run a nearby pharmaceutical factory and an oil refinery. Waste heat from each of these facilities is then used to heat 3,500 homes. The refinery’s waste water cycles back to the coal plant to provide more steam. In this case there is not waste product at all. Everything continues to serve a purpose in this cycle. There are currently many innovations coming out of research labs (like technical nutrients) that have great benefits to society. One more example discussed in the chapter would be the hydrogen producing algae. Hydrogen is currently considered a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. However, hydrogen takes quite a bit of heat and/or fossil fuels to produce. Recently, however, there was a discovery that, in certain conditions, there is a type of green algae that produces hydrogen. I think currently the neobiological industry is producing great advances in society.
Lyle A. Murphy
ReplyDeleteADP III -Section 3
World Changing Statement 11/15/10
Many people when they talk of the disintegration of our environment and the rampant consumerism seem to forget that much of what we our feeling now is not our fault but actually nature and the environment we live in. The reason that our resources are being depleted is because of factors we’ve been conditioned to enable from the start of our evolution. We are on the verge of reaching the max capacity our world can sustain because we are overpopulated with people; and this is because humans procreate relatively fast and live longer (natural selection and modern medicine). These are basic things we’ve adapted to from our ancestors to now: spread your seed and adapt to survive. It just so happens that we’ve done this so well that we are to the point of reaching the k bar on the world’s capacity to sustain us. It is only going to take more human adaptability and ingenuity to keep our population growing- not stagnating and falling in population.
From a personal viewpoint in terms of resources it surprises me that so much resources have been put to waste. When you see massive pile of trash you are either appalled or you see money. With so much material at your disposable you’d think someone would mine it for material to sell. Especially with such past events like the Great Depression where resources became scarce and rare you’d think people could see resources for what they are. Not to mention to take care of the pile of junk in your backyard.
It strikes me as common sense that much of the things we suffer today are just because of lack of foresight. If we follow are gut and think about our actions and what we do to the environment we can go a long way to improving and keeping it healthy.
Teresa Dennis
ReplyDeleteNovember 16th
World Changing: Land Mines pg. 218
I do not understand why we still use landmines as main factors of attack, when we still have no means of disarming them. If we are to continue to use land mines in everyday warfare, we need to develop a system for retracing them and a way to safely remove them. It is ridiculous that when the fighting in an area is over, we leave behind land mines, for the people of an area to detonate when they are walking place to place. Each time a land mine explodes, it not only causes serious, and sometimes permanent, damage to the person nearby, but it also sprays toxic chemicals into the air and around the landscape. The best technologies we can give to people to remove them by hand are poles. Very long poles.
Just as torture devices, for the most part, went away with the renaissance ages, I believe this is a technology that deserves to die away and become something of the past. As we create more, we are creating them to be undetectable, and we do not do a good enough job of documenting them. As we lay more own, we put them in common areas of walking, we put them in large open land that could be used to produce food to feed the people nearby, we put them in places that link villages and support trade systems. Land mines are a technology that cause too many civilian casualties, and have little effect on the actual targets, and should be discontinued.
Sam goldman
ReplyDeleteWorld changing
11/15
In this reading it talked about leapfrogging and how there can be new idealistic technologies where we wouldn’t need all the leapfrogging. For example there is a product called a starsight, which is a streetlamp that uses solar energy. During the day it will be charged so that at night it can light up cities a that do not have enough money, and do not have electricity. This helps save so much money, especially in places that doesn’t have money to start with. This is one of the many ideas that people have to try and help this whole leapfrogging problem. WE have these computers that connect us to everything, but to charge them we have to plug them in. That electricity is from somewhere else , and the energy that that has is from somewhere else, and the energy that runs that energy runs to some other wire and so on. TO help the problem of leapfrogging we need to have more solar powered or wind powered technologies. This way of doing things wont just help the leapfrogging problem but it will also help with energy use. By using green energy that isn’t invasive we are helping the environment. By doing these little changes it actually makes a big difference. I think that there should be more media on this issue so that there can be a bigger help in making the world a green-er place.
Caitlin Murphy
ReplyDelete16 November 2010
World Changing
Thinking Differently About Water
As Americans with a seemingly endless water supply, we are often unaware of the magnitude of our excessive water use. Because we do not see all of the water that we waste ever and because we are usually never denied clean water we are left unaware of how little useable water our plant actually currently houses. Having grown up in Michigan my entire life, I have been pretty ill aware that water shortages exist in other parts of the world let alone other parts of the country.
Ways in which we can be more conscious of the water that we are using include rainwater harvesting and fog collecting. Collecting rainwater is a means of utilizing the natural cycle of precipitation in order to cut back on our use of fresh water. Rainwater can be used to water gardens or wash cars. Another way that I in my personal life I am able to make better use of wastewater is by collecting run off water in the shower. My house puts buckets in all of the showers to collect what would be wastewater, and we use this to flush toilets. We do this in order to cut back on the amount of water we use and to cut back the cost of our water bill. Collecting Fog and condensing it into fresh water is another way that countries such as Chile, Nepal, and South Africa make use of the freshwater that nature avails to us.
World Changing
ReplyDeleteADP 3
11/16/10
Brands pg. 393
Starting up heavily in the early 20th century, branding has provided companies with the easiest way to communicate with customers. Brands tell us what values and style a company has and it’s usually pretty clear whose attention they’re trying to win over. Not surprisingly, the decision to buy one product over another happens before a costumer even has the chance to try that product out which ultimately means the most attractive brand wins the most costumers. Brands trick you into loyalty by adding an element of emotional connection to their products. They promote honest business practices but in reality their success is built on unfair treatment of domestic and overseas labor while luring costumers through advertising that strikes an emotional chord. We really don’t need any bells and whistles, we just need useful, well made, efficient products. We don’t have to be walking advertisements for brands either, brands can tone down their tightly constructed deception and still retain a loyal following. Simply put, increased consumer consciousness will expose dishonest corporation tactics. Also, companies need to continue the good intentions they build upon and avoid sacrificing environmental responsibility as they scale up their operations.
Rebecca Aguilar
ReplyDelete11/16/10
Green homes pg.147
I had no idea that “ buildings account for 50 percent of energy consumption in the United States” (pg. 147). I knew houses took up a lot of energy but I was surprised that it didn’t take up more. I thought that reading Building a Green Home fit with today’s lecture and would help me see why we are learning about houses. It’s because it takes design to make a green home. Not only does a person want a nice looking house, but more and more people want “green homes.” Looking at the houses on the slides today, some look pretty basic and probably not appealing to most Americans. However, almost all the houses were build around their environment and used resources from around the area where the house was being built. Furthermore, the people used materials in ways that the modern western world would never consider using. The roofing that was most interesting was the grass roof. From page 147-148, the author talks about how plants and trees not only provide shade for the house, but it also protects it from UV exposure. The grass roof from the slide is used to instilate the house and that is by far one of the most creative ways to give your house instillation. On another note, the prefab home picture reminds me of the slide from the first half of the semester about reusing old, metal cargo holds as houses or small buildings. I think that is another important part of this reading, how people should reuse and use things that are around them.